Mate (dude), I haven't got the patience to 'evaluate' the speed of GPU's or whatever. I'd rather use that time chasing more (paid) work!

Thanks remus. I think this will give me a head start. Cheers!

As Marcus stated, the wood texture on the cabinets is not working; try Arroway Textures - they have some free, high resolution wood textures (you might find a better one for the floor, too). On a design note, anyone sitting at those stools will bang their legs/feet against the contents of those open shelves below. You might want to consider increasing the counter overhang to provide more leg room.

guys, i think i am having a similar problem. a big site where i located 3 buildings which i modeled separately in their own files. however, when they were brought into the big file i had to place them in new positions relative to their previous origins. then i took them back to the original files and pasted them in the same place as they are in the big file (so that moving them back and forth is easier). problems: in the original files the first origin is never forgotten when i want to have a facade view. in the big file my renderer (podium) does not "see" the buildings. any ideas? EDIT: apparently the problem went away after i closed sketchup and opened it again.