Different strokes for different folks, as they say. We have a butlers pantry, smallish, with a sink in it. The pantry has become effectively a walk-in pantry, with storage, a wine fridge and the toaster and microwave. It's very useful, but we almost never use the sink because there isn't enough practical counterspace and because, well, who wants to do dishes in a closet? We also have an island, with a single basin sink in it, and of course the dishwasher. That's where we do prep, and it works just fine for us. We can watch TV while pealing spuds or washing those dishes that don't go into the dishwasher. Even with the sink, there's still plenty of prep space, and we have a good work triangle between sink, oven on the wall directly behind it, and fridge, oven and pantry on the end wall. In practical terms, the arrangement works for us. When we entertain, we clean up and load the dishwasher as we go, dump the pots and pans in the butler's pantry, wipe off the bench, and we're good to go. And since it's only a single basin undermount sink, the look is clean enough for us.

typical dogs breakfast Queenslander! I would make the entrance into the current bedroom 1 and turn current entrance/lounge into main bedroom with sunroom where current entrance is...nice place to relax with doors open. Then I would knock the wall down between the kitchen and current bedroom 1 to make one large room from front to back and put the kitchen along the wall against current bedroom 4 with long bench with dining area one end and open plan lounge at other end. I would wall off bedroom 4 and only be able to enter it from lounge. another door in lounge to enter remains of bedroom 4 which I would convert to laundry and then entry to bathroom. Block current doors from kitchen into bedroom 1 and bedroom 4/bathroom. Either block door between bedrooms 3 or take wall down to make one big room. Scuttle outdoor bathroom/toilet to make one long outdoor area that opens up from kitchen dining area. Probably put a skylight in kitchen area too.

Hi Paul In apartments, the killer for layout changes are always drains, then water supply, then load bearing walls. Before you consider doing any changes to the layout, I would advise you to locate the drains (pics would be good) as they will likely restrict you. The drains are important for obvious reasons but also important is the fall (ie downward slope) of any drain you wish to install in a separate location. It means you have to take into account more height the further away from the existing drain you go. It is likely that your existing laundry trough/basin has a drain going down to the floor, and this is going to interfere with the proposed ensuite entry location. Ditto if it is going into the wall. The big one is the new shower. It will need to have a 50mm waste (drain) in the centre of where your washing machine now is.... and the question is where is it going to go.... I would suggest swapping the vanity and shower over to access the existing trough waste if it is large enough. In a lot of these older apartment buildings, the waste sizes are down at 38mm, which is not going to drain fast enough for a shower. If your existing waste is that size, you will need to have a hob to the shower as it will fill up, and you will also need to check health regs to see if it is allowed in your state. To get the drain for the new ensuite vanity and new laundrette sorted, I would punch through the new kitchen wall and run drainage along the wall behind the new cupboards and around to the existing kitchen sink waste. This will give you plenty of fall and a place to hide the pipes. For the new basin to the existing, you will need to see if you can get it around to the existing basin waste in the bathroom adjacent by running it around and under the bath. Cheers

oklouise. Thanks so much for that drawing. It's similar to what we were thinking but leave the fridge where it is with some cabinets overhead, and put a small pantry by the wall oven/microwave. My husband is not keen on extending the wall if it's not totally necessary - the house is quite small and dark. We recently removed a wall between the kitchen and living room to open it up, which has made such a difference. He doesn't want to "compartmentalize" (sp) again. The 2700mm island gets some counter space closer to the fridge too. We were thinking of putting 50cm cabinetry under that window so as to allow max light in. Thanks also for the tip on putting the cooktop close to opening doors, we never would have thought of that. Any thoughts on putting the gas cooktop in the island? It's been suggested but I'm not sure. I'll get some measurements of the whole area this afternoon.