Creating the perfect kitchen island
up and out for easy use. Also: drawers designed to hold containers of spices, and deep drawers holding metal containers for serving utensils, as you might see in a restaurant kitchen.
“A lot of people underestimate storage needs,” Fenimore says, so really think about how you cook and what you use.
Kirschner also suggests considering what you might want to store that isn’t technically a “kitchen” item. Her island includes drawers for her children’s art supplies, because the island is where they do arts and crafts projects.
Islands often have closed storage, but some people prefer some open shelving.
Fenimore has a trash can built into her island, with a stainless steel opening in the island’s surface where unwanted items can easily be swept during cooking. It’s a detail that didn’t add much to the cost but makes life exponentially easier. ___ THE COOKTOP QUESTION It sounds lovely — having your stovetop in the island, so you can chat with someone seated there while you’re cooking. But things splatter, Kirschner points out. And tearing up the floor to add power and gas lines can be expensive if your kitchen doesn’t already have these utilities in the middle of the floor.
The same goes for adding a sink to your island: These designers say an island sink is a great feature and popular with clients, but you have to consider the expense if you’ll need plumbing work done in the floor.
Lastly, your cooktop needs ventilation. Do you want a range hood mounted in the ceiling and looming over your kitchen island?
“There are downdraft vents,” Kirschner says, “but they tend to not work nearly as well” at ventilating your cooking space as overhead ranges do. ___ MATCH OR C O-ORDINATE? Some people love an island that seamlessly matches the rest of the kitchen, with countertops and cabinetry identical to what runs along the room’s perimeter.
But our three designers say you can also think of your island like a piece of gorgeous furniture that is co-ordinated with the rest of the room but a little different. If you want the island to be the kitchen’s focal point, Kirschner says, get creative.
Kirschner loves natural stone surfaces for kitchen islands, especially quartzite, which she says has beautiful veins of colour but is more durable than marble.
Burnham agrees that a kitchen island can be a dramatic statement, and there is a wide variety of styles. Do you want a European farm-table look, or modern and sleek marble?
“We’ve seen a lot of the dark blues and greys and greens, in reaction to all the white kitchens we were seeing for a while,” Burnham says. “Maybe mix things up. Keep all the countertops the same, but maybe the perimeter cabinetry is one colour and the island cabinetry is a different colour.” ——— Online: https://studioten25.com/ http://www.burnhamdesign.com/ http://www.jdkinteriors.com/