by Blake Herzog
Islands are now an expected feature for home kitchens, especially luxurious ones.
But as essential as they can be for food preparation, socializing and storage, the boxy, rectangular structure they typically take may not be ideal for your personal use or aesthetics.
These features can be shaped by designers, builders and artists to fit a variety of scenarios and floor plans, giving you the flexibility to create your dream kitchen to fit your style and your culinary aspirations. You get to choose exactly how you want them to anchor your room.
Read on for some concepts that may give you exactly what you are looking for.
- Portability — Not all luxury kitchens have a lot of square footage, especially when the homeowners prefer to leave the cooking to pros in restaurants and elsewhere.
In these cases a kitchen cart can be the optimal solution, ready to help you throw together a meal when you need it but also capable of being wheeled out to serve drinks, providing extra space for any type of project or slinking out of sight whenever it gets in the way.
- Pieces — If you don’t like the thought of a large kitchen island obscuring the view of your statement refrigerator or range or not being able to take the quickest path to your appliances when you’re in a hurry, you can split your island in two.
This also makes it easier to create delineated spaces for food preparation versus consumption. And if you really love large kitchen islands you can have two to handle these dual purposes while adding storage space.
- Angled — When you’re seeking variety and texture or a more accessible cooking space you can have your island built with angled sections, giving you a “notch” to work within and a shape that creates better flow with an irregularly shaped kitchen.
You also can reduce your costs by ordering nonstandard sizes of marble or quartzite slabs for your island’s countertop.
- Oval — Create visual interest without sacrificing functionality with an island that’s rounded on both ends. This can yield additional seating capability as well as a softer image in line with many of today’s design trends.
- Surface — If you want to make the island your kitchen centerpiece but it’s a little undersized for that role, you can extend the countertop surface to the floor, “waterfall” style, on one or both sides to give it the presence and panache to make for a compelling statement element.
- Sculpted — If you don’t need much additional storage from your island, consider its potential as an artful object with ample counter space and an elegant base, carved from stone or wood to add a breathtaking flourish to your home.
- Fits to a T — To create defined areas for cooking and eating without splitting them up try a T-shaped element, which will more than likely work best with the top of the “T” positioned close to the other appliances as a work area next to a table for serving meals or snacks.
