Kitchen Island Design
Most kitchen designers these days try to incorporate a kitchen island into their designs, and with good reason. Islands are ideal for adding counter and storage space to kitchens, serving as gathering places, food preparation stations, and clean up areas. While some islands do one of these tasks very well, the best kitchen islands are versatile enough to do all three.
Cooking at Your Island
Cooktops are easy enough to install in an island, they drop right into sink base cabinets, and allow you to get away from cooking along the wall. This allows you to engage the people you’re cooking for while you create the meal. To ventilate one of these cooktops, one can use either overhead or downdraft ventilation. Either is fine, just remember that either choice will probably mean installing duct work that vents outside.
Preparing Food
If space for preparing food is at a minimum, an island can come to the rescue, giving you more square footage to perform the task of getting food ready to cook or serve. A bar sink for washing vegetables and cleaning knives will be necessary, along with enough counter space designed into the island to spread things out a bit. If you want your island to double as a clean up area, remember that dinner plates probably won’t fit in a bar sink; you’ll need a bigger sink in the island for washing those. If someone is going to help you with meal preparation, there is now room for two people to work without running into each other.
Sit Down…
If a breakfast bar or seating area is designed into the island, your little kitchen oasis can serve as a place for family and guests to gather while you prepare a meal. You can fix dinner and help with homework at the same time without leaving the cooking area to walk over to a table. Conversing with guests is also easier when they’re sitting just on the other side of your cooking area; a lot better than yelling across the kitchen to each other.
The popularity of islands has grown because they make sense in so many kitchens. They are convenient, can be very stylish, and are practical if designed properly. Kitchen islands are welcome additions to almost all kitchen designs.
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