Hi Nicole, what a great house, I love the first photo you posted and think it's so much better to remove the entrance steps from the driveway, very dangerous. cheers

Thank you so much for your advice Dr Retro. Those curved steps are a great option that is sympathetic to the era!

BTW, that back corner window will be a corner window no more - the right side will be bricked in, as the new kitchen backs that wall, and the front side will end up in the walk-in pantry so will become a splashback-style window 600 high.

Hi siriuskey, always love to get your input!

That is an excellent point about the safety issue - I hadn't even thought about that, only about the convenience of walking up the stairs from driveway when coming in from the garage. But with the extension, there will be a door from the garage to the back deck which will give access straight into kitchen, so really won't need those side stairs now that you've made me think about it!

Nicole, well I think you should be very careful to have a spotless walk-in pantry as all of your visitors will be able to check out how tidy you are when they go up your new steps. A bench height 600mm tall window will look a bit strange on that front elevation when all of the other windows have a consistent head height. Have you seen how it looks on an external elevation? Has your kitchen been designed from the inside, without regard to the effect it has on the outside?

Dr Retro

of Dr Retro House Calls

Hey Dr Retro - all points we have considered. We have been in two minds about keeping the full height window and not having uppers in the pantry on that front wall. But in that case we would need to make the window only 850 wide instead of its current 1200, to at least allow for uppers on the right hand wall. Would that be preferable, do you think?

The window is not actually visible from the front, as that tree in front has grown pretty much to cover it. And I am very tidy ;)

This was my thinking about that pantry window (and there has been a lot of thinking, to my draughtie's despair!) :

I guess it comes down to the fact that this is a renovation rather than a new-build, so it will always involve compromises. I chose to have the pantry on that front side rather than the back in order to get big stacking sliding doors across the whole back wall, which is north-facing - where the kitchen-dining area will open onto a deck.

I have ensured that the renovation plan works with the current layout as much as possible, rather than forcing it to be something it isn't (I had a more complex design done initially, that was much more expensive, because it was trying to make the layout like you might see in a new build).

Having said that, it also has to be functional and work for the lifestyle we have in this era. I think our floorplan achieves that - with the only minor point of contention now being that rather unobtrusive pantry window!

I think for resale, and for the majority of people, if it came down to a choice between having a walk-in pantry with a window that isn't the same height/width as the others at the front of the house, or not having the WIP, the WIP would come out well ahead.