Hi Mike and Emma Hope you are slowly but surely getting there... may I make some comments/suggestions that you may or not take on board, but hopefully it may at least give you some ideas/options... Going through a new build ourselves at the moment, and for what it's worth, here's what I personally think: A. Work with what you've got: - additional plumbing work, gas work etc may not be necessary and (particularly gas) can be costly when you're trying to work around existing walls, floors, etc, and as much as possible utilise the existing connections... after whatever you can save here and there, you can spend on nicer cabinetery, gadgets, finishes, etc :) B. Avoid unnecessry structural work: - removing the kitchen/living wall is a must (more space, light, etc) but removing the laundry wall is an unncessary added cost (may even require costly additional strutural support) - putting up a plastered wall on the other hand is inexpensive, allows you to redefine different zones and relocate doors/openings where required (*note: avoid hinged doors in small spaces as you have to allow for wasted space to open door - suggest cavity sliding doors, easy to incorporate in a new wall) C. Don't sacrifice functionality and natural light for design - love full height floor to ceiling cabinets, very much on trend... but they also tend to bring the walls in, which you want to avoid in an already small space... they will also block out more natural ligtht from the only window to the living and breakfast bench (meals area)... not to mention seated guests would be staring at a cabinet tower and fridge - on the other hand a walk in pantry (not that much of a walk in a small space) is also very much on trend, provides more storage and... as entertaining guests in open plan livings tends to happen more in the kitchen... it provides a good hiding place for unsightly items, including frigges... (an underbench bar fridge in the kitchen can easily keep those beers cold... though do consider that means sacrificing some cabinet space) - constantly wiping off the floors from dripping wet dishes across the kictchen from the sink to the dishwaser on the other side bench would personally drive me mad after a while... the dishwasher can easily be connected to the existing sink water and waste points through the cabinerty... any half decent plumber should be able to do that... ON THAT NOTE... or should I say those notes... I know I got a bit carried away :) ... if it were me, here's an idea of what I would try to achieve ...

Just a thought, have you checked your lovely flooring will persist under new cabinets or more importantly the gap created by the island bench. Possibly put a simple narrow breakfast bar (with power point of course) across a couple of the window sections, lovely to sit and look out of the window and preserve the look and the light. Then you would save some depth into the living space, as the current breakfast bar is quite large and deep.

I love all this feed back - thank you ladies & gents :) I do think the light and flow would probably work better like oklouise's first post - I concede you are both right. My concern was the depth of the shower - we have a very pokey one at the moment but think I see how to rectify that - tell me what you think? Also I want LOTS of storage and think keeping the storage in the activity with the entrance now up the other end would limit the furniture layouts so I would probably keep that in the entrance hall and still use the nook as is - no doubt they will sit there to do their makeup as the light will be amazing BUT i can imagine the mess will not - haha! I LOVE those doors siriuskey- so grand and impressive but my husband is a lay in bed TV watcher so that would possibly take up too much wall space for his liking - again I giggle ( you have to right?)

Hi Anne, there are some good suggestions above, in addition the question I always ask is "where is north"!! This should be a consideration too, and it's a little hard to tell how this open plan room connects to the rest of the house - is it the door at the end of the lounge, and are those solid walls at that end? (You might want to consider taking the windows further into the corner of the lounge, to ensure you can see the view from your couch/lounge chairs etc). I am quite curious about what "view" it is! Ocean? Mountain? Although a kitchen-sink window is always great, because you tend to spend more time socialising and meal-prepping around the large island, we would suggest trying to have the island face the view, or if side-on to the view, that it isn't obstructed by other benches. With your room only 6.5m wide, if you rotated through 90degrees and placed the kitchen on the long wall and leaving the pantry/wet room 'behind' the kitchen as in the current arrangement this might potentially block the flow of circulation through to the rest of the house. You could consider leaving the kitchen as-is but moving the kitchen sink bench to the other side and making this a 'tall things' zone (fridges etc) and moving the sink to where the fridge was, and moving pantry entry to the same side as wet-entry. The reason I suggest this is because when you are cooking intensely, you want to minimise circulation routes through a kitchen, so people can come and go and access the fridge (and the wine!) without interrupting the cooking. Of course it is only access to the pantry, so this might be fine too however if you did move the pantry entry to the other end this would create a protected cooking zone at the 'view' end. Ultimately, there is the opportunity to fully glaze the view whether the island is side-on or facing the view - exactly like the kitchen image posted above! (But insert your view into the picture!) As a side note, some builders only complain about sliding doors because they are harder to install and problematic to fix if the architraves need to be removed and replastering done (compared with simply rehanging a swing door!) For a good builder it should simply not be an issue and will significantly improve your access to the space, we always do sliding doors into pantries! Also ditto about the width of the pantry, 1.8m would allow a 600mm bench space on one side for appliances to be kept out, normal depth drawers under and shelves over, and a wall of 300mm wide shelves the other side, this will genuinely feel like a 'big' pantry. And finally - a suggestion to NOT put an oven in the pantry if 4doz bottles of wine are in there! Even if you are not cellaring long term wine likes a nice stable (and cool) temperature for storage. Good Luck Anne!