That sounds nice but I was wanting a warm look.. Anyone seen a nice wallpaper.. Forgot to mention we've got a dado rail also half way up the wall apart from fireplace wall. Thanks Regards Christine

Sill height might be right. How high is it? Have a look online for the height of the frame for wall hanging a toilet. I'm guessing about 900mm.

Thank you for everyone's comments, had no idea this thread would prove so popular when I started it. We are plastering this week and we have finally bought most things for the kitchen. I did find some real 'finds' though if anyone is looking. Not sure where you are based, but regarding electrical goods we researched all our own and narrowed down our list, and once we had that we looked online for the best prices for each appliance. Instead of buying from lots of different places we took it to Bentalls, who not only matched, but also cost us less, and beat some online prices with a good 'deal' price they also then will hold on to them until you need them, but if anything goes wrong you have 'bentalls' rather than several online dealers to return items to. RDO Appliances also do this if there is one near you, but i'd advise you to research prices first. Another thing we found was inserts for the kitchens. Through our kitchen supplier these were expensive, bin inserts, pull out drawers, pull out larders, even the pop up sockets, sourced seperately through ebay and online we managed to save quite a lot of money by doing this, so our fitter will still have the right things on the day, but we are not getting the inserts from the supplier. What else..... erm kitchen worktop, unbelievably the exact same worktop, same material, same cut outs etc.. same sizes differed between suppliers by 3k! so do shop around for your quartz and granite.

Hi rinq. Thanks so much for all the thought you've put into this, it's so helpful. You're right re bedroom...it pretty much isn't needed now (Mum still pretty young and fit), but she does want to future proof it such that one day she can be on ground floor permanently. Re joists, she is starting to get builders in just to talk through the job. But will likely need an architect too I guess re joists and plans? I think the reason we were automatically thinking ground floor extension originally is that we want that expansive kitchen, dining, family room, but also a separate formal sitting room...not sure we have the sitting room capacity even with the reconfiguring that you've shown? I do like the idea of bathroom and laundry at the front where views aren't needed.