The Benefits of a Kitchen Island

By far the most popular ‘must have’ for people embarking on a new kitchen project is that of an island.

Besides aesthetics, a kitchen island fulfils many functions. First of all, they can act as a visual divide between the cooking and the socialising space within a kitchen; this is especially useful since you still enjoy the benefit of being able to converse with family and friends whilst preparing - but without them getting under your feet!

An island can also provide additional storage and food preparation surface area and it can be a home to an additional sink and other integrated appliances to include ovens, hobs, wine chillers and more besides.

Integrated kitchen seating arrangements can also be built into an island. For example, breakfast bars are possible as are dining table arrangements with bench seating; this can be either your main seating area or, it could complement a dining area / zone located within or next to the kitchen - perfect for the socialising kitchen space.

The key question is ‘ Do you have enough space for a kitchen island?’ Ideally, you need at least a metres clearance around a kitchen island to not allow people to not only pass by easily, but also, to allow cabinet doors to fully open. Fisher & Nobles ‘bespoke manufactured solutions’ means that kitchen islands can be designed to any size or shape giving you endless possibilities.

If space is just too restricted, the other alternative might be a kitchen peninsular; this can have many of the benefits of an island but generally requires less space. This is because a kitchen peninsular is basically a return from either a wall OR wall fixed base cabinets giving you just three sides to navigate around. Any length or depth is possible, in fact a double cabinet length is enough to provide you with a small breakfast bar and useful additional storage.