Kitchen Island Inspiration

There is no doubting the popularity of open plan kitchens today – and for good reason, the way we live has changed and our homes have to adapt to our needs. Cooking, eating, living, working, spending time with one another are now all done in one area so the way kitchens are designed has adapted too.

The kitchen island has become a somewhat essential feature and lots of the kitchens we design and install have a kitchen island. We make bespoke kitchens so as you can imagine, they come in all shapes and sizes and are designed to suit the client’s needs – hence this post, all about kitchen island inspiration.

From a layout perspective, the kitchen island provides a boundary between the cooking zone and the dining area or living space. They also provide masses of additional storage – with walls having to be be knocked down to make way for the open plan living – this can be invaluable.

Putting function aside for a moment, one other really great benefit of a kitchen island is that you can be quite brave with colour and choose a bold colour that would be overwhelming if used for other cabinetry or as a wall colour perhaps. Above, the island is this classic contemporary Victorian home is painted in Off-Black by Farrow & Ball.

Every island we design is made to the customer’s specifications, so the island above in this stunning luxury bespoke kitchen in Brentwood, Essex has shelving for cookery books. The homeowners are avid cooks so it made sense to keep their books handily located within the island and as they are below eye level, visual clutter is reduced.

Islands with sinks and prep areas for cooking are really popular. The one above in the Orangery kitchen at the Ashurst House project has fridge drawers, dishwasher, pull out recycling bins, a utensil drawer and two pan drawers. The consideration of the functionality of the space has been a key element of its success.

For the Manor House project, the kitchen island is actually split level and has granite for the prep area and smoked oak for the seating area. Had it been one level, it would have been really huge so designating the spaces in this way was a really clever way to zone the different uses and bring in additional texture.

The kitchen island above in this lovely Victorian townhouse has a black anticato worktop which is a lovely way of bringing more texture into the kitchen and provides a great contrast to the sleek hand-painted cabinetry.

Take a look at our portfolio of kitchens to see more kitchen projects with islands installed.