We design our pantry with a small sink. I now wish I had more shelves to store food. If your kitchen sink is close to your pantry don't bother unless eg... - you entertain a lot and want to hide dirty plates as they cycle through the dishwasher in the pantry - have your fridge in the pantry and need to wash vegies, rinse out food storage containers, or - intend having you mixer/thermo in the room and need to rinse or drain food prep. Personally I think I'd rather be in the kitchen with family than working in a pantry.

Hi Leanne, when we renovated our kitchen we built in a butler's pantry and it's the best thing we ever did. We included a sink, long bench and heaps of open shelves and open front drawers. Everything is hidden away but is easy to find and get to, and the main kitchen stays tidy and clutter free in our open plan living area. If you can fit one in it is definitely the way to go.

What a lovely kitchen. Good idea to match to window and bi-fold. Gorgeous splash back tiles and the black pendants are perfect. I also spotted the clever used of space with the bank of drawers in wall between oven and L-shaped counter.

Thank you Geluka and Margot, the breakfast bar won't be 2 level, the app we used to draw up this design doesn't allow a single piece of bench (to wrap around the support column) hence the split level look. We will have a glass door for our mud room/laundry entrance. Probably won't have a pergola as the courtyard will be quite small and narrow post extension. I am considering moving the oven tower to the end of the bench housing the stove top. Assuming a 900mm stove, 600mm oven tower that will leave 600mm clearance on either side of the stove top. Many thanks, Ee ;)