Hi There. Congratulations to your daughter! I think its definitely worth investigating the costs of covering the kitchen / diner area with spot lights as covering the entire area with 2 ceiling pendants may not provide adequate lighting when there is no sunlight coming from the living room windows. The lounge area can easily be covered using lamps but it is important to have sufficient lighting in the kitchen area. If spot lights are not an option, you can also consider LED lighting for under cabinet lighting for the wall units as well as the base units. Take a look at our recent blog which also mentions the importance of lighting: http://www.eternalkitchen.co.uk/featured/5-kitchen-design-essentials/

We haven't chosen the pendants yet - we have just dropped a couple of £1 cheapies from B&Q until we find the perfect ones :) We did get a really nice wall sconce from Spark & Bell though for the far end of our kitchen https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/491111424/aureole-brass-double-wall-sconce-with?ref=shop_home_feat_2 We went for a Shaker kitchen in the end... I will post a picture when done as we are still getting floors down and the units scribed in at this stage..!

Hi Artform. No worries, completely understand your advice. We were originally going to go for a straight run along the left with an island, but because our house is angled on the right that did not leave much space for a dining table. We have purposefully left that space in the middle to allow us some flexibility with the room in the future - in case we want to add a small island/chefs table at some point, or change the orientation of the dining table. The decision stemmed from the idea of having separate spaces in the kitchen, I liked the idea of the kitchen/cooking area being at the back of the room (which will be slightly lacking natural light) with the dining area being at the front as we are having bi-fold doors fitted to go out into the garden and thought this would make for a lovely dining space when the doors are opened fully in the summer. The room in question is not massive so the middle space isn't that big at all, we really had to weigh up whether we wanted an island or a large dining table I didn't want the room to be cramped by squeezing both in. By leaving it like this we can always add additional cupboards along the left wall if we wanted to or even still add an island at some point. The dining table was really important to us though hence our decision. Regarding the 3 cabinets on the left, thanks to the lovely angle we have along that wall, it is not possible to have them straight unless we move the doorframe more to the left. In reality that gap and small wall you see on the left hand side of the kitchen door does not exist, the cupboards come flush so we cannot move the wall. So we'll just have to have one cupboard at an angle unfortunately. Our kitchen designers have shown us what this looks like in 3D imaging and I don't have any issues with the final product. Thanks again for the advice though, hope this makes sense!

You could try hammerite. It comes in spray and brush-on formulas and is designed for metal. It should also be fine over the top of small rusty bits.