Painted cabinet doors are generally at the top of the price point, with polyurethane in either gloss, satin or Matt finishes being rather expensive, and hand painted doors even more so. Laminate on the other end of the scale are cheaper, but also only have the option of a flat door. If a profile is what you what, as most if not all painted doors are profiled, ( have a door shape), but the durability of laminate is wanted, then a vinyl door can provide both. Depending on your door provider, try to stick with Australian manufactured vinyl doors to ensure they meet our regulations, such as albedor or tesrol doors, and they will give you best of both worlds. Also, being that they are cheaper than painted timber doors, modern kitchen construction means replacing doors are as easy as clipping off hinges, and ordering new ones!

Running with your second floor plan (and ignore the glass sliding doors in this image) but would you consider changing your 3m narrow splash to a full sized fixed window on half the side and the remaining side create as the cooking area with cupboards, oven etc.? You mentioned you have stacker doors in the direction of the lounge, but in terms of space, from these doors, it's living area no windows at a room length of around 7m, followed by 4m kitchen room length including a 3m narrow glass splash to provide natural light for the kitchen area (cupboards noted above)? From your drawings there seems to be no windows on the opposite wall, is that right? I feel you will need to bring additional natural light into the kitchen area possibly bigger than the 3m glass panels if only 0.6m tall (or similar) especially with cupboards on top. If you're not keen on swapping out the narrow splash here's another example with your second floor plan (and also ignore glass sliding doors in this image) but possibly a tall window or fixed glass panel before your kitchen bench starts - even if <1m wide. Or greater than 1m if you're OK to encroach on your 3m glass splash and make it shorter. If the island bench is not a "must" you could create similar to this image and have a L-shape bench so it encloses the kitchen a bit more. This will help create the next room of your house ie. Kitchen - and you'll gain a few more cupboards if you're really wanting additional. Then have the big fixed window adjoining the L-shape next to the seating bench. You could still have your narrow glass splash with cupboards above, possibly just shorter (only referencing the L-shape and large door in this image - imagine fixed glass full-size wall panel in lieu of door next to the seats. Ignore the remainder of the kitchen). Is this an existing dwelling or new home build? For either of your options, are you impacting your roof-line as your first floor plan suggests you're widening the kitchen by 1m? The first plan I'm guessing will cost more; light wells and extra bricks vs straight wall. As mentioned by the other posts, there's plenty of storage options. You still have a decent amount of room for cupboards including a full-sized pantry next to your fridge space. I also agree with jbantick's of balancing space indoors and out (not knowing surroundings).

Thanks for your help guys. The builder contacted us today during the installation of the ducted A/C and advised us that we have to drop the ceiling 200m to accomodate the ducts (unless we want a huge bulkhead across the kitchen/living area. SO the gorgeous high ceiling is (unfortunately) no longer an issue. It is really frustrating that they only just figured this out! :-/

on the top line of this page there is a HOUZZ label on the left then a line with "search, advice, photos etc" if you write in "saucepan drawers" (or whatever you're interested in) a list comes up to invite you to click on options "advice, photos etc" and you should find photos like these...