We are planning a new house, and have chosen a soft grey melamine kitchen with perfectly plain cupboards, and darkish handles with coppery hightlights. The bench-top is a new ceramic tile type of material in a slightly darker grey/concrete color, with coppery highlights through it - very nice. We have discussed having the center island a darker color as this is very visible from the dining room, and thought it would be a nice feature. There will be a copper colored Formica under the servery for a highlight, and the cupboards facing the dining room on each end of the unit will be the darker wood or melamine. The only thing we have been offered to use for the cupboards and each end on the unit is charcoal wood grain finish melamine, but now we are getting cold feet. Has anyone seen this used, and would it look a bit cheap...? Would it cost much more to use a proper wood...? raewyng

I desperately in need of advice as I cannot make a decission.... sorry, pics are in comments as I could not attach them here, new to this.... 1. I am unsure which colour to paint the front door, the wooden has an ugly stained brownish colour, happy to sand or to paint, but mental block about colour - grey/black or white? 2. Thinking about recladding the bricks with horizontal wooden slates as per last pic.Is that a good idea? Not suited? Friends say too expansive here in NZ but i am happy to pay if it will suit the house. 3.Shall we put a deck in front of the french door connecting the entrance, which I would then cover with wood as well to get rid of the concrete. Too much wood? And what about the planters, leave the bricks, cover as well, I prefer to cover them.Input much appriciate as my dear partner would leave it as is:) House specs: 1951 house, render, with the bit of fake brick in the front. The entrance face the front garden, it is visible from the street through trees.I love the good size garden, obviously the deck will take a bit away, hence I would not choose a big deck. My thought deck and then one step down to sit on as well, if that makes sense.Thanks for everybodies input - i am in the brainstorming phase. We are in the South Island New Zealand. Sorry, struggling with uploading pics. I will keep trying to get the photo of the whole house up.Screen just turns white when i try to upload

It's not showing in the Ozzie forum. You need to change your country to oz, then start a new thread, with the photos and post it. If you go to the Ozzie forum, you won't be able to find it. So what I think you have done, is just change your setting...but you need to post fresh I am afraid! So you will have two posts, one in NZ forum and one in oz...but the Ozzie peeps will only see your oz one, so don't mention posting previously Keep that between us. :)

I suspect I've driven every South Island road over the years haha -- once I worked out to look for the Port Hills I worked out the one way street system in Chch haha , then half it fell over and they put cones everywhere . I've been out to Oxford and Hororata and Twizel and Otematata more times than I could count , same with Gore and Haast and Reefton . One of our Motorsport customers lives on the edge of Keri Keri -- he has 4 or 5 race cars and maybe 30 classic cars , so often its me that drives up and collects or swaps a car with him -- he spends $200k a year on motorsport , a fair amount of that with us , so I do Whangarei and Kerikeri several times a year too .