How to work out what size island to have in your kitchen

If you’re planning a kitchen renovation in Christchurch, Poole or Bournemouth, you may well be replacing your existing kitchen island or considering adding one if you don’t already have this design feature.

Kitchen islands always look fantastic in showrooms, but it can sometimes be difficult to work out how they will translate in your own space – will they be too big and take up too much floor space, or will they be too small and not make the best use of the room you have available?

An article for Homes & Gardens recently offered some advice to help ensure that you find the perfect sized island for your kitchen. The first tip is to ensure that you leave at least 36 inches of clear space around all sides of the island. The sweet spot is between 36 and 48 inches of clearance.

So, make sure you have measured your kitchen carefully and that you know how much open space you have to ensure you can achieve this.

It’s also important to consider how you’re going to accommodate seating at your kitchen island – this means thinking about the overhang of the work surface. Generally an overhang of 10–12 inches is recommended on at least one side to allow comfortable space for bar stools.

You may decide that while you’ll have seating on one side, you’d prefer cupboards and prep space on the other.

One final tip is to ensure that, even if you have a lot of space, you don’t make your island too large. As a general rule, you should be able to reach across the top of it to clean it easily – if you find you’re having to climb on the bar stools to reach the middle of the island, it’s probably too big.

But what if your kitchen isn’t big enough for an island? MSN recently shared a suggestion from House Digest, which is to opt for what’s known as a kitchen peninsula instead. This simply means that your island is attached to one wall of your kitchen and can be a particularly effective way of creating a natural break between your kitchen and dining or living space if you have an open-plan layout.

Here at Bournemouth Constructions, we have helped homeowners with kitchen renovations in spaces large and small. Our expert carpenters and tradesmen will be happy to assess your space and can even come up with a bespoke kitchen design if that would work better.

This can be particularly helpful if you have an unusual-shaped kitchen, or specific requirements for your kitchen space. We are experts at getting the most out of any space and are happy to make design suggestions to ensure that your kitchen truly meets your needs.

All you need to do is get in touch with our team and we will arrange a detailed consultation to fully understand what you’re looking for from your kitchen remodel, as well as what level of support and input you’d like from us.