Hi. I mean the wall with the utility door. I see where you are going with the symmetry for the wall with the aga, but I would make that tall end unit a pantry or place for serving plates, etc. and have the integrated fridge where you currently have the wood upper cabinet. I've been looking at your Ideabook and reading the aga discussion (I'm way behind minnie!) and I see what you are trying to achieve. But none of them have the same layout. When the feature aga corbel wall exists, it doesn't have an induction hob right next to it or it doesn't have a solid wall at the end (one of them is amazing with their deep cupboards either side but there is nowhere to put anything!). Do you have roof lights over the kitchen? Unless you have a giant lantern skylight and lots of under-cabinet lighting planned, please don't have black countertops. Apart from the fact that none of the kitchens in your Ideabook have dark counters, I come from a place of experience. I used to have a massive, terribly planned, kitchen with lovely black granite counters. Not only could only one person work in it even though it was the size of a dance floor, but the lights had to be on all the time and it was really depressing. And as there will be a dining table nearby to take in your beautiful garden, the island perches will be there to keep the cook(s) company, so facing in on the kitchen is perfect.

In both the plans it assumes the garage is newly built so we can play with the size as we need to some extent. At 4m wide it’s wider than a standard single at least so I was thinking 5 x 4 would satisfy a lot of peoples desire for a ‘garage space’ - although you won’t get a car in granted. I think in my original post we were going to build around the existing 6m garage. That is still likely to be the case initially. We need the upstairs more urgently and realistically only have budget for that short term. That will be supported over the existing garage on ‘stilts’ - so the Garage foundation won’t be carrying extra load. However we want to design and plan the ‘end state’ so we only have to do one round of planning and also so that any supporting posts are designed into the downstairs layout already. Hence we are designing it all now. This is clearly not ideal in building terms but that’s where we’re at budget wise - bedrooms are the priority. We can also find out how short our budget is for the full scheme. In truth you are correct we will never use the garage for a car - it will be utility, storage and maybe even a bit of gym equipment. However I think the house looks better balanced by having garage doors. We did something similar in our old house and had part glazed wooden doors on what ended up being a utility room. The doors let in light and also make it easy to get larger objects in/out. We’d would likely add tiled flooring and a heat source too so it’s kind of a room with garage doors. Hopefully that combo would satisfy most people who would use a garage similarly. A car port could be an option - although we’d lose the front garden which is a nice feature and adds curb appeal. We’ll certainly canvass a few agents for their thoughts before we make the final choice. Thanks again.

First thing i saw was where the handles are, why would they be in the middle of the door stile? the handle is to high for the wall units and to low for the base units. Apart from that if you have the space an inframe shaker kitchen can look stunning, but if its in a small kitchen with smaller sized units all the extra vertical lines due to the frames can look very busy. We have a wide range of inframe door styles from our door supplier Marpatt in their 'Infinite Inframe Collection' and they also have a flat door style inframe range (Horizon) which combines the classic design with a contemporay twist. The choice of worktop (a white sparkle quartz goes great with the grey) the style of the extractor and other accessories can really effect the final look you're after.

Sorry- I don’t like your plan. In my opinion the space between the sink and hob is where the work happens so you are actually a bit tight for space. I think the door from the kitchen to the playroom is a massive fail- firstly you are inviting the kids to run past the cooking area, secondly is splits the kitchen and there are safety implication for having a walkway through the kitchen, I also think it makes your kitchen plan feel disjointed. I also think that if the children are young they won’t want to be in the playroom, they will want to be where you are. If you are worried about the playroom being dark this is easily sorted with better lighting and a pale coloured floor. Alternatively make this the grown up room and the kids playroom near the front door. I also think that putting the sitting area around the corner in the extension makes it feel enclosed and a little tight because of its location. I think you have put too many stools at the island and in reality people rarely use more than 3. In my opinion better to have fewer comfortable seats that are spread out with room to eat. I also think you missed an opportunity to have a cupboard near the front door to hide coats, shoes and a vacuum cleaner. I think that if you want an extra shower it may be easier to put this off the bootroom- a bigger utility/ bootroom area may help later to keep sports equipment/ dogs/ ironing etc etc out of sight. There is a privacy argument to put it where you have but I suspect the wall you have moved to take a corner off the kitchen is a job that will require a steel.