I would have your bench top supplier cut a thin batten of timber in the same 40mm thickness, and fix this as a front to a white melamine shelf. For a couple of reasons. Melamine is easiest to keep clean, whereas a varnish or oiled timber will require constant maintenance and resealing if it is used often, it will discolour and even with the sealant it does not like moisture, being natural, all timbers expand and contract in temp changes. Melamine is stable, and won't be seen from the viewpoint, and the timber front will make it look more substantial. Secondly, this thickness will be necessary to avoid shelf deflection, where lengths over 900mm will commonly sag under weight. Reinforcing your shelf with timber battens will avoid this, and the timber edge strip again hides it. If all this seems a little too hard, just invest in solid timber shelves of around 40mm, but have the tops laminated.

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in replying! So many thoughtful suggestions, thank you. I haven't yet got around to taping out the kitchen, boundsgreener, but I hope too soon. Even just pacing it out has made me realise you're all right, there's no way a G shape will work. The space at the sink surrounded by the benches would be less than one metre. So that's good to realise now! I can't do banquet seating as there's a window behind the table. The wall behind the buffet unit is structural so we can't remove it (and I'd imagine it might get expensive too!) So what I'm thinking now is more a revamp/update with the current layout, but still moving the fridge across and creating a pantry, plus an appliances garage (love that term!) in the corner. Oven, sink and dishwasher in the same spots. This will still give more room for dining as the fridge won't be taking up space on that side of the kitchen. I'm now worried about losing the bench space that the buffet unit gives us, though. It was going to be offset by the extra G shape, but as that's gone and there won't be any room for the buffet (though I'd love to keep it as an island on wheels, hazzaran!) there will be less bench space than before. I like the idea about a wooden benchtop to save money, Pazz, but is it practical? Won't it get lots of bacteria in it? I'd still love some natural stone in there somewhere, and was thinking of those beautiful hexagon marble tiles they have on the Block. That might be cheaper than a caesarstone benchtop! I am not a big fan of laminate, though, for some reason it always really looks really plasticy to me. Thanks again for all your great advice and for helping avert a layout disaster! I really appreciate all the advice.

Now that's a cook's kitchen, are you keeping all appliances along with benchtops. You said that you were keeping the same footprint, if the base cabinets are still in good condition would you keep them as is and just replace the wall cabinets with Bunnings paintable shaker style in a soft grey and paint the walls the same colour, still keeping the oven cabinet in Beech. At the moment your kitchen has a lot of great stainless steel and wonder why the bronze cooper splash back, trend?, I can see by the photo that the kitchen is a bit dark, so perhaps a mirrored splash back would reflect more light and would look great with the stainless benchtop and the soft grey. If you are not keen on the mirror for the splash back and breakfast bar the white tiles could be replaced with French Country white and grey tiles Beech wood looks great with greys and black & white. I would look at replacing the Stools, Kmart have $25 dollar stools, different colours Lighting, an easy cheaper lighting is to use track lighting as you only need to have the one connection, tracks can be joined and placed in any shape or position where light is needed, like over the sink. You can use both spotlight and pendant lighting with these. PLEASE replace any open corner shelves with cabinets. This would be very cheap to achieve, good luck

This isn't a personal recommendation as I have not yet purchased anything from this company, but I've been admiring the timber floating shelves on their website. https://shelvingshop.com.au/product-category/floating-shelves/wood-effect-finish/ Or you can buy the brackets and have the shelf custom made in whatever material and size you want. https://shelvingshop.com.au/product-category/brackets-2/floating-shelving-brackets/  I think hardware stores also sell brackets by themselves. I was thinking of going the custom route because that means I can ensure the brackets will be attached to the studs. I believe you can paint melamine after proper preparation of the surface, but I doubt if you can stain it.