Interior Design Center

If you have never worked in a kitchen without a kitchen island, you simply must consider incorporating this versatile piece of furniture into your kitchen space. For many years, we never had a kitchen island until my wife tasked me to build one for her for our kitchen. There used to be an old kitchen table where the island now sits and the difference between having a basic kitchen table and a kitchen island with seating is like night and day. Since I have some woodworking skills, I took it as a challenge to put my skills to the test and construct a kitchen island. We decided to build it not only to save money, but to build it to custom dimensions for our kitchen space. My wife, being an avid cook, had always read about how a kitchen island can transform how you work in the kitchen so she designed it to help her work more efficiently in our relatively small kitchen Seating and Additional Cabinet Space First of all, since we were replacing an old kitchen table, we needed to have an island that also allowed our family to eat our meals there each night. Since we only have two daughters, an island that seated four was perfect for our needs. We decided to make it a 4 foot by 4 foot square with two overhanging sides which is where the seats are located. I was able to build it to include a large cabinet in which we store pots, pans, and assorted cookware. This allowed us to free up a lot of space in the limited cabinet space that we did have in our kitchen. Additional Drawer Space I also incorporated two small drawers for knives and various kitchen-related odds and ends and a larger drawer in which we store all of our kitchen utensils. My wife was able to find the perfect wooden drawer organizer that expanded to fit into the large drawer to keep the utensils in their own sections. It was amazing how we were able to free up valuable drawer space in the rest of the kitchen with the addition of the kitchen island with seating. A Kitchen Work Triangle Yields Efficiency One of the major design opportunities with the kitchen island was that my wife could create the perfect kitchen work triangle that she had always wanted. The three corners of the work triangle are the refrigerator, the stove, and the island. In years past, all of the meal preparation was performed on the countertop which had limited space and wasn't ideally located for optimum efficiency. With the addition of the kitchen island, the way my wife worked in the kitchen improved dramatically! Creating an efficient work space by adding a kitchen island to complete the work triangle was the best project we have ever attempted in our home. If you still work in a kitchen without a kitchen island with seating, I implore you to find one that is optimal for your kitchen space. If you have enough energy and skills, you just may want to do what we did and build one on your own!