Kitchen Island Designs: 6 Must-Know Tips

If you’re planning an island in your new or remodeled kitchen, there are some potential pitfalls and some important things you need to know before you start.

• Don’t create a barrier island. One of the biggest pitfalls in kitchen island designs is planning an island which sits bang on the major work pathway from range to fridge, fridge to sink, or sink to range. If you have to keep walking round an island – especially a big one – to get where you need to go, you’ll hate it.
• Research plumbing, electrical and range-venting requirements carefully before including a range or sink in the island. These issues can make or break the island’s position, and add substantially to costs if it’s awkward to get water to a sink, or drainage and vent stacks, or hood vents. Even if you can drop a vent hood directly over an island range, will it destroy your desired sight lines?
• Don’t feel tied to using the same cabinet finishes or countertop on the island as you do in the rest of the kitchen. You can use different colors, different woods, different materials on the island, although styles should be at least compatible (however you define that). Using special-purpose counter materials like butcherblock or marble is also a great opportunity not to be wasted.
• Your island doesn’t have to be fixed down (unless it contains plumbing, gas or electrical). You can use a big harvest table as an island, where you can sit down to work; a butcher block; even a kitchen island cart which can be rolled away against the wall when you want floor space more than island workspace.
• An island can be very useful for protecting the main workspace from traffic flow. If you can divert traffic around one side of the island and have the range and sink on the other side, it reduces cook-pedestrian collision potential greatly.
• Islands don’t have to be all one level, or at standard counter height. While you may want to have part of the island at standard counter height, other possibilities include: lower or highewr than standard counters: standard table height, for eating; breakfast bar height, for eating, leaning, and to make a space for guests to chat but stay out of the way; kiddie work height; adjustable height; wheelchair accessible workspace height.
• If your kitchen is big enough for a really big island (especially a LONG one), consider breaking it up into two islands with a passageway between. This means you don’t have to walk a long way to get round the island, but can cut through the middle, and it also offers the potential for different heights, counter materials and uses for the two different islands, as well as offering separate workstations for multiple cooks.
• You can easily DIY a simple island (no sink, range etc.) into your existing kitchen if there’s enough space, using some RTA cabinets (base or wall) and a ready-made counter.

More on kitchen island designs:

Custom Kitchen Islands

Island Kitchen Layouts

Kitchen Islands and Carts

Kitchen Island Designs