Thank you to all for the wonderful feedback. I didn't intend to paint the walls blue rather a taupe/brown - the De Sousa home is a great example. Since publishing the photo and the question - I have viewed many fabrics in many shades of blue and came to the conclusion blue is probably not the right choice. The photo looks beautiful but have moved to silver/grey with plum purple walls. But keeping the padded bedhead with demi lune side tables, an occasional chair in far corner and I already have the perfect bedside crystal tired lamp bases already. Again, could go very wrong with purple but I think I've found the perfect colour here in Australia. There are some stunning fabrics available in the silver/grey tone and I think it would well in the bedroom. The starting point funnily enough in moving to silver/grey was stumbling across the most gorgeous drape fabric. Then I built the rest from there. Now it's down to making final selections. A frustrating but fun process. Can't wait to see end result. Fingers crossed it all works out! Thank you once again - this site is amazing and your feedback is most helpful.

The beautifully made bed - looks like a coin would bounce off it!! Simultaneously the view - I think the birdsong in the morning would be a wonderful way to wake up.

I've been working from home for many, many years, but it took me until a little over a year ago to finally refurnish my office to be efficient and comfortable, after years of putting up with major inconveniences. Then hubby decided to sell the house and move! The house we are buying had built-in's in the office that looked great but were totally unsuitable for my needs. Hubby was quite upset when I made it a condition of the purchase that the seller rip all the built-ins out and make good to create an empty space. I then set about drawing a scaled plan of the room and scaled models of all my office furniture and arranging it on the plan. Works okay. Nowhere near as great as the office I am leaving behind - primarily because it lacks the lovely sunny corner in which I placed a favourite comfortable reading chair. And one credenza has to live inside the built-in wardrobe with the bookcase that was above it fixed on the wall above my desk. But it will work reasonably well overall. I do, however, need to buy a good office chair. I dumped mine in the move after making do with a hard pillow to compensate for the broken back and seat height adjusters! My major challenge, for many years, has been a weak local internet connection. Hopefully that will not be a problem in our new home. It was a bad spot, but NBN was connected recently so fingers crossed it's all good now.

Hi Kate - my kitchen doesn’t get exist as the renovation starts early in the New Year. The attached link has some pictures of my parent’s kitchen. They used Neolith Statuario in the Silk finish - it is greyer and has a more dramatic vein than the Calacatta (which is also a bit browner and then the Calacatta gold is browner again). https://designerkitchensvictoria.com.au/gallery/item/137-coffey The photos do not do their kitchen justice - it is lovely in real life. There are quite a few different porcelain brands in Australia now - Dekton (as mentioned above) is another option and there are others. The different companies also do various different marble looks. You could have a look and decide what style of marble look that you prefer. They can then provide you with pictures of projects using that style of stone (Neolith has pictures on its website). There are also a lot pf photos on Pinterest and Houzz. Neolith gave me a really generous size chip (about 1/2 the size of an A4 sheet of paper) - that has been really handy for selecting other finish colours (eg paint for the 2 PAC and walls and trims and the Polytec laminate and tiles for the bathroom and laundry - if you do decide on Neolith, I could give you the Haynes paint and polytec colours that I am using if it helps). Porcelain is more expensive than Quartz (both in raw material and in installation costs), but then so is marble. I am using a lot of Neolith in my house, so I shopped around to find a stone cutter who was crafty with maximising the use of each sheet of Neolith (to avoid wastage and minimise the number of sheets needed). It made a huge difference. My house was also designed around the sheet size - Neolith sheets are 3.2 metres long (so you can have a 3.2 metre benchtop or island without needing a join). You need to use 12mm (or thicker) sheets for benchtops. (Splashbacks and showers use 6mm thick porcelain sheets - Neolith does 2 different matching sheets for each marble design, so you can bookmark and pattern match the splashback). Also be aware that the marble pattern is only printed on the top of all of the brands of porcelain. If you want to continue the pattern on the “lips” of your benches, this needs to be a beveled edge (which you also need to do with quartz or marble if you want any thickness of “lip” to your benchtop). So you also have to factor in the stone cuts needed to create the benchtop “lips” when calculating sheet cutting and usage. I am not having edging on my benctops and am instead going for the slim European look of “floating” benchtops. I am not worried that the 1.2 cm edge all the way around the benches will be plain white. On the marble etching and staining - at my brother’s house it is everything that has been a problem - from wooden chopping boards, tea cups, wine glasses, metal cans, citrus, vinegar, tomato, water (yep even water marks marble!), oil, certain plastics, berries, juice, even some metal cans…. I understand what you designer is saying about the beauty of natural marble and how it has been used and loved for hundreds of years in European houses - but frankly the modern day types of stains (where the toddler smeared their blue playdough, the round marks of tins, the outline of wine bottles, coffee and tea cups and tins etc) are just not pretty!