Gosh what a funny turn around - this discussion started right after I had finished my last kitchen and now it is revived just as I'm going through all this madness again trying to replace a kitchen in my new home .............. when I can find someone interested in doing some work. Jennifer, I'm leaning to Bosch appliances if they meet my requirements. One of my joeys lives in Germany where Bosch and Siemens (made by the same company apparently) are made and are very highly esteemed. Because I have so much renovation work to do on this house, I'm watching my pennies a bit so I will probably stick with a Dishlex Dishwasher that has always served me well and these days they are extremely quiet too, but I am looking at Bosch for the oven and cooktops. In earlier posts I praised the Fisher and Paykel oven and cooktops, but then discovered a BIG flaw in the design of the oven - it had a double glass door with a gap between the two sheets of glass and guess where every crumb and spill went, so they will not be on my radar again. I'm also hearing good reports about Electrolux but very bad ones about Miele and their service which is really letting the brand down. For those getting on in years too - beware of push button settings and slide controls, arthritic fingers just cannot manage these. As well, I'm told the slide controls on cook tops are not as accurate as knobs.

Old post but thought I'd update. We have finally moved into our forever home and on occasions, obviously in winter, we still have crying window (sob). We have the wet windows on the south side of the home which is the shady side so not unexpected but also on the north side where we still get lovely warm winter sunlight streaming in and I still do have all my windows slightly cracked open and it does help. Incidentally I have glass bricks in our bathroom on the south side and there is no condensation on this window at all. Our home has insulation in both the exterior and interior walls and we have double insulation in our roof, so factor 7 unlike the usual factor 3.5 not that it probably has any bearing on the moisture issue. We have a 1.8mtr wide veranda surrounding the entire home so the windows are some what protected from the elements but when the temperature gets fairly low and can be almost zero in winter, it seems impossible to prevent this crying window sindrome but I can live with the fact it is fairly easy and quick to remove with a Karcher window vac now, brilliant little machine at $99 and it only takes a few minutes. We have an exhaust fan in both bathrooms that is vented outside so the moist air does not go into the roof space and in fact even my rangehood ducting is vented outside too!! We even had condensation in the roof cavity as well to the point of having a rainforest up there but since fitting another whirlie into the roof making it three in total now, it appears to have almost entirely eradicated that problem. I can say catagorically now that crying windows are a very difficult problem to eradicate in very cold climates where obviously the inside of the home being heated at night is going to create the perfect conditions for the condensation to settle with the inside being far wamer than the outside and there in lies the problem which canot be changed. I have blinds and curtains that I close ever day before dark but it makes no difference. As I have aluminium windows and doors throughout, so no timber anywhere, it isn't such an issue for damage but annoying none the less but life goes on and I do so love my beautiful new home!!

Having a desk of any kind will always be a bit messy if you are like myself. I have placed the computer desk into the niche with the Wall Mounted TV next to it for a reason, we are like minded two screen people, me for drawing plans. The screens mounted at the correct height for the user so you are looking up and not down to avoid any neck problems. Having the screens up off the desk allows more workable space, Open storage above with a set of drawers on one side under the desk with a pull out extra desk top (Ikea ). I didn't go into a whole lot of detail with my first post, you mentioned not wanting anything in front of the window which you viewed down the passage way, Your corner lounge with extra lounge or 2 x arm chairs creates a great conversation space with a large coffee table and a great place to put your feet up while watching TV. A good reason for placing the Desk and TV side by side is to allow you to consider a sliding door to cover the office, as per this photo, which can be pulled across the TV to the wall, you would need to have a small Nib wall on the passage way end of the Niche, I would have expected that anyway You appear to be having trouble with space for your bathroom, suggest you look at a Japanese style bathroom as per the photo, you can position them across or down the room. cheers

@oklouise The fridge is the big "X" next to the sink above the laundry label. I have thought about trying to use an old IKEA Expedit 2x4 shelf I have (it measures 770mm x 390mm x 147mm, so a little lower and longer but not too much) and adding some metal legs from Bunnings to get to the working height (the legs come in 100mm so would bring the height up to 870mm) and leaving 10mm for the actual benchtop. I saw another IKEA hack where instead of getting a benchtop, they used a bunch of IKEA LAMPLIG chopping boards (460mm x 560mm x 18mm). I'm not entirely sure that will fit as it might be too big, but you've given me some food for thought! (a research trip to IKEA might be in store for the weekend) @meme My previous set up was kind of like this. I had a large square "island" (looks like the IKEA BEKVAM one, but bigger) and next to it I kept another IKEA RASKOG trolley full of cooking supplies (salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, etc). I still have the small trolley but I had to get rid of the island because it had open storage and my baby is now crawling/cruising around getting into everything! The IKEA FORHOJA has the right dimensions but still the same problem of open storage...