Your suggestions are really greatly appreciated. My town house unit is under complete exterior re-cladding works, prompting quite substantial interior makeover (i.e installtion of ducted air con, replacing wall to wall carpet with timber upstairs, and tiles in open space downstaris, replacing creamy wall paper will be replaced with neutral white paint. So my green kitchen with creamy formica counter (bench) top should go. I don't hate green simply had egounh of it after long 15 yeras! My small U shape kitchen is due for complete makeover, I think! I'll probably go with new cabinets (lower one for microwave) up to the ceiling, when move fridge at the end I'll go with panel with matching colour up to the ceiling, expanding counter top on the other side to the fridge. I guess that removal of the cupboard can be compesated with extension of the counter top so we can fit 3x drawer underneath and cabinets up to the ceiling can provide some useful storage space. Backsplash in same white palette or darker in contrast? Your kind ideas please!

Hi Helen. I thought I might share photos of my kitchen- which happens to be on a farm- as the layout is very similar to yours. We planned to do white subway tiles (and still might as we are just doing the bathrooms with the tiles and will see what we have left...) but used clear coated cement board as a temporary measure and find it quite serviceable as we haven't finished the kitchen. We did the open shelves first and then added bits and pieces of shelving afterwards. These are white washed Douglas Fir. The shelves just below the temporary ply bench top (going to do polished concrete benchtops later) are lined with galvanised tin. The lazy Susan in the corner cupboards are really handy! Hope these photos might be of interest. It's a very serviceable kitchen work in progress!

I think the L shape works for the shape of the room. I am not going to consider the appliances etc, personally I do not like a sink in the middle of the Island Bench so I think you have made the right choice there. The only thing that sticks out to me immediately is that your Island looks too small I think you should extend that out to make the end flush with the length of your cabinets on the garage wall side. It looks like you could probably add another meter onto that end, which will add more seating, more storage and to me would appear more balanced.

Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate your help. I think we are on the same track. The rugs I have brought home have fought with the terracotta colour plus the busyness of the small tiles. I did come across this picture on Houzz, which I think looks good. What do you think? It would need some of that burnt orange from the chair upholstery as well as the aubergine to tie in but I liked the dark border line, it matched with the grout.