Hello Marcelle, I am an interior designer . I can tell you a simple inexpensive way to change the look of your kitchen. Looking at the photo you sent the different cabinet heights , and all the objects on the stove wall are very busy . Your modern house is wanting a cleaner , simple look. I would lower the small cabinets so that the top is at the same height as the others in the room. And put doors on , that will hide the clutter. Next I would do a tile backsplash above the stove , up to the same height. The whole kitchen will be pulled together by the continuous top line. There is a small light wood cabinet with baskets in the foreground . I would paint it white , or the same dark accent color of the cabinets you have. I don't think you would need to change the beams then , they would add interest and drama once everything else was subdued. Lisa

We got the IKEA shelves that are pictured in the butlers pantry photo I posted when we were on holiday in Melbourne, Australia. We don't have IKEA here in New Zealand! Hubby is going back over in May/June so will get him to get more of that sort of thing when there. We would pay about 4x the price for that sort of thing here in NZ. I need to work out what I will do now where the fridge was and there is the angle change (does that make sense?).

Hello, Wondering if anyone can show me a photo of their kitchen that has a darker island top and a lighter back bench? or similar to... Thinking of doing a dark grey stone 3m island with waterfall ends with a white stone top on the back bench (this will have the hob/oven on it). Cabinetry is all white with wooden flooring. Thanks!

my suggestion would be to move the sink, dishwasher and doorways to make space for the double fridge as i can't find any obvious advantage to removing the pantry walls or changing the gas heater location as that makes a good focal point with a wall mounted TV for a new seating area, study nook and kids play area, have a dining area in the old sitting room, use old kitchen doorway for extra storage and lose the side window and move theh lounge door closer to the heater to improve walking path between lounge and kitchen