Hi again Ramona! Thank you so much for your interest - you have to let me know if you're ever in Wales and let me buy you a drink! We haven't done anything to the room in the last week; a couple of friends came by and said they like it (and then moved promptly to the cinema room which is much more exciting). What we manage to do is actually decide on a design of the shelving/ cabinets going in the alcove; that in itself is a great achievement, as I always tend to like at least 2 totally different designs and then take forever to choose one. Anyway, below are two photos of the style we would like to have. I know you suggested no floating shelves; however I'm not ready to go all the way traditional - I've not grown up that much! I like the clean look in those photos and we would probably go with the black and white scheme. Also, I've decided to use the 'bulls eye' painting on top of the mantel, which would throw out the purple theme and bring a red-orange one! But that is why I prefer the background (walls, sofas) to be neutral - I can then play with different colour schemes without too much trouble, just new rugs and cushions and paintings and you have a completely new look! And that's why I think classic (not traditional, but classic) works best, you can always accessories with whatever's the current trend and then change easily when it becomes dated. I guess living in the UK made me adhere to their way of thinking (although I made an exception with the kitchen!) The other 'close contender' was this other photo - they also have the shutters we would be getting next week. Apart from the high gloss, that style looks more formal to me because the shelves are 'anchored' in the cabinet, not the walls. We haven't decide if we're going to paint the ceiling or not - I think you were right and it would create a bit of drama with the pendant - I guess we would decide after everything else is in place. Many thanks again, Luciana

You're almost there with the hospitality area. Simply extend what you have, to the right as you come out of the back door. Your neighbour on that side has already terraced to the extent you have something to butt up against. You need to decide whether any food will be served from indoors or whether to build in, say, a barbeque, a pizza oven or some other idea for preparing hot food outdoors. There are so many to choose from it can become overwhelming and confusing so I'd suggest narrowing it down quite a lot before beginning to search for your ideal. There are a variety of methods for providing seating which is a part of the landscape. You could use walling, capped perhaps with limestone to match the patio or select a contrasting material; sleepers; moveable furniture, to mention just four off the top of my head without giving it any thought. Looking at the bottom right corner, it would appear it gets little if any sunlight but inside the back fence looks shaded too. So north is roughly to the top right corner of your pictures from the top? Or is it more directly over the back fence? Figuring that one out will offer some guidance as to where to plant which species of plants. The garden is currently featureless. It is plants, not stone and props, that bring a garden to life. I'm afraid "general usage" is too general a term to interpret into a design concept. Who is it to cater for and what would they like to do there? Adults? Children? Old? Young? Do you want lawn? Planting? Play area? Seating? Loungers? Only you and whoever else lives there can think through or articulate these aspects. The rest of us, as said earlier, can only guess.

Ok, so I've never commented on Houzz before (despite being a huge reader) but the shape of your house really intrigued me as it's very charming but quite tricky. Looking at just the ground floor, I think that an extension that fills in the 'rectangle' floorpan of the whole house might work. The loo and shower should be moved so that they are not blocking off movement flowing through the ground floor. To get a bigger hallway you could move back the wall currently going into the kitchen, so that you incorporate the small window into the hall. Remove the wall by the stairs and turn the stairway itself into a feature which would make the hallway - and stairs themselves - feel much roomier (I can't see from your floorpan whether they are already open to the hallway). What's currently the kitchen could become a utility with downstairs loo (move the shower upstairs into new bathroom over new extension, taking a bit from bedroom 1?). I have recently had an extension kitchen built on our own house and turned the old (tiny) kitchen into a laundry/boot room - best decision ever with a growing family! In the utility room you could put in a stacked wash/tumbler (if you want a tumbler, or else just cupboards/laundry on top) and a downstairs loo, as well as more storage. In the new kitchen, you could have double/french/sliding/bifold doors as per your taste looking out SE into the garden, creating a long sightline - and feeling of space - from the garden right through the kitchen into the far room. This would create a spacious-feeling kitchen tied into the rest of the house. You could block up the door into the current dining room and take out the wall between the dining/living. Keeping the dining room as dining, this gives you a cosy room there for small intimate dinners but also the potential to have big dinner parties on a long extended table stretching out into the living room. When not entertaining, that slightly self-contained room (as it's not a through-route as is the rest of the house) could be used as a study/quieter reading room. You now have a house that is welcoming for entertaining - guests come through the front door, where there's space for coats/hatstands, straight through the open door into the living room and are greeted by the fireplace ahead of them, and look round to see the dining table. Downstairs loo for guests nicely separated from all the action. Please excuse my very rough sketch of what I mean, and its lack of scale!

I was going to suggest to change the cabinets doors/handles and the plinths ? and keep the carcass, for the island replace or add on a side end panels matching the doors as it does in the picture? lets hang that out of the window for now but don t let go until your positive that you don t want it? firstly , the floors , if your planning to change just the tiles so it keeps the kitchen separated from the dinner/living ? brown wood style porcelain tile or going through out with the brown tiles For the walls Farrow & Ball ,Cooking Apple Green xxx it seems ,You have a backdated ? cooker/oven,extractor fan, microwave, fridge , it does remind me off some thing from Back To The Future , THEY NEED TO GO,stain less steel all the way Mosaic tiles, brown with a mix colours, above the kitchen work top upstands , or you can continue the paint for the walls i can t see the sink ,is it white?, probably you will need to up date it as well ? stainless steel and a its wise to get a deep base