I had a nice day of mucking around with a big sheet of stainless steel. With a bit of plasma cutting, some bending and a little bit of grinding I now have a stainless steel bench-top.

The first thing to build was the formwork under the bench. Underneath the stainless sheet (1.5mm thick) is a 25mm thick piece of honeycomb lightweight fibreglass sheet. I got this fitted up nicely before tackling the stainless, just sitting it at the height I wanted on some aluminium angle.

A couple of bends later - voila - a kitchen bench-top!  It is 2000mm x 650mm.  Now we've got to work out where we want the cooker and sink located.

It still has the protective white plastic coating on the top, but you can see the little 'splash-back' at the rear, fitting up neatly under the sliding window frame.  Once I've cut the holes for the sink and the cooker with the plasma cutter, I'll peel off the plastic.

The hole that you can just see, under the bench on the bottom right, is where the Suburban Gas/Electric hot water service will be fitted. It runs on either 240V or Propane (or both at the same time if you want a speedy heat up time), and holds 22L of water.

The rear 'hopper' window got fitted today too.  It's got an internal flyscreen, so you can leave it wide open for ventilation all night without letting any insects in.

This is the guys from Complete Sliding Windows finishing things off on the insect screening.

It should allow heaps of air flow across the bed area.

Same window from the inside.