Hi 28! I would recommend having a sheet made out for them of as many things as you can think of everyday. We call it a punch list. They can check off each item as they do it and if they mess something up, you have proof. That said, tradesman can't be micromanaged. The need to be trusted to do their job but things like MIrror Placement approval, and color choices should be signed off on. One thing I have learned from a lifetime of experience is that often, something we feel is catastrophic to our design, ends up being very acceptable and sometimes even better with familiarity! That's not to say I still think I'm going to die if everything isn't perfect on a job, LOL! But in the end, perfection is boring and not really human nature at all. Happy mistakes rule! Your mirrors are fine ;>)

Louie - pretty well I think. See my latest renditions below. I have been playing around with how to screen off that toilet/shower area from the living room. Not only would it be preferable to keep the toilet out of sight, but it would also be nice if people pop go down and up the stairs to visit the toilet or shower without having to do a short "walk-of-shame" past the potentially occupied living/dining room. I was thinking a of having a partially-drawn pair of curtains or perhaps one of those dangle-y "fly curtain" type things to disrupt the view a bit, but then I thought a set of swinging doors with tinted/diffuse glass in them, because: 1. You can charge in and out of this busy area by just pushing through the set of doors, and letting them swing back in to place behind you (like saloon doors) 2. The glass panes will still allow the person to see if anyone is on the other side, so they don't bowl them over. Will also let natural light in. Also means could do away with the laundry door perhaps, since it will be kind-of redundant (main purpose was to eliminate washing machine noise in the living area) 3. The doors also stop heat from the fireplace drifting up the stairs on cold winter nights when the fire is going. Not a crucial thing at all, but a nice additional benefit Thanks for sharing the floor plans - it's given me a much clearer picture of what you've done with that pole house...looks fantastic! brizcs - great point about the chair by the window, that's really struck a chord with me so I am toying with ways to do this. One idea I had is in the plan below: Rather than put a narrow table hard against the glass, maybe swing the kitchen table 90 degrees, make it longer, and have people sit along the south side looking out the windows most of the time. When it's night time or there are lots of guests or whatever just drag the chairs to the other side and you're back to the conventional set up. If a table where flush against the windows it would mean a lot of direct sunlight on its surface throughout the cooler months, due to the low angle of the sun (glare might become a problem?)

Now that's a cook's kitchen, are you keeping all appliances along with benchtops. You said that you were keeping the same footprint, if the base cabinets are still in good condition would you keep them as is and just replace the wall cabinets with Bunnings paintable shaker style in a soft grey and paint the walls the same colour, still keeping the oven cabinet in Beech. At the moment your kitchen has a lot of great stainless steel and wonder why the bronze cooper splash back, trend?, I can see by the photo that the kitchen is a bit dark, so perhaps a mirrored splash back would reflect more light and would look great with the stainless benchtop and the soft grey. If you are not keen on the mirror for the splash back and breakfast bar the white tiles could be replaced with French Country white and grey tiles Beech wood looks great with greys and black & white. I would look at replacing the Stools, Kmart have $25 dollar stools, different colours Lighting, an easy cheaper lighting is to use track lighting as you only need to have the one connection, tracks can be joined and placed in any shape or position where light is needed, like over the sink. You can use both spotlight and pendant lighting with these. PLEASE replace any open corner shelves with cabinets. This would be very cheap to achieve, good luck

I love those benches I have used one as sewing/desk with trestle legs, love it. The following is my idea with timber bench tops and using your cabinets, This would work if you could run the plumbing across to the left,either inside or externally. ,I have moved the sink to allow you to use the 80cm cabinet as your dish rack, the window won;t allow this. Or you could just swap the sink and cooker and use other shelving for the dish rack Back wall R-L 60cm cabinet,cooker,60cm cabinet 800 void for sink,60cm cabinet.fridge. Wall, using the 80cm x 42cm as plate drainer with timber open shelves on both sides, extraction is a simple ceiling extractor fan. I have added a narrow 60cm Island which uses both 40cm at both ends,like the sink there's a void which can have a couple of stools andr rubbish binscan be placed under the sink cheers