The next time I decorate by a colour of the year will be the first time. Don't hold your breath. I have nothing against this particular colour but it doesn't work with all the things I've collected over the years, and I am not about to discard carpets bought after hard bargaining with dubious merchants in Istanbul or Islamabad because they don't "go" with a paint colour that someone voted "colour of the year." In its place, I think the colour would be quite nice (better than this years choices, certainly). It's just that my place isn't the right place for it.

The last home we had was a very small workers cottage so I kept the walls a light off white, table and to unit tops were gloss white to bounce the light around. My dining chairs and bar stools were clear acrylic so that I could see through them, the ends of my island bench/brekky bar were mirrored and my curtains were textured white sheers so that they also didn't take up too much visual room. All of my furniture was on legs so that I could see under it and the lounge room rug was pulled away from the lounge just a teeny bit so that I could see a little bit of timber flooring all the way round it, that all made the floor size look just a bit bigger. Bedrooms had mirrored wardrobe doors and bathroom was almost completely white (except for dark floor) and had frameless shower screen and oversized vanity mirror to reflect as much light as possible. Friends and visitors would comment that the house was bigger than they had imagined from the outside.......it wasn't, it was just styled inside to make it look larger.

would also love to know the best method but best food safe products would be olive or other cooking oil and let the everyday knocks and bumps add to the patina over time

For vanity top, chose either a laminate, or engineered stone such as quartz eg: caesarstone, Essastone or silestone.You can get some wonderful laminate colours now, at very budget conscious prices. Look at Laminex and Polytec brands. Acrylic bench tops, in my opinion are dated. Have you looked at the semi inset basins. Basins really come back to personal preference for shape, height. If you have a basin on top of bench top, then install taps in the wall. If you choose inset or semi inset basin then taps installed in basin. Shower must be no smaller than 900 x 900mm. Freestanding bath would be a waste of space in your bathroom. I have attached a photo of a semi inset basin, (caroma) on a laminate bench top (Polytec)