I'd love some smarter storage solutions - mine looks clean on the outside - but open a cupboard up & it looks like a bomb site!

Lots and LOTS of suggestions there! My idea is big, (and expensive), no tinkering with whats there but rethinking the use of the whole space. I think it would be great open the whole thing up by removing the laundry from current position, removing all the dividing walls and using all the space for longer kitchen and island, running parallel with the back wall. Extend the kitchen cupboards the length of the family room to include laundry-in-a-cupboard, then put the loo under the stairs off the living room, backing into the left hand end of the kitchen. The whole space would be open, with the kitchen a tiny bit further to the right (because of loo position). Big glass along the front, paint all those beams white, no timber interior wall, Gorgeous! Big job though! How game are you?

Kitchen cabinets colour too dark,can you have more window? If you have large window then your kitchen floor and cabinet colour are good,but if you can’t have larger window/ whatever is the case/, then I would have lighter grey,whitish floor or timber floor like “ash white”, the bench are dark,all is dark according the photo. I don’t know where do you live but Houzz gives us much photos of much kitchen,maybe you will find your kitchen without having financial need or changing the lay- out Good luck

Exxy to move the stairs (but brilliant idea!) - so how about take out dining/hall wall and put just one long line of low kitchen cupboards down where that wall was or closer to the opposite side - so you open up all space and see all from walking in the front door. Make either a horse shoe kitchen config with cooker at top end. Then paint all cupboards in same colour - say a gum tree green - and give them new handles. In area between cupboards newly tile or lay a lino floor as easy and inexpensive to do and there are some really pretty decent patterns these days. If you've any money left over or later, boost the lighting with a strip of spots that point to the island worktop, the window worktop AND the cooker. But where is the fridge to go??