I think the kitchen will look great with the updates, the cabinets look good to me. I would however remove the 2 glass fronted ŵall cabinets. "Old hat" but why not grey for the cabinets as it ties in with the blinds in the living room? For the worktop have you also looked at the marble effect Quartz as its classic and should never date. Rather than tiles have an upstand and a splashback for the hob in the Quartz. Or if you want the wow, go for clear glass and have wallpaper underneath or commissioned art or silver leaf etc or even just a tiled splas hack. I also like your choice btw, i wouldn't pay attention to the kitchen company, it's your kitchen! Perhaps continue it down the side of the breakfast bar? have you considered cup handles? I love them and they give a contemporary or classic look to a kitchen. Maybe look at adding just a few green accessories to tie in with the blue?

Medina, thank you so much for the inspiration - I was already thinking about 'improving' this cheap silvery cardboard star I'd recently bought and after seeing your post, I realised I could make it look all metallic. My preference though was for a slightly rusted, patina touched copper star... not finished yet, but this is how it looks so far: Thanks again!

I think it depends on your underfloor heating. If you have chosen an electric underfloor heating system the trench heater will be using the same system as your radiators and allows you to have additional heating when the radiators are on only using the Electric UFH in the coldest months. If you have a wet system of UFH I don’t see the benefit but perhaps there is a reason- Perhaps you have a disproportionately large area of glass and your builder is trying to ensure that the room is always comfortable.

Thanks minie, yeah I’m pleased with this one too - the app didn’t have an option for a tall unit with just a single oven, so I had to make do with what they had, but yes, we would just have a single oven in one and the other would have a combo micro/oven and warming drawer so it would all line up. And I just shoved a few things on the shelves without really thinking, but yes the open shelving would look neater than that! I’m also considering whether to have the breakfast bar and the units on the opposite island of the hob to be higher units so it is about 18cm higher than the hob. That way could potentially have the breakfast bar directly opposite the hob, although the higher units would have to be 300 deep which means people sitting even nearer the hob, albeit higher up - I’m not sure if the hob would still pose a risk in this case with fat splashes etc?