Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in replying! So many thoughtful suggestions, thank you. I haven't yet got around to taping out the kitchen, boundsgreener, but I hope too soon. Even just pacing it out has made me realise you're all right, there's no way a G shape will work. The space at the sink surrounded by the benches would be less than one metre. So that's good to realise now! I can't do banquet seating as there's a window behind the table. The wall behind the buffet unit is structural so we can't remove it (and I'd imagine it might get expensive too!) So what I'm thinking now is more a revamp/update with the current layout, but still moving the fridge across and creating a pantry, plus an appliances garage (love that term!) in the corner. Oven, sink and dishwasher in the same spots. This will still give more room for dining as the fridge won't be taking up space on that side of the kitchen. I'm now worried about losing the bench space that the buffet unit gives us, though. It was going to be offset by the extra G shape, but as that's gone and there won't be any room for the buffet (though I'd love to keep it as an island on wheels, hazzaran!) there will be less bench space than before. I like the idea about a wooden benchtop to save money, Pazz, but is it practical? Won't it get lots of bacteria in it? I'd still love some natural stone in there somewhere, and was thinking of those beautiful hexagon marble tiles they have on the Block. That might be cheaper than a caesarstone benchtop! I am not a big fan of laminate, though, for some reason it always really looks really plasticy to me. Thanks again for all your great advice and for helping avert a layout disaster! I really appreciate all the advice.

@wuff -- I bought mine a few months ago while on a trip to the USA. It wasn't on holiday and had limited shopping time, which left me with empty luggage space to fill :-). I visited a discount/surplus items store and got them cheap! I'd been looking for months for some, but nothing I saw here came close to the heavy-quality metal of the ones I bought. They're made by a company called Seville Classics. Here's a link to their website page: https://www.sevilleclassics.com/kitchen_counter_top_organizer Following my return to Oz, I emailed the company enquiring about availability in Australia. I never received a reply. Much to my surprise, I recently discovered that Howards Storage World is now selling them. Here's the link: http://www.hsw.com.au/index.php?product&id_prod=6558&id_cat=106&id_dept=510#.VcDbmSkbA5s The one available at HSW is as shown in my earlier photos and is different to the ones I have. I'm not sure if the thickness of the metal is the same. Kind of hard to tell when I didn't have mine with me at HSW. Items are so much easier to access than if they were stacked. Best part is that others in the house have no excuse about putting items back into these organising racks. Here's a link showing the Seville products being sold by HSW. http://www.hsw.com.au/?product=&search=seville&op=search_products&x=0&y=0

I'm not 100% sure what you're asking, but if you're looking for suggestions whether to make the lower cabinets grey and the upper cabinets white or vice versa, then I would be tempted to make the lower cabinets grey. I think this would help to make the ceiling feel higher and the overall space larger and brighter. But, it may depend upon what style you're going for, whether you have an island benchtop and, if so, what material/colour will be on the rear/exposed side of the island benchtop, the amount of natural lighting, etc. You can easily search through Houzz photos by room, size, colour, materials, etc. Here are a few examples I found from a quick search which may help:

Jason: Thanks for the sketches and the the suggestions of storage cabinetry that I can put next to the fridge. Sirius: We do have a large piece of land, and our designer with lots of experience has said this would be a design that's appropriate but we have asked about the size of the house. We have put everything on 2 stories, and have not dug a basement like many places these days. So we are mindful of the space and effective use of it. I do appreciate your markup on island bench cabinet orientation and helped me understand cabinet orientation. 10anp: I do like a big bench which can be used for practical purposes (cleaning up ), but can also seat a number of people on 2 sides when entertaining, and allow deeper undercabinet storage as you said: 600mm both with still 300 overhang. I may even offset the living room side cabinet so that can have 300mm overhang for potential sitting space as well ( guess I lose the convenience of have a cabinet door facing that way that is easier to store things with the overhang). I like Sirius challenging of putting the cooktop on the island: but that is such a radical change for me: I'll think about it! Thanks all for the help - Im happy the changes have come so far! MB