hi were in the process of buying this house.. we would need to tarmac the drive and put drainage down as its a slope. but how could we improve the exterior look? can you paint the panelling? what colours would you guys suggest? eg painting the panelling one colour and having different colour doors and windows. TIA

If thats over 500.00 for the 900x1200 panel then that's just taking the p***, i had a quick look on line and found a 900x1200 georgia marine panel at 117 plus delivery at https://www.onlinekitchensuk.co.uk/online-store/appliance-store/browse/brand/Kitchen-Stori/type/Panels/category/End-Panel/colour/Georgia-Marine/ but i would imagine this would be the same as you already have with unfinished edges on the 900 sides so you wouldn't be any further forward. Might be worthwhile giving them a call to check if its finished on all 4 edges. Have you asked your designer/supplier how they proposed finishing the sides of your island. 900 deep islands are pretty standard with base units and shallow depth units back to back and i would of thought a big company like Uform would have something for them. There is one other way of finishing your island i can think of but tbh its not a method I ever offer and that is getting four 715x447 doors and extra plinth. Fit 2 doors each side so they're dummy doors and you have the 3mm gap between the 2 doors so they look like a run of doors. Then you'll need to run plinth at the bottom, ideally the plinth would be set back 40mm so it looks the same as everywhere else (so legs would need to be set back) and then the plinth would have to mitred and glued together. Its not a look i like and its a lot of extra work.

Visualising your colour scheme, I would choose a soft white tile, perhaps Zellige as mentioned above— these tiles are different variations of the same colour . There is a trend at the moment for using quartz continuing up the wall, whilst this can work well, if you wish to avoid that blocky look of a solid slab, tiles can provide a softer finish. In terms of maintenance, if you have an induction hob there will be very little splashing of foodstuffs as this is a gentle way to cook. However, if you are cooking over a flame, I would probably not opt for tiles as there can be a lot of foodstuffs splashing back behind hob. I chose tiles over induction hob in new kitchen and am delighted with result.

@C Harrison – Yes, I can talk to my neighbours first - by this, I mean to the person from the housing association who looks after next door’s property. However, I have talked to her before when I made some changes to the boundary and she didn’t object - I changed a fence panel and moved the end post - , so I would be surprised if she objected to me painting my side. And my deeds? I have read them before and I don’t think they mention who owns the boundary. The documents I have are actually confusing: when I tried to check where my boundary was on the other side of my bungalow, I realized I had three sets of documents that show three different things.