Okay, now that the very smart and helpful Siriuskey (and others) have helped me confirm a great floor plan for my kitchen and pantry (Many thanks!) , I'm wondering what materials and colours would be best for the benchtop.

I have decided to go with the layout pictured.

The servery will be a timber bench. I want stone benches in the main cooking and washing up area of the kitchen, and I thought perhaps I might use timber benches in the laundry. The kitchen table will be timber.

Would timber be the best choice for the bench under the window and in the pantry to keep a continuous flow through that area? How well would timber perform in a food preparation area? Should the pantry splashback also be timber?

The bench under the window will not get much wear in terms of moisture or hot things put on it. It will really just be for convenience passing food through to the outside area. But the pantry bench will be used for food preparation - especially juicing fruit, blending, peeling and chopping and grating vegetables, etc. I would need to be reasonably durable.

I'm aslo wondering what stone material and colours to choose. We have been advised that light coloured granite can discolour easily so a dark colour is better if granite is chosen. Dekton sounds great from what I've read about it. I don't know if darker colours perform better overall? Light colours look great, but only if they retain their hue over time. I think I prefer light colours for the cupboard doors, although timber look gives a nice effect when used for the top cupboards and might compliment the timber table.

Advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. The walls are soft cream with darker cream trims. Furniture in the adjacent living room is mostly dark timber with a chocolate lounge suite, but the room has a lot of big windows so is very light and bright overall and sliding glass doors to the rear patio mean it can be quite open in warm weather. Floors are an off white gloss tile (and we will need to find a complimentary tile to fill in where walls are demolished, making some kind of pattern on the floor.