Hi Susan , thanks for your reply and update . It sounds amazing !!! I too have ditched all marbel whatsoever in our home. In the end I chose all black cabinetry ( polytechnic black Wenge) it was slightly warmer and has a grain. My bench tops are all Caesar stone osprey , including the kitchen island , scullery and benchtops. I have a large window splash back that runs along the oven etc . but also quite a lot of walls which I have tiled in an offshore herringbone .The colour of all painted walls throughout solver white delight . We have concrete slate tiling and the white warms this space. It sounds as though we have headed in a similar direction ! We are at the stage of build where the cabinets are getting installed / I'll take a pic and send - I'd love to see yours also ! Here is a pic of a kitchen that has the same elements and colours that I chose .

We did a kitchen very similar to yours and went thru a similar dilemma last year. Ended up with a large sculptural drum pendant with a diffuser in the centre of kitchen and led recessed spots above island. Spots and drum are on two separate control switches with both fitted with dimmers. Led can be harsh if not able to be dimmed. Plastic on our new dishwasher went from blue to yellow overnight on first day and we had to ask for dimmer. Led great as task lighting but postion them so your head doesn't block light as you work. We play with lighting depending on whether we are working or relaxing. Money we saved on three pendants was spent on one drum.

Thank you everyone! Between you all you have summed up my concerns (changing bulbs, enough detail already in the stairwell, honouring the old house) and my desires (a nice lantern pendant or period light, LEDs need less changing, overhead lighting. I like the idea of the wall lights but we have not wired for this. There is wiring for for stair lighting (phew, glad we got that right) and one down light in the middle of the void. We have reconsidered a pendant as the one down light will be harder to change but are worried about obscuring the windows. Perhaps one of the simple fine-framed lantern pendants or white vintage light, on chains will be easier to change as we can pull it across to the stair, or a pulley pendant like this I'll post some more photos of our reno once its further on.

Just a few inspiration photos for you, I guess you have to choose wisely living in the tropics, keeping it simple could look beautiful, gorgeous bedding, bedside tables, lamps or even pendants, a large rug under the bed could look gorgeous and of course bring some of the fabulous tropical plants in to complete the picture