Anne, go have a good look at new sinks, when I did my kitchen renovation I loved my sink and there was very little similar on the market so as I thought mine was fine I wanted to keep it. The plumber had to remove it to replace the bench tops and could not guarantee it would not be damaged because of the sealing necessary around sinks. When I saw the new ones though and later seeing it in my kitchen, the old one would have just been so wrong, it would have really let the whole kitchen down because it made the old one look so sad in comparison. A new bench top has to be cut for a sink anyway so the old one should survive any alternations IF you have a good tradie doing it. I painted first but I ended up selling the house before I did the flooring so I didn't sand. That issue was raised but don't think there is a problem, they can sand to the skirting without damage. Check with a floor sander to be sure. This is a photo I took of my old pantry before I finished filling it though. This is only half of it, the other side is mirror reversed, but you can get the idea of how each shelf can be adjusted and you can fill the shelves with like sized items. I did not think of this, the kitchen people just did it and I was so grateful because of the way it turned out. I think the shelves are about 350mm deep - held all my big things, but wasn't so deep I couldn't see everything clearly. For cleaning it was easy to just empty a shelf and take it out too which really made the bottom shelves easy to get to and clean.

Well now after reading all these posts, I have a dilemma. We would like to maximize the practicality of the deep and soft closing drawers. Corner drawers, the under sink u-shaped drawers etc. Thirty five years ago (yep that's right 35 yrs) when our budget did not allow us to buy new, we bought a dismantled u-shaped show-room demonstration timber kitchen. For years it was blonde pine. Solid pine benchtops, re-sanded and stained a couple of times. Then my husband painted all the solid timber doors with antique white USA marine paint which has worn well. New satin knobs (that have not worn as well) Now it's becoming a little 'shabby chic'. We thought of a complete reno. But we have no space to enlarge on the 3x3 metres. and new 'plastic' kitchens somehow seem less durable than our existing old one. Sink, stove and fridge in the recommended triangle floorplan. So what to do? Our pantry is in the corner with shelves that items at the back of are inaccessible. The microwave is the perfect shoulder level. The cabinets allow me to display favourite tins, crockery and vintage scales. Being a split level house I need the broom cupboard and ironing board stored close at hand.

Hi Sue. I think it depends a lot on how big and how light your kitchen is. Are the colours firm, or could you swap them, i.e. the white on the island with the wooden top, and the blue on the rest with white top? Try and picture the jarrah on all the tops, and work out whether you think it will be too much (if there is a lot of surface), or would work better as an accent. Best of luck.

Ok so after all the feedback I made some changes. After looking at it, I would like to make entry point from garage on the garage wall, so you still enter into pantry, but you dont have to walk through pantry to gain access to the house. I would also like to flip bathroom and bed 3 so bathroom is centred between rooms. Also not convinced I should have entry to lounge from kitchen, should I have kept it entering from the entry. My only issues now is, do you notice how the bathroom steps in? This is because the ensuite is a bit bigger. Will it look ok once built or do I take that 30cm from my ensuite/main room to level it up? If so do I take 15cm from ensuite and 15cm from main bedroom? Also I really wanted the compartment bathroom that oklouise suggested. But its not big enough. Any ideas? My current bathroom is 3100 x 2600.