New Zealand! You live in paradise! Porch paint is specially made paint for wooden porches or decks. Its not a stain but an actual hard wearing & weather resistant paint that allows the wood texture to show through. Its safe for indoor or outdoor use. It is self priming & self sealing. I have used porch paint for wood paneling & kitchen cabinets & when remodeling a staircase formerly covered with carpet. It comes oil based or water based acrylic. I prefer oil based for a glossy easy to clean finish for a wooden table top. You may check your local home improvement/hardware store or paint store. I use Glidden Porch Paint. Takes me only 2 coats for white & the oil based goes on easily with a roller. Dries quickly too. Good luck!

I would wait for the rug, until you have the shutters up and your furniture placed..it may take on a character of its own and you'll want to compliment. My first thought though was to coordinate with your kitchen and incorporate some black, with a black/beige stripped rug, which would be fun with the wallpaper and perhaps paint your chairs black, add the shutters and you could paint the window trim black and add a large black chandelier.

Possible suggestions if sticking to same floor plan and hands firmly glued to the budget Leave the stove where it is. Down the side of the stove securely attach slimline fireproof panelling to the height of the oven's back control panel and the depth of the oven. Floor to ceiling if you prefer then if you wanted to you could change out the door itself, that is put the door handle to the right of the door so it swings back flush with the fireproof panelling. Put the dishwasher under the stainless steel bench top left of the sink. Take all the cabinetry out where the dishwasher is currently housed place the fridge in the centre of that wall building functional cabinetry around it. Get rid of the cupboard at the end of the stainless steel bench replace it with a wheeled butchers block the same width and depth of bench also have hinged sides so you can get extra useable bench top surfacing. You could then wheel it around include brakes on it of course so little hands don't go racing around with it.

My new kitchen will be light grey cabinets, white and grey stone bench tops. My current dining table is a clear glass top, black leather chairs with chrome legs/framing. I love these gold polished glass pendants for over my island bench but will they look okay with my dining suite or is it too different? I can go for the grey glass lights but they are quite opaque during the day.