Excuse my duh-ness but i'm having difficulty trying to follow whats going on here. Are these two photos an exact replica of your house and pool ? If not a hasty sketch with dimensions could help a lot. By kitchen wall do you mean the wall behind the bar ? And where is the pool wall ? Are you considering the covered area as being "inside" ? Sorry for all those questions lol Sometimes when you have a design problem you need to turn it inside out or on it's head. If you can't beat it maybe embrace it by making a feature of it : i.e. contrast by having the lightest colored pool surround and a great blue or tile inside and under the overhang, something that will echo the water color ? If you have a great covered area as in photo you'll most likely be spending a lot of time there and it could be soothing to be able to sometimes retire into a darker inside. In my book, 10M isn't small and also contrasting two floor colors doesn't necessarily make a space seem smaller and confined and may in fact even open it up. Could it be that you've thought yourself into a box here ? Sometimes one needs to give it all a good shake up and see how it resettles.

Hello There: Your home looks like it has some good bones and period features. No one has yet to comment on marrying subway tiles on lower walls, with tongue and groove cladding on upper walls of your space. I am thinking this finished look could well end up looking quite "busy." Lots of competing "grid" lines, etc. If I understand correctly, this space is actually, or ultimately will be, a bathroom. Perhaps you do not want a wood product on lower sections of the walls because of potential water damage, etc. That said, there are excellent paints, sealants, etc., that you could apply that would guard against this. If painting, using Zinsser Sealant as base coat is a good starting point. As another alternative, you could use much larger tiles on lower portion of walls, oriented vertically. I am thinking 12" x 18" (or 24") tiles. Of course, these are more challenging to install, given their greater size and therefore, weight. Despite this, if you have an excellent tiler, it can definitely be done. For example, you could choose glass tiles, either clear or coloured. Going even further, you could install glass panels to lower sections of walls. You could "back paint" them or not. You could apply paint or even wallpaper (with a wonderful design and colour way you'd likely never tire of) prior to installing glass panels. The wallpaper idea, especially if design is more curvilinear in nature, would not be competing with verticality of tongue and groove, but rather, would complement and enhance it. If beautiful wallpaper (or heck, even a mural or timeless design could be painted directly on walls) is applied and then covered with clear glass panels, the overall effect would be akin to that of an art installation. Naturally, glass panels would be considerably more expensive, but would provide a more seamless, less cluttered appearance. Should you like this idea, simply check what thickness of glass would work best, both for aesthetic and safety purposes. If you have a bit of time to shop around for best supplier and price point, you could well suss out a source that will not "break the bank!" :) To affix glass panels to the walls you want to use hardware that is anodized. As an idea, you could use anodized lug nuts that are usually used for automotive purposes. I just looked up "anodized lug nuts" and see they are available in wide array of wonderful, decorative colours. This hardware would be visibly holding your glass panels in permanent place, but they would be a small attractive design element, ultimately adding another layer of visual interest to your space. I believe glass panels would tie in very well with your great, textured/mottled glass panelled door and transom. Too, I think the overall look would achieve a really attractive marriage as various materials, along with period architectural features would "read:" old, new, and timeless. I realize this design concept may seem counterintuitive to you and/or others, but I can "see it" and think it could be just fab! All The Best, Sharon Black, interior designer and contractor

Paint your house and ceiling first. You are probably asking for trouble if you put the floors down only to paint over the top of them. If you can, remove the tiles in the kitchen and paint just behind the line of the splashback too. Once painting is done replace kitchen benchtop then splashback. I would call the bathroom its own job and do it individually, unless you only need to paint the ceiling and if a tiler doesn't need to be brought in for anything else in the house? A lot of bathrooms now are getting tiled from floor to the ceiling if this is the case, paint the ceiling first, then tile. If walls need to be painted, it wouldn't really matter if you did them first or last, though if you did it first expect to do some touch-ups. I guess if you really wanted, you could do the first coat before tiles then second after... I don't exactly like stopping and starting painting, so I would do the walls (if they needed to be done) in one hit, after its been tiled. Well that's the order in which I would do everything... Really, for what you're asking, the painting could be done at anytime, but to make life easy on yourself, I would definitely recommend doing it before the floor.

The all black kitchen looks scary as. Maybe because there's no lightness in there at all.