Ok, been a while but we have (slowly) but doing some things. 1) New kitchen shelves and new wall mounted spice rack (ikea picture shelves), 2) New white unit at the back of kitchen (with new coffee machine on it) 3) Mirror on the wall about white unit 4) Two new more modern ceiling flights to replace the chandeliers 5) Painted the entire room myself, except the ceiling as you can see. I simply don't have a ladder tall enough to get up there as the ceilings are so high. 6) New PVC table cloth to stop my 8 month old ruining the wooden table. 7) To the left of the new white unit, got rid of wine fridge (did shed a tear) and bought a new standard fridge to help with the load of the other fridge - so we now have a fridge for veggies / fruit and my sons food and one for meat / drinks/ cheese etc The result, i think, is a much nicer, lighter and spacious room and we've managed to create a hell of a lot more cupboard and fridge space for ourselves which was much needed. I hated the old chandeliers and i'm delighted with the new lights we chose. I'll do some better photos soon but wanted to update this. Thanks to all who made comments and suggested things ! (of course all the entire apartment is 100% High CRI Dimmable LED Lights (my own company). Chris

What colour is your worktop and walls? Pretty much anything will go with the slate grey units as they are neutral. Wood or wood effect adds warmth, white tiles look great and reflect light, limestone would look great and add texture. What sort of style is the kitchen?

Well, still nothing to report, and we are absolutely no further forward on deciding the paint colours. Last night I went into Homebase after work yet again for a couple more testers - put them up, nahhhhh. This hallway has been a complete nightmare from start to finish and I wish that we'd left it well alone. I suppose in the long-run it'll be worth it, but I'm finding it really hard to muster up any enthusiasm on it now - it's been dragging on for months. @OnePlan: Yeah, I would consider laying the stair runner myself for sure, it's not the laying that was the issue, it was the fact it'd been cut wrong that's the problem, and it looked stupid. However, at the moment, the sooner this room is done the better, I just want to see the back of it, so as the carpet place do the service, I'll happily pay a professional to do it in an afternoon, rather than me spending any more time on it. Also, I have a terrible terrible habit of injuring myself whenever I come into contact with Carpet Grippers. No matter how long or short, removing them from the floor, moving them from the floor to the rubbish container, or even from the rubbish container into the dustbin - my hands always look like I've been attacked with a cheese grater. Seriously, I am 100% certain, that at some point in time when carpet grippers are involved I will need a plaster! @Carolina: Oh don't you worry about that, I've got some scrap paper and a head-full of ideas. Another project is forthcoming (may start this weekend actually) involving an area to the side of our house currently used for dumping things (1m.80 across the back and 2m.24 to the front) Separate thread incoming :)

I think that by the end of this week we'll finally be completed !!!! We had the carpenters around yesterday to fit the skirting boards and put in a nice hardwood threshold and to fit door architraves etc. Sometime this week we should have the painters back to put a 3rd coat on the walls & ceiling, paint the skirtings & doors (F&B Worsted like the rest of the house) Then before the end of the week the builders are back just to finish the little things (the wire for the radiator needs to look better, either trunking or clipped neatly to the wall and painted) etc. We did the standard ceremonial trip to IKEA over the weekend and got the cabinets, blinds, shelves, picture frames etc (plus the obvious 150 tea-light candles that will never get used) It's within touching distance. I phoned the landscape people yesterday and given them 2 weeks notice to start their work as they need to hire a massive sump grinder as the one they have isn't big enough, and give them time to prep. now that the skip and builder have tidied everything up.