Hi there The renovation look stunning! Well done!! I'm doing my kitchen at the moment, white gloss cabinets and black bench top. I love your pendant lights (copper) I also have wood floor, is it possible to add copper on the pendants and keep taps and other accessories silver? Thanks!

With two tone Federation Kitchen Cabinets, we usually use the darker colour on the lower levels so as to avoid creating a sense of the room being top heavy, but having said this; your Kitchen should always be a reflection of your own personal taste and individuality. As with these images indicate, using a darker colour on your overhead cabinets can work when choosing the right colour and placement and so I encourage you to go with what you like.

OP, you should also consider energy efficiency & comfort. It's great that you appear to have north facing living areas (with a high proportion of glazing facing this direction). But looking at the elevation picture, it appears you may have too much glass. Overglazing can result in a home that becomes uncomfortably hot, even in winter! This is very dependent on your location & climate. Cooler climates need more exposed north facing glass, & exposed thermal mass (concrete or masonry) to absorb that solar radiation. Warmer climates require less exposed north facing glass & thermal mass, particularly hot humid climates, where exposed thermal mass can be very detrimental. In these climates it's important that northern glass is shaded, even in winter of glass areas are too high. As there's no floor plan, & you haven't mentioned your location, it's hard to tell if you've overglazed with exposed northern glass. Read the following site, & consider your glazing to floor area & glazing to mass ratios. http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/thermal-mass

It's many years since we've had an eat-in kitchen, but my current renovation incorporates an eating area in the kitchen because, frankly, I'm tired of the extra work to carry things to and from the dining room and the extra cleaning created by always using the dining room even for casual meals for just two of us. We have had bar stools at the kitchen island, and the grandkids use them, but my husband hates them and refuses to eat at bar height or even at a lowered 'ledge'; on the side of the island. So my kitchen reno will include a table on one end of the island, at regular table height and large enough to seat 5 if necessary. There is a large sliding door to the veranda close to where that table will be positioned, so it should be a pleasant place for casual meals and I expect we'll eat most meals there. I'm so confident of that, I'm converting the dining room to more living space and putting our big timber dining table in the alfresco area, which will be semi-enclosed, with open parts security fly-screened. The dining area we use when we have guests will be super-casual, with a BBQ in one corner and swim spa in the other. I just don't see a purpose for formal dining anymore, especially living in a sub-tropical climate.