I agree with Luke there , some wood can break up large white areas to good effect. We are building a small houseboat too and white will be the dominant back drop to keep things light and airy . Our wooden vanity top in the bathroom ( recycled Tasmanian Oak flooring ) is what we used. The seating was treated in a similar manner. A work in progress. This will be similar to our kitchen area.

The Auto-Vacuums are amazing!!! We have had one for a few years now - only advice is don't get any spare parts off ebay, just go straight to the supplier and save yourself heaps of stress

A "butler's pantry" with a pocket door (and no sink, so more counter space) at one end of the kitchen would be the ideal solution, but of course that depends on dimensions of your kitchen and whether you can squeeze in enough space for that pantry. We have one off the end of our kitchen, which is maybe 1.5 m square and offers a lot of extra counter space out of sight of the lounge. We have friends who had a fairly big kitchen area, put a blade wall down the middle to create a U shaped kitchen, so the oven and bench face the lounge on one side of the U, the sink is at the end on the short side of the U, and the small appliances and pantry are on the other side of the U, with the blade wall hiding the mess.

I'll offer a slightly different perspective , but if you have the time , look at every appliance in whatever category you are looking at , all the details . Why I say that is because almost every manufacturer has an each-way bet . They have their wellknown brand , and they spend $100's of thousands a year 'building that brand' , so you pay $100 , $300 , $500 more . But they don't want to miss out on the budget end of the market , so they have another brand that doesn't get any money spent on promoting it , doesn't go to the home shows , isn't sold in the high end stores , but is often sold at Hardly Normal if you look beyond the front row . Some of these will be identical , some will have cheaper quality components , some will be 2 or 3 year old models without the latest features , but which they still have all the components and/or designs . Others are made in Asia , and 'brand engineered' -- 6 companies may sell the same thing with 6 different stickers on the front . If you find a 'brand name' product , and the identical 'whatever brand you want put on it' version , the cheaper one is generally a real good buy , because the brand name manufacturer has either designed it , or they've tested it thoroughly and happy to put their name on it -- and of course with 3 or 6 different brands selling it , theres economy of scale . Anyway , thats a long way of saying be careful -- some budget brands are great , some premium products are just cheapies with a price sticker 3 times as large ! A mate of mine bought a water cooler with a stainless steel base and brand name for $899 -- I bought one that appeared identical ( the parts even interchanged ) for $220 . Mine is still going after 5 years , his stopped and was thrown in the skip 18 months ago !