The Island serves as a good go between from one side of kitchen to other - and a shopping bag drop zone to the pack the fridge and pantry. And as a work surface to put hot things coming out of the oven ! If you decide to scrap the island, then you will need a landing /drop zone for these uses near/on the oven and fridge run. Suggest you have open pantry /book /basket shelving on left wall just inside the room entrance door to stop doors conflicting if you intend to have a self closing fire door here . Modern integrated FF's can be placed next to ovens with no problem - usually I'd suggest FF hinge position next to oven side* to avoid blasts of heat going into FF if both opened at same time. Arrangement would also depend on primary users left or right handed status . As main walkway between oven/FF run and seating area at back of island i'd suggest .95m clearance between front of island and hob run and 1.23m between seating and tall cabinets in this instance. Then be mindful of DW placement so as not to interfere with standing room in front of hob as lots of us leave the DW open for some time while stacking ! *Nb. In America they wouldn't approve if you put the oven on that wall as its the main walkway - it would probably be suggested to be placed on horizontal bottom wall . It's quite sensible if you think about it ! For a professional independent kitchen plan that you can shop around with - you can contact an independent kitchen planner (like me) If you like ! Click on my name to be taken to my pro page for examples and prices etc ! You will save much more than the design fee by shopping around and comparing like for like !!! Kind regards Karen OnePlan

There is no right or wrong answer - and as suppliers and installers of award winning versions of both bifold AND sliding door systems we have no bias towards one or the other. Our teams install nationally, from Shetland to the Channel Islands...and everywhere in between. When we get asked this question by customers there are a number of initial things we would ask to try and make some recommendations - and we have written a blog all about these. Probably the most valuable question is realistically how often are you likely to have the doors fully open. Our SF55 aluminium bifold doors can be manufactured up to 1.1m wide and have an industry leading narrow sightline of 115mm (the amount of frame visible when closed) and over a 29' 6" run of 9x1m panels you will have 8 intermediate frames totalling 920mm of aluminium. We do two aluminium sliding door systems the Grand Slider (83mm sightlines) or our award winning theEDGE (narrow 24mm sightline) - both can take glass sizes of up to 3m wide so over a 9m run of 3x3m panels you will have 166mm of intermediate aluminium visible with the Grand Slider and just 48mm visible with theEDGE. So if your doors are closed more often than open there is significantly less frame than glass in sliding doors - maximising your views - however the trade off is that unless you opt for a pocket slider you are not able to open a sliding door completely to create a total 9m opening like you are with bifold doors - you would only open 6m of the 7m (or 6.75m if you went for four sliding door panels). In terms of thermal performance both SF55 and the sliding door systems can be double or triple glazed and achieve pretty similar U-Values and in terms of price the SF55 and Grand Slider systems work out to be almost identical - although theEDGE is a bit more because of the advanced engineering required to create such a narrow profile. There is also the option of the SF75 bifold door which has a U-Value of 0.9W/m2K which is the lowest of any aluminium system on the market. Given your location and your views, my personal recommendation would be sliding doors, because you maximise your views even when closed - but it is whatever is best for you and it may well be a combination of sliding doors and fixed frames provide the perfect and cost effective solution. If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask and good luck with your project!

Fiona - I’ve been looking into replacing some doors with Crittal style and have contacted loads of suppliers and companies. The one that I’ve been most impressed with is the company mentioned above by Lou Valdini - Merlin Windows in Yorkshire. (I’m in the East Midlands). They gave me a competitive quote really quickly and then I got a quote from the fitter mentioned. (They fit across the UK and they link in with Merlin to ensure timings etc). It’s likely that we will go ahead in the next few months. (Just need to convince husband as he prefers chunky timber 😂)

Hi Keswing, Although bifolding doors can give you a 95% width opening, they will be closed much of the time, and when they are, there are thicker and numerous sightlines blocking the view. Your short patio space will be restricted by the stacked doors too. You can of course have them opening and stacking inside the property, although this may cause similar problems of limiting space indoors. Your main exit door could be on the left or right depending on configuration and which side you want to stack the doors so this should not be an issue for you - why do you only have the option for a main door on the right? You could have two exit doors in the middle if you really wanted and the bifolding doors stack to either side, but the width is not really wide enough for this. A 3-panel sliding doors system, with all three panels sliding will give you the sliding door system with the biggest open gap, but will have two visible sightlines when closed. A 2-panel sliding doors sytem will provide the best view (as only one sightline in the middle of the doors will be visible when closed) but the openable width will only be 50%. Sliding doors with exceptionally slim sightlines, such as our VISION Ultra Slim Sliding Doors would be my recommendation :-)