Now you have posted this picture with an unmade bed and clothes all over it for us to see - note future girlfriend may be a houzzer. Number 1 make bed and put away clothes before guests arrive or you take and post photos as all the paintings and new doona covers in the world won't make up for this. After this consider all the great suggestions above. Note to self - make your own bed more often please rather than advising others to do same.

I'm not sure where you're from but I'm guessing the UK? I'm having to translate some of your terminology which is unfamiliar to me. We all speak English but definitely different localities have their own words to describe these things. If you don't want to make a feature of your joinery (which I figure is your baseboards and your window and door trim) then yes I'd paint them out in the wall colour. Satin is a good choice not so much for reflecting light, but because a shinier finish is more durable than a matte one, and these areas need to be resilient. Your new place sounds wonderful. Best of luck on your renovation.

Different strokes for different folks, as they say. We have a butlers pantry, smallish, with a sink in it. The pantry has become effectively a walk-in pantry, with storage, a wine fridge and the toaster and microwave. It's very useful, but we almost never use the sink because there isn't enough practical counterspace and because, well, who wants to do dishes in a closet? We also have an island, with a single basin sink in it, and of course the dishwasher. That's where we do prep, and it works just fine for us. We can watch TV while pealing spuds or washing those dishes that don't go into the dishwasher. Even with the sink, there's still plenty of prep space, and we have a good work triangle between sink, oven on the wall directly behind it, and fridge, oven and pantry on the end wall. In practical terms, the arrangement works for us. When we entertain, we clean up and load the dishwasher as we go, dump the pots and pans in the butler's pantry, wipe off the bench, and we're good to go. And since it's only a single basin undermount sink, the look is clean enough for us.

my MIL is one one those that won't fetch anything for herself ..she expects you to get up when she gets up 5-6am and fetch her breakfast..and it's no good offering would you like some toast as she'd be like oh no I'm fine.. you need to cook breakfast and plop it in front of her.. she wouldn't let me wash her clothes so showed her how to use the machine..she hand washes them and pop them on the line right on top of my rack of dried clothes..she took my clothes down so she had room to hang hers out..and of course her dripped on mine ..?? and if she dries the dishes she must do it intentionally to annoy me as it takes me ages to find bits and pieces to my rice cooker..?? amongst other things that happened .. my MIL is hated by all of his family..because she's the second wife..his biological mum is the best MIL you can have she's kind and loving not like this one..calculating ..stabs you behind your back and the list goes on.. my husband must takes after his mum..he's kind and caring.. thank goodness she's overseas now..only lose him to get twice a year for 10 days each..