As a real estate agent I have seen plenty of kitchens, of all the kitchen bench tops essa stone benches seem to be the best they don't stain, very hard wearing almost don't scratch and if they do it is easy to repair. Ceaserstone seems to be more pouris and requires more care.

Hi All, well I've been test painting for days and still so unsure. I think the hardest part is deciding on the gutters etc. In the top photo you can see from left to right. Dune full strength, then Jasper at the other end of same gutter, below that is a white called Surfmist and then there is monument on the lower gutter. I quite liked the monument on the gutter but when tried on the wooden fence it was clearly going to be too much darkness and didn't look good. I'm currently trying Jasper on the fence and other areas but its really a brown colour and again over a large area not sure its going to look all that nice and maybe too dark. When trying lighter colours, white and off whites on the trimmings they looked far too start on the dark roof so I think white/s are out for gutters. Can you have a different coloured fence (wooden panels) to the trimmings on the house? I've been assuming they need to match. I'm fairly happy with half dune on the walls. Any other suggestions for trimmings or thoughts on the colours in this photo? Its doing my head in now!! Second photo was house with lighter colours on the gutters - surfmist and dune I think. I tried a vivid white but it was crazy wrong.

Hi Khanh, we bought a 40 year old 2 storey house and it needs a lot of work (I'm 40 and need a lot of work too but that's besides the point lol)... the kitchen does not have a pantry (we're using an old melamine cupboard for that but it's not close to the oven, fridge or sink) so meal prep involves getting everything out of the cupboard first, before packing a picnic and venturing into the kitchen lo - and for a cripple like me with a multitude of health issues, it is inconvenient and extremely impractical... we removed an old intrusive bulkhead to help open up the space and allow more light but following some not so great advice from the father in law, we need to plaster and repaint again where the bulkhead was removed as it's showing some cracks :/ It is an awkwardly laid out space .... the rest of the house has Fraser Island hardwood floors - and while we did replace a thousand layers of lino in the kitchen with really nice grey tiles, there is no connectivity between the kitchen and the smallish lounge/dining space. We could potentially add a few stools to make a breakfast bar on the lounge/dining side of the kitchen counter, but then we have no clue where the dining table would go if we did that. I'm not sure if I had the money to throw at it whether we would just 'tart it up' a little, or gut it and change the layout completely to create a better, practical flow for not just the kitchen, but the dining/lounge space as well.

after attempting numerous variations i can't see any great advantages to an extra 1800 added on to the living area except to offer extra length and empty floor space to a room that is already big enough for all the basics but lacks wall space for storage and TV but, without a wide opening to the entry, you could have a couch arranged differently and a doorway to bed 3 would reduce storage and furniture options for both bedroom and lounge but, maybe the window in the lounge could be replaced with a cantilevered bay window with awning roof roof to create a bay window seat and the small extension could be better used to add a generous laundry which would allow more storage in the kitchen or a more generous bathroom as the only way i can find to keep a separate toilet is to move the existing toilet door to allow enough space to add a tiny handbasin to the existing toilet plus a door across the entry hall to add privacy from the front door another option for the master suite, would be to steal space off bed 2 to relocate all 3700mm of the original biw and use small freestanding wardrobes and/or chests of drawers for storage in the minor bedrooms...some varaitions for the bathroom and other ideas collected into one plan and you could also keep the original master bedroom for guests and invest in a spacious new master bedroom (with or without an ens) behind the new garage with access through the original bed 2 that could be used as a dressing room and whichever bathroom varaistion you prefer