@Karen Hodge, I hear you!! Sometimes I think the estate agent should carry quite a bit of the blame actually. If they do their job correctly like you see in the adds on TV, they should bring these discrepancies to the attention of the sellers, stand on their morals and say if you can't get it better than this, then you'll have to find someone else to sell your home!! I know you can't make everybody "house proud" but the saying "do unto others" springs to mind. I bet if these same people bought a house not up to scratch, "a current affair" would hear about it but they don't think it wrong to simply walk out on a house that isn't being left nicely for the next family!! I have some friends that recently sold a house in Essendon, Melb and whilst the buyers were back and forth selling their own home, my friends kept watering the plants and even did things like painted out the wardrobes because of the scuff marks made over time!! They cleaned the entire two storey house from top to bottom and finished by mopping the floors as they were exiting. The buyers were so taken by the entire home, they bought it with almost all the furniture that my friends had in it!!

I have to have a car to get to work, our public transport is so poor. I have had my car for 3 years and 9 months I have done 11000 kilometres in that time. I rarely use it on weekends or holidays, I walk to shops etc. my husband also needs a car to get to work as no public transport to his work. We tend to use his on weekend mainly as we have tandem car parking and mine is always in front. I drive a Suzuki swift, I fill it up about every 4-6 weeks, it is a bit of a joke really. When we retire we will go to one car I presume

i'm glad you're planning to reroute access to the garage: clumsy traffic pattern change a generous room into a big hallway and can't stop thinking about your kitchen..1. where you have narrow cabinets/shelves in the pantry...it's possible to have built in shelves inside the dividing wall (think about the size of what you want to store: cans, bottles, skinny packets? and put 60cm base cabinets on the other side, next to the freezer 2. i can't see the yellow highlights for stools 3. width of pantry is subject to you wanting to keep the door to the formal living room...if so, measure 150mm past the door opening and that's the minimum width of the pantry but 1500mm allows space to comfortably walk past your freezer and have full size base cabinets with pantry drawers (cleaner than open shelves) 4. space between the b'fast bar and 'fridge should be at least 90cm but if you choose a wide b'fast bar and a big 'fridge a bigger space is preferable (stand a couple of chairs 90cm in front of your current fridge for a few days and see how it feels) direction of fridge door opening is also critical, first for the cooks and then everyone else: if the size of the b'fast bar can be enlarged or reduced with overhanging counter then a change of walkway is not so difficult 5. as suggested by girlguide, the cooktop and rangehood might be better on the outside wall for ventilation 6. there seems to be a lot of small cabinets and drawers in your plan and there could be some better (and cheaper) combinations but when i tried to access IKEA kitchen planner to confirm available sizes it's not responding today 7. i've attached my suggested approximate base cabinet sizes: starting with corners and work outwards, aiming for the biggest standard carcases and then add drawers to suit purpose ..

We've eaten in the dining room or outside for the past 20 years. When the children were younger, we had the kitchen table angled off the end of a kitchen bench with just enough space for the whole family to eat at it, and we only used the dining room when we had guests. I found that saved a lot of work. I now hate that we have to set the dining room table for just the two of us. I've tried using stools at the servery (and I use those for the grandchildren when they visit) but my husband refuses to sit at the servery, so we plan to renovate the kitchen and re-shape it with a standard-height table on the end of the servery. We are doing away with the existing dining room to make the living room larger, and security-screening a large covered outdoor area to make a combined dining and outdoor kitchen. Since there's only two of us now, we don't see the need for an indoor dining room. If we have guests, we always eat outside. The area is well sheltered and will be partly enclosed. If it's cold, we can set up a folding table next to the kitchen table to extend the indoor eating space. The kitchen table will seat 5 anyway, so it would be rare to want to eat inside and need the extra seating.