How to plan a kitchen island

The island is the part of a kitchen people picture first. It is also the part most likely to be drawn at the wrong size, because it is the one piece with a walkway on every side of it. A few inches too big and every trip from the fridge to the range goes around somebody.

So it is worth deciding in the right order. Here is the one we would use.

1. Decide what the island is for

An island can do four jobs: somewhere to sit, somewhere to cook, somewhere to wash up, or simply more counter. Most do two of them. Pick yours before you pick a size, because the job decides the depth, the plumbing, the electrical and the space it needs around it.

A cooktop in the island changes the whole room. One kitchen in our gallery puts the cooktop there so the sink keeps the window, with the ovens built into the run beside the refrigerator. A sink in the island does the reverse and turns the island into the working side of the room. Either one means pipes or a gas line in the floor, so it has to be decided before anything else is.

2. Then the walkway, because that is what you live with

This is the measurement people skip. Stand where the island would go and walk the trips you make every day: fridge to sink, sink to range, range to the table. Then do it again with a dishwasher door down and a drawer pulled open, because that is when a walkway actually gets used.

There are published numbers for this, and they are worth knowing. The National Kitchen and Bath Association's kitchen planning guidelines call for a work aisle of at least 42 inches for one cook and at least 48 inches for more than one, measured between the counter, tall cabinets or appliances on either side. A walkway, where people pass through rather than work, should be at least 36 inches.

If two people cook in your kitchen, walk it as two people. If the kids sit at the island while you cook, walk it with somebody sitting there. An island that fits the floor plan but not the way you move is a mistake a drawing catches cheaply and a finished kitchen does not.

3. Seating, and which side it goes on

If the island seats people, decide how many and on which side. Seating across the end, seating along the long side and seating wrapping a corner all need different room behind the stools, and the stools need somewhere to go when nobody is sitting on them.

The same NKBA guidelines give the room behind a seated diner: 32 inches from the counter edge to a wall if nobody passes behind, at least 36 inches for someone to edge past, and at least 44 inches for someone to walk past. Each seat wants about 24 inches of counter width, and the knee space underneath depends on the counter height: 18 inches deep at table height, 15 at standard counter height and 12 at bar height.

Corners matter more than people expect. One island in our gallery is curved on the seating side, so the corner is not something you walk into on the way past. That is a small drawing decision that makes a busy kitchen noticeably easier to move through.

4. The countertop, and whether one slab covers it

An island top is usually the biggest single piece of stone in the house, and slabs come in fixed sizes. Cambria, for example, publishes its Jumbo slab at 132 by 65.5 inches nominal. If the island is longer or deeper than the slab you fell in love with, the top needs a seam or a different material, and it is far better to know that before the cabinets are ordered than after.

The island does not have to match the perimeter. One kitchen in our gallery pairs light perimeter cabinets with a dark contrasting island under pendants. It can also go the other way. In one of our kitchens the owner's existing wood island stayed, and we re-topped it in the same stone as the new perimeter counters so the room reads as one.

5. Storage, facing the right way

An island is often the best storage in the kitchen, because you can reach it from both sides. Put drawers on the working side, where your hands go while you cook. A door gives you one deep cave that you kneel down and dig into; a drawer brings the contents out to you. Drawers cost more than doors, every time, so put them where you reach every day.

The seating side can still hold shallow storage for the things you use at the counter rather than at the stove. Soft close on doors and drawers comes as standard on what we carry.

Islands are also where custom cabinetry usually earns its money, because an island is the piece most likely to be a size nobody stocks. For most kitchens the honest answer is semi-custom around the room with a custom island in the middle.

6. Light it for the job and for the evening

Pendants over an island are task light that also sets the style of the room, which is why it is worth spending there. Hang them for the length of the island and the people sitting at it, and put them on a dimmer. The light you want while cooking at seven in the morning is not the light you want with people around the island at nine at night.

If the cooktop is in the island, the ventilation goes over it too. One kitchen in our gallery put an island hood in at the same time as taking the cabinets to full height.

7. Island or peninsula

If the room is not wide enough for a walkway on every side, a peninsula, an island attached to the run at one end, gives you most of the same counter and seating with one less walkway. It also works the other way: one kitchen in our gallery started with a peninsula and gave it up for a full island once the room was opened up. Neither is the better answer. The room decides.

See it drawn before it is built

Our Littleton showroom carries 123 manufacturers across cabinets, countertops, tile, flooring, vanities, fixtures and hardware, so you can stand the island cabinets, the slab and the pendants together in one place.

Then we draw your kitchen in 3D before you commit. That is the cheapest possible moment to discover that the island you wanted leaves eleven inches of walkway.

You do not have to hand us the whole kitchen

Three ways to do this and all three are normal here. Buy the cabinets and the top and install them yourself. Buy them and hand them to your own contractor. Or let us handle the whole kitchen from the first sketch to the last outlet cover. Same showroom and the same pricing either way.

We design and install across the southwest Denver metro, and Englewood is a short drive from the Belleview showroom.

Related: Kitchen remodelingBrowse cabinets