Another idea i have seen in a few old timber houses, and that works really well is to move the kitchen from this large room entirely and create a more modern galley kitchen in a sleepout. You could consider fitting in a kitchen with a long bench where the archway is on that little annex room in your second picture. Or some other space entirely. Don't feel bound to use the rooms as they are currently being used. Old houses were often not originally designed with things like a kitchen and a bathroom and so yes they were often tacked on hodge podge and don't often work. Also we like more open plan so find the area of the house that will be easier to open up and is on the right side of the house to catch the light to create the lounge area. Even if that is opening up 2 bedrooms. I really don't think that matters if what you are working with is just barebones timber spaces. I think your colour scheme is a great choice. Its classic and will show off the bones of the home nicely. The trouble with these larger kitchen rooms is that they just aren't as functional, even though there is more floor space a lot of it is wasted. Sometimes you can end up with more functional storage and space by using a smaller room like a sleepout or enclosed verandah. You can use an awkward sleepout space more productively and gain an extra room when you remove the kitchen, and the added advantage is you can slowly build you new kitchen and still have somewhere to cook in the meantime. With the new kitchen built you remove the old!

Hi Complete Kitchens....Yes, I realise that 20k could get a good standard kitchen (our own one recently done was about 26k including scullery), I'm more talking about the ones that talk about doing kitchen, bathroom, painting and even moving some walls on 20k. What my point was, is its great when people like you actually give an idea of a cost of a project - it's easy to get fired up with inspiration and then get thoroughly dissapointed when reality hits! Things are expensive these days and I think for some who may not have done any renovations to their house for years, they don't really have a lot of idea of the costs involved.

One thing you might want to consider too is the finish of the bench top. Even though dark colours absorb light if you have a shiny coating on your bench top it might give you that glare effect. We have a dark green laminated bench top. And we get a lot on sun in the morning and the bench top is quite resonates a lot of glare. Opt for a matt finish in a material that won't throw a lot of light back. I have attached a photo of our bench top to give you an idea of what I mean

Thank you. We love the fact that a room can still be modern but still demonstrate charm and character. The elaborate decorative finishes in this kitchen really highlights this fact.