Depends on the appliance doesn't it? Go to the appliance spec on the manufacturer's website and figure out the distance from the bottom of the appliance to the OPEN door of the oven. That should be no more than waist high on the primary user. Say it is six inches from bottom of oven to top of open door and primary user is 5'4" (average height for women in the US). Waist is at about 2'9"...subtract 6"....Bottom of oven opening is 2'3" above floor. 4" toe kick...ergo cabinet below is 19" +/-. Two deep drawers or a double door cabinet with tray storage.

I would definitely paint out timber frames, they in themselves become the feature if you don't…..and I would hope you mean a soft grey! To "hide" skirts and arc's (I renovate and sell for a living) I do them the same colour as the walls but in a satin finish…..you could do semi gloss….a water based enamel works best. Make sure you prep them well though, either a good sand to rough up, or something like ESP. I always thought rule of thumb for a feature wall, paper or paint, is the wall opposite the greatest light source, ie. the wall that gets hit with the most natural light. Failing that, I think it would look lovely on the alcove/bay window wall and do the inset of the alcove/bay window in a contrast….say a soft version of the pinkish hues in the paper??? You seem to have some substantial pieces of furniture, and a piano, so doing the other walls would compete and look overbearing to me. Unless you are going the whole Regency style embossed paper/stripes/pattern everywhere…………...

i would be concerned that the niche may only ever suit artwork of the same height and width..having no niche means that you could be flexible and have different size artwork (painting, wall hanging, 3D) or a group of art and change them if/when you feel like a change..why not spend the money saved on not having a niche on something special to hang on the plain wall

Hi Ellen We had exactly the same problem with our renovation. An old kitchen was behind a wall. The wall was not structural so it could either be removed entirely for an island bench or as we did, cut down to 1.2m high which provided both a servery shelf plus a visual block to the messy kitchen from the dining area. The existing wall allowed us to include electrics for existing light switches, powerpoint and ceiling fans on the end. We left the sink where it was to save on plumbing but got rid of the cooktop bench at the end which always results in unusable corners. The whole kitchen cabinetry and appliances are from IKEA. To keep the look completely open we put the fridge against the wall opposite and included a new IKEA shelf unit with drawers and baskets for our pantry - miles of extra storage.