@ sally wastie....Would have loved those pine kitchen cupboards....before they were painted. Had I a strong yen for :a bit of colour"...(and I do love colour), I would have had a new glossy multi coloured counter top, probably something very striking and then oiled the pine cupboard doors There were no work benches in the kitchen of my 1920s all pine cottage ( always say that the kitchen was an afterthought since it is positioned just of a hallway and consisted only of a sink and a wood burning stove.) I built a small bench/table using VJ pine slats I'd removed from elsewhere and then put a thick pine top that curved out from the small straight bench to form a little round kitchen table..Then came the fun, I painted the benchtop and table a datk teale colour, gave it a flecked faux marble finish and a couple of coats of high gloss waterproof varnish. Nothing terribly amazing but it did give the old...'kitchen space' a bit of a lift. Had a larger round kitchen table with a formica top and timber legs...so gave the table-top the same teale treatment as the bench and it now lives on the veranda that came a few years later. Yes! Teale of any shade always looks good with timber. The only pity was that the kitchen walls and ceiling here were terribly smoke stained and had been painted a really horrible pre WWII green. Begrudgingly, I repainted the walls but used a bright orange/yellow to complement the dark teale colour ( this particular yellow is a good colour to keep the flies out) and, in keeping with the era of the house, I installed a built in dark timber kitchen hutch found at the dump shop. The kitchen is the only room to have been painted and repainted....but still have the dark timber parquetry floors. If you get tired of all timber a few splashes of bright colour in well-thought-out places do not go astray. If you have vertical timber panelled walls and you are feeling hemmed in... a good trick is to stain a small section of panels a darker wood colour or with a coloured stain to shift the focus from all the timber. or you can bleach the timber panels lighter. This idea can create interest extending ceilngward from behind a furniture piece...say low display cabinet...or just in a section of wall. You enhance the all timber 'look' with an eye -catching timber panel of another timber hue...like having a mahogany panel set in a light timber wall... Just a few ideas for those feeling a bit claustrphobic in an all timber house....understandable, not all of us aspire to live in a log cabin...but if carefully accented, an all timber interior can be extremely impressive and will not date. This is a pre-digital shot of the glass panels I had installed in the wall around my bed head...its really faded PIC but you can get the idea. Looks better today since the glass has been decoratively frosted with patterns. The sunroom behind the bedroomThis is also a pre-digital PIC showing the little timber kitchen bench with the teale table top. The end and other side of the bench is stained timber. This little table seats 3 or 4. Pity you can't see the old parquetry floor here. Old formica table given a lift with a Teale coloured painted top...there's no room for it in the ' kitchen space'. Amazing what a little lick of the right colour can do in an all timber house.

There will be a height difference, you will need to use a reducing strip into the study and lounge. Don't forget the timber floors will also reduce the height of the skirts unless you are planning to take them up. Will you be continuing the flooring under the dishwasher & fridge, this will also change their heights. In the long run better to take up the floor, there are companies that will do it in a day, leave the floors prepared and take away the rubbish for around $30 m2.

Hi, If I can expand on MB's reply... there is a reason for a membrane. Timber and concrete are affected by different things. Concrete whilst having a level of retained moisture, expands and contracts with temperature at around the same rate as steel. Timber on the other hand expands and contracts depending on the moisture content of everything from the humidity in the air to the moisture content in the concrete floor. The purpose of a membrane is to prevent the ongoing moisture rising from the soil, into the concrete and then into the timber (causing the swelling of the timber). As this additional moisture causes an imbalance between the upper and lower parts of the timber, you get cupping. Because timber swells across the width, the wider the plank (the trend now) the greater the possible swelling. The type of cut of the timber also affects it. Typically a quarter cut (grain is between 45 degrees to 90 degrees to the face of the timber) will move less than a flat cut or face cut (grain is between 0 to 45 degrees to face of timber) and this is reflected in the price you pay for the timber. As timber swells in a linear manner, the solution to stabilising it is to have the grain at right angles to it in layers. This why they call it engineered timber as it has layers bonded at right angles. In relation to your question, we often install random length boards now and not the long length older style floorboards where battens are required. Random length can't be installed over battens as the ends are unsupported. In all of the timber floors we install, we typically level the floor with a self levelling compound, coat it with the best membrane we can and install plywood which is glued and nailed to the floor. We acclimatise the timber (allow its moisture content to adjust to the room) then glue and nail it to the plywood. The floor is then left for a few weeks to allow any retained moisture in the glue to settle and the floor is sanded and 'flooded' with a mixture of the polish and timber grit. This fills any small holes and minor gaps. Cheers

I'm not sure whether you live in a city or regional area.....I guess more available in a city area. If it interests you just google glass hearth images. Then you can get an idea of what it looks like and whether a glass hearth would appeal to you. You don't need any substrate under the glass and I think generally they are recommended to be 12mm thick so not too thick and chunky. And also can be shaped depending on what you like.