Much as I love wood blinds, in your case I would go with the white. I'm afraid the wood blinds would chop up this expanse of windows where as the white would give you a blank slate. You could always add color in roman shades, etc. (Love the flowering trees!)

It looks great ! As the house is lighter and darker greys , I'd add a white gloss painted 'rail' around the top -- hard to tell appropriate sizes from the photos , but probably pine 150-200mm wide and 60mm tall . Easiest would be to simply nail it to the posts and top rails , but if you added some spacers ( cut some 100 x 50 pine into 100mm lengths , then stain them the same dark grey fence colour , nail to the posts and probably every 'halfway' too , it would really 'lift' it more ? IMO that would really tie it all in with the house , and look classy , for maybe $2k tops .

It sounds like you've been through quite the rollercoaster with your building project! That's really frustrating to hear, especially when you had a vision that you were attached to. Construction dilemmas can be a lot to handle, and I can only imagine how the stress might have piled up over time. If you're feeling stressed (and who wouldn't be in a situation like this?), you might want to consider working off some of that tension. Since you're into home design and creating beautiful spaces, you might appreciate the aesthetic and functionality at Hitsona's fitness studio. Sometimes a little self-care and a change of scenery can inspire new ideas for other areas in life, including home design.

A very simple layout keeping the floor space within the kitchen, the WIP takes up a lot of space with not much gain, The broom cupboard could be moved to the Laundry/entrance, narrow. If the wall has been bumped out to the eaves on the deck side giving an extra 300 depth to the kitchen you could make the island 2700 x 1200 and all drawers. The wall of narrow pantry will hold all pantry needs and more, no deep cupboards to dig into. cheers