One possibility would be to swap the living room and the dining room. Since the current living room is larger than the current dining room you could still keep some comfortable seating (couch and upholstered chairs?) against the front wall for a keeping room/dining concept. Then your new dining areas (kitchen and dining room) and living areas (living and drawing room) would have good flow between them, which would work well both for family and entertaining. You could also add some builtin bookshelves in the drawing room or new living room to create a library area to add another fun element to the living areas. These bookshelves could be against the long walls in the drawing room, around the window with a window seat in the living room (former dining room), or built to create some separation in the open area between the drawing room and living room/stair area. Your plan seems to show some sort of builtin there, but I'm not sure what it is.

Tsilanko, I would always recommend professional installation where needed. But what I am doing here is suggesting that WHEN you are planning to build or renovate, to consider how your plans will affect you in 20 or 30 years time. Split levels are very hep when you are young. A kitchen 3 steps down at 30 is rarely a problem, but might be a hazard at 60, or, as Marjie1059 suggested, if you break a leg. ... All my parents' homes were terrible for old people. They were forced to move to a bungalow in extreme old sge because the location and design of their home was more suitable for an active young couple with a large family than for an elderly couple with stroke disabilities. I would not want to move again, so my present home has features built in that make ageing in place simpler. Mostly small changes, like grab rails, and lever handles on doors and faucets. A major disability suddenly suffered requires major changes if permanent. I did look at this because it came up in the discussion, but if you look at the heading, Planning for Disability, it means just that. Plan ahead so you don't have to make expensive changes later on. But thank you for your advice, yes, major changes are not in the DIY domain.

Do they have to be paint buckets? I would think they would not be good for gardening? Maybe others will know more about that. But in the U.S. you can get 5 gallon buckets from some local businesses like bakeries, food store chains, places like those that regularly use items they get in the buckets. For instance a bakery usually gets stuff in 5 gallon buckets and often has to throw them into a dumpster as they can only save so many. Some businesses now sell them for a small fee, maybe 1 dollar U.S. each and some just give them away. I think the cost of shipping them to India would be more than the cost of buying them. You could try setting up a fund on Kiva.org and possibly get enough donations to purchase food grade buckets instead of using ones from paint. Good luck with this project and please update us as to your progress.

Hi Cornerstone, I read your feedback 1. Profile handles I was late as the doors were already ready and it was too much of re-work. Regarding putting handles 2. Sharp edge can cause problem thats why the handles I have put are rounded on the edge not to hurt. 3. Where I did make a mistake was Did not put fillers. If I had put fillers on the sides the door issues could be resolved The upper cabinet handles. This is actually not my fault I had told them to put the handles in the center but they thought these are not drawers but rather cabinets so they should be put in the location where we put the vertical handles. By the time I came to check it was too late and now I am stuck. I am thinking of putting maybe 8inch handles instead of current 5inch but not sure if that would help to improve the look. Old kitchen pictures attached they also had handles but smaller