Concrete bench tops and decorative concrete pieces are a good idea if you like the solid look. I certainly would not recommend asking a general concreter about a concrete bench for your kitchen. Normally the bad rap that concrete bench tops get are when they are manufactured like a driveway or footpath. Kitchen bench tops require different characteristics. They should be constructed dense (to help prevent staining), flexible (to prevent cracking), lightweight (so can be manufactured off-site). With the materials that are available now, concrete can have all these characteristics. Sealing is another topic for the professionals. There are three different methods of sealing concrete. Penetrating, Topical, or Reactive. Sometimes all three are used to seal a concrete kitchen bench. This is because the way a kitchen bench is used is different to a floor. You are not only trying to prevent staining, you are trying to prevent etching that could occur with acidic foods. There are companies around that specialise in concrete bench tops for kitchens. Try them you may be surprised at the options available for "concrete" bench tops.

Well it's is simple, as we will now have concrete floor that get huge amount of winter sunlight in that main living room area our thermal mass figure went up. with the use of phase change material in the roof it to give a thermal mass effect but lot less weight. What it does is stores the energy/heat and transfers it back into room a night. You must realise that this is a very exposed site and we had to get min 6 star rating. Our insulation goes like this from roof down 1, R7 Rock wool batts 2. 90mm Phase change Material 3. to support pcm you have to use 12mm ply sheeting in place of plasterboard 4. Float concrete 5. Electric in slab heating 6. Precast tilt, but played down slabs Underslab 7. R7 Rock wool again 8. 75mm foam batts 9. Reflective foil 10. Box in around steel and make air tight as possible Also all the glass is double glazed, argon filled and thermal shield. We had all that minus pcm and failed because standard way of accessing doesn't have it in calulations. i had to go and show council a sample of the stuff an how it works. This is not cheap but we can just about say that room will sit at a constant 21 to 24 degrees all year around without need for air conditioning . Phase change article

Just a few inspiration photos for you, I guess you have to choose wisely living in the tropics, keeping it simple could look beautiful, gorgeous bedding, bedside tables, lamps or even pendants, a large rug under the bed could look gorgeous and of course bring some of the fabulous tropical plants in to complete the picture

Hi and thanks for your feedback. The rear building might now move further around to the north of the !7 acre rural block (2+ hours from Melbourne), where there is a flatter patch. We are now hoping to make it 2 story, with the storage shed below and living above. That way the huge views to the south and east can be seen over the top of the house. The idea is to build the shed (with studio accom) hopefully at the end of 2020, as a place to stay while the house building starts towards the end of 2021, when we will have the funds, fingers crossed. The width of the building area is only about 30 metres before it dips away a bit steeply to the east and west. We hope to avoid too much excavating for a slab (for thermal mass) but may need to consider stumps if the slab is far more costly. Looking at Carbonlite floor system as a reluctant alternative... A local architect has done the initial design to maximise the views and northern sun. We think the slight kink in the middle will add complexity to the roof so the kink can go. It is a big 'entry' which might need to go to cut costs but we do want an 'air lock' entry... The hallway along the bedrooms is intended to warm up in winter, ideally trombe wall style. We hope to keep the house to about 150 sq meters- we don't need bigger. The council has indicated where the dispersal field for the septic tank needs to go... We love the reverse brick veneer principle. The architect has been fairly open to our ideas but says the budget will be tight at approx $3,500 per sq meter. How does an internal masonry spine work? We figured a continuous skillion roof would be simpler and cheaper- going for a rural shed look...