Hello everyone! We have been around Houzz for a while but didn't get a chance to properly introduce ourselves. This is Said from Finite Solutions. We dedicate ourselves into creating the most elegant and functional smart home systems and bespoke home cinemas. Anything that optimise the clients' lifestyles at home and gives them better chances to enjoy their lives, we are there to help! We love working alongside interior designers and architects to implement home technologies that doesn't clutter or obtrude. We would love to help out with any home tech related questions, so feel free to get in touch! P.S: Loving the Houzz! Simply the biggest revolution in home improvement in ages!

Hi weezer16. I've had the same problem several times. If I were you I would keep to a fairly simple shape like a drum e.g http://www.pagazzi.com/shop-for-lighting/ceiling-lights/davis-extra-large-pendant-silver.html I can't tell from your photos whether a warmer colour would go better but the shape won't detract from the wall paper on the chimney Brest and ties in with the fairly simple mantle but a larger size will stop it blending into the background. Then you can add a bit more interest with your cabinet lighting etc.

The lantern roof joining up with the Crittall windows - so much light and height. Couldn’t have it in my house though as we are S facing and would bake. The cat is also gorgeous! The cabinets, though beautifully made, you can keep. I prefer drawers. I’d ditch the old style tap for a more practical level mixer. And brick as a splashback would be hard to keep clean. It does all look gorgeous but not the most practical.

Susangirl, thank you for your understanding. It is not merely that you show some basic human sympathy and decency, though; it is that you have identified the some of the practicalities. I'd like to know what Jan Johnson thinks I should have done instead. I was very well aware of the risk of feathering the owner's nest, but because I was grateful to have any place to stay, as I have said, I worked on the house. And there is also the issue which JJ hads not picked up on, which is that we did not have any choice. The place was essentially unfirnished and in a terrible state. Should we have abandoned any hope of a decent quality of life in case we were finally mistreated? This place was our home. Should we have applied the same approach wherever we went thereafter? What kind of life is that? Not so far from the kind of life people led in the shacks and tied-cottages in pre-war WWII plantations in Louisiana, perhaps, which I'm reading about just now. The comment "Did you think to keep a diary?" is seeking to blame the victims of greed and utter lack of scruple, and indeed conceivably downright fraud. I think about many things, Jan Johnson! A diary does not cut a lot of ice evidentially. What's your point? The kind of fraud which, as the Inland Revenue told me, does not get investigated as often as it should because there is so much of it - I refer to the avoidance of CBT, which is why we were told to leave furniture items behind. So that the house looked occupied. Note too that it was an ex-council house. The owner had bought it from council tenants who had themselves bought it. That's one more affordable property removed from the system.