Hi everyone,

I'm renovating the back portion of my brick and tile home located in Perth Western Australia. I'm planning the following:

- In the kitchen: pulling up old lino and replacing flooring, knocking down a wall and putting a kitchen island in its place (the kitchen is at the end of the main living space. The front door is on other end of this room)

- Moving the back door back 2 metres to make the external laundry internal and changing to a glass door with window above (let there be light!). The backdoor comes off the kitchen - see in photo above.

- Gutting existing laundry/bathroom to put in a new bath (with shower over the top) and cabinetry.

We have 60mm jarrah floorboards throughout the house up until the threshold of the kitchen (back portion of house is concrete (with lino or hideous sky blue tiles in bathroom) - See photo below. The only meeting points between the jarrah and the kitchen floor will be a standard doorway-sized opening on either side of the kitchen island.

At the moment the concrete foundation of the kitchen is pretty much level with (if not, a little higher than) the jarrah flooring so not a lot of room to work with - maybe need to grind it down a bit??

I'm seeking options for the kitchen flooring and thinking it would be good to extend this down the two back steps and into the bathroom/laundry.

The total area to be refloored is approx 15m2 (This includes the entire bathroom/laundry area, even the spots where the bath and cabinetry will be so this may need to be excluded) - my point is that it's quite a small area.

The existing concrete doesn't look too flash plus I would like to make kitchen, hall and bathroom consistent in appearance. There are concrete-look (or actual concrete) overlay products that I'm aware of but I'm unsure of the benefits of each and cost is also of importance. Colour options are numerous so any ideas to go with jarrah floors would be great. Also, a lot are based interstate- how do we access them here in Perth?

If I pick a grey concrete (I have grey granite pavers outside - see photo) I was thinking a wooden bench top (? birch) for the Kitchen island (existing bench tops are grey laminate - don't want to try to match) and maybe in the laundry too. This could warm up the place but don't want it to compete with the jarrah in the living area so any input on bench tops would be great too. I have a fairly low budget so limited to wood or laminate I guess.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Anna