Thanks :) All very good points. We thought about having the cabinet doors put in for the fridge but we personally haven't found them to be too practical in the past. Ones we've used haven't seemed to seal so well. We are also planning to upgrade the fridge in the next couple if years. Good thinking about placement of the microwave too. We have a power pack range built into the wall cabinets so unfortunately we can't put the microwave above the cooktop. I like the idea of the appliance cupboard being turned into a corner cupboard, although I'm unsure if that would mean that you then couldn't easily access it from the other side of the bench..? I'm hoping our kids will sit at the breakfast bar and make their own toast etc while keeping out of the kitchen itself.... I also wonder if we should have the wall cabinets all in the same line or if we could drop the usable ones, on either side of the power pack, down further to give us more storage....? And (I promise this is my last dilemma!) does anyone have any ideas on whether to place the 1/4 sink to the left or the right of the main sink? Again it's one of those things that I'm going around in circles about....next to the prep area vs next to the dishwasher.....? ...... Ahhhh decisions, decisions ;-) Thanks again

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?).

I agree you probably need to centre the vanity and the cabinet on the wall or they could look a bit odd! You don't say why you don't want a space between the window and the vanity - just my opinion, but I would think 300mm could be quite useful for a bin, a clothes basket or box, or a small stool for putting clothes on? The only alternative to leaving a space, is to fill it with something as the response above suggested. To avoid it interfering with the window, you could make this something lower, so it sits level with the top of the vanity. This could be built in and the wall lining put over it to create a single "shelf" level with the underside of the vanity top, or if you can find some freestanding open shelving of the correct width, which could also be cut to the correct height, you could wedge that between the wall and the vanity side when fitting the vanity. Just bear in mind also, that you'll lose some of your towel hanging space if you put something too high in the space.

We have dark grey and wood cabinets (all matt) and going for a (fine) marble look benchtop - Laminex. The gloss benchtop sample looks really nice and I think it would reflect some light in the room. But the kitchen designer says that it shows marks, scratches and fingers very easily and we should opt for matt. We have three young boys... Any advice or past experiences would be greatly appreciated. Ta