So much emphasis is placed on floors and walls when designing a room. The ceiling is at best a distant relation and as such gets a coat of paint and some randomly placed light fittings. This is a huge surface area that could be used to enhance the room. This is an example of a room we did recently. The bedroom had standard height ceilings and due to the nature of the room you would be lying on the bed looking up at a blank white surface. To combat this I designed a simple series of MDF boxes to be mounted on the ceiling with black mirrors inset. I think you will agree this transforms the room !!! www.angel-martin.com

We have also just installed our diy-kitchens kitchen and are very happy with the results. Like you, we need to maximise the storage space and awkward layout and could do so with the wide range of cabinet sizes available. It probably took us a total of a week full time to design it properly (= a few weekends a month spread over 3 months), but this included changing the whole layout of electric cables & sockets & gas and water pipes and a toilet waste pipe running through the kitchen. You have to be methodical with designing a kitchen but diy-kitchens do have a guide to planning a kitchen and working out what layout suits you best. We did the fitting on the weekend which also took 3 weeks (including some clever fitting to get access to the meters and stop cock), but it meant we could maximise the storage space. For about 20 carcasses and end panels, plinths etc but not including appliances we spent £7k on solid wood painted shaker range Linwood.

This is a helpful podcast if you are thinking about what size of kitchen island you want or what to go for: https://shows.acast.com/love-your-kitchen/episodes/exploring-function-over-aesthetics-with-amnda-hughes

I am not an expert but I believe you do not need a fire door on the kitchen if the house is two storeys, only if 3 or 4 storeys. So beware if there is a chance of a loft conversion at some point. Otherwise you are ok. I believe fire doors do not need self closers any more. I’m not sure if you could have a cat flap in a fire door, I can’t see how it would still be fireproof with a hole in it. But hopefully these things are not an issue for you anyway given 2 storeys. I think you would want some sort of door there to stop kitchen noise and smells from pervading the rest of the house, but it’s personal choice. Our kitchen door lives open most of the time but we do shut it eg if cooking fish or curry or if we have people over and kids are sleeping upstairs, or if one of us has got up earlier and starts banging pans and plates and the other is still sleeping...