That sounds fair enough. Do you have outdoor entertaining area outside the sliding doors? If so, is it possible to make it a "three season " room by partially enclosing it? The blinds come in tinted too, you can hang outdoor shade blinds on the sunniest side, clear blinds where the cold winds and rain come from.

There are hundreds of suggestions that can be made on how to update, renovate and re-design a layout to make it functional for you and allow it to respond well to the built environment. Engaging an architect or building designer at this stage may not be something you're willing to do, as spending money for plans on a house you don't own would not be the ideal situation. The issue with this is that the design phase of a project takes a lot of time and consideration. My best advice would be to play around with the plans and create some sketches, whether online or on paper. If you are happy with the possibilities then buy the property. Any house can be transformed, but whether or not you are satisfied with the transformation is a personal choice only you can make.

Hi Ben, Are you able to reconsider the heater location at all? A heater in the kitchen just does not make sense and the kitchen is a heating source as well and presumably it is needed to heat the dining and living areas, not the kitchen!!! What about putting it out on the wall facing out from the kitchen, beside the fridge if it were on the left side of the pantry? Even if you need to make that wall a bit longer than 650mm to make it fit and lose a bit of width from the 940mm dimension at the other end of the island. You can easily run pipework or ducting in behind the fridge and pantry if needed. I'd also make the 1050mm dimension between benches a little bigger. It is tight if you want more than one person in the kitchen working together. 1200-1300mm would be ideal. If it was my kitchen, I would also look at making the island a peninsular, linking it to one of the end walls. Which end would depend on the flow from other spaces in the home. I'd not put any joinery on the closed end wall, just the open one with the pantry and fridge etc. C.

Absolutely stunning, truly beautiful.