Yes, our island needs a post all its own, ha.
The original floorplan had an island but it was smaller:
Here is a picture of one just like it, as it would have come in our floorplan. Seating (for three?) along one side and just cabinets and drawers on the other. In some cases, a sink was in the middle as well. Sure, it's an island but none of that would work for what we had in mind.
We have this island at the apartment (sorry for dark picture this was before we moved in and all the lights weren't on, ha). It looks like it would be a good space, but it's got the sink in the middle, the dishwasher on one side of the sink (so that's the landing spot for dishes out of the dishwasher) and a very small cabinet on the other side of the sink. The front is curved for seating, which we've never used. It's good for a few things but mostly, it's not very practical. We started rethinking our own island, I mean if you are going to design one, why not get what you want?
First rule for both of us, no sink in the island. We made sure it was along the wall (more on that in the kitchen post). That will give us the entire top as usable space. Since we made the kitchen longer, it also gave us the chance for a longer island, so we extended it.
10' long x 5' wide!
We'll call one long side of it the "kitchen side" and the other will be the "family room side".
But wait, there's more, ha. Nine feet is the length when it gets enlarged just for the bigger kitchen and then we thought, since we don't want seating on the long "family room side", why not give us some seating for just the two of us? We added 12" at the end, to make it 10' instead of 9'. An overhang of the countertop, to give us something like this:
Seating for two at the end of the island! Ours will be on the dining room end (the other end will be directly behind the sink). I can sit there and blog or help with recipe development while 2nd Man is cooking (and I can take lots of pictures, ha).
Here's another picture of what we'll be able to do...we can sit there and have an evening meal or a cup of coffee in the morning. Heck, if we have company over, it's a space for two more people to sit. We thought this was a good use of space and gives 2nd Man an extra foot of counter space length. Hey, I can sit there and snap beans from the garden someday, ha!
On the kitchen side, as above, we wanted drawers instead of cabinets since you can turn around from the cooktop and access it. There will be three in the middle. Because the island is longer, at each end, there will also be space for two cabinets that we will use for cutting boards (at the end closest to the sink) and baking sheets (at the other end closest to oven area).
As you probably already saw in the plan, we wanted a couple of appliances in the island, on the kitchen side only. The kitchen plan came with a microwave over the oven, and we debated if we even wanted a microwave. We didn't have one for years at the house and got along fine, but the apartment came with one and we've come to use it for those things that only a microwave can do best (reheating, melting butter, etc, ha).
So, we decided to move the microwave into the island, at one end closer to the cooking area! There will be another deep drawer under the microwave, and we'll use that to keep our microwave containers and accessories. It'll look much like the above, with an extra cabinet at the end of course.
The other extra appliance that we wanted was a wine fridge. We're not big wine aficionados, but it would be nice to have a place for them and keep a couple dozen bottles on hand. We are putting this at the other end of the kitchen side so it will be near the dining room for convenience. It'll look kind of like the above pic, again, with another small cabinet on the side.
Since we didn't opt for seating along the living room side, we decided to maximize both spaces and wow people with appearance, ha. For this side, we are having glass cabinets put all along the front, as in the drawing above. Four glass double doors and then a smaller glass door on each end.
We will have them lit from inside and use them to display a lot of our Le Creuset collection. Something like the picture above. It will look really nice when you walk into the living room and look toward the kitchen and see it lit up and all the colors of the cast iron. Plus, bonus points for MORE STORAGE. Oh, and no glass shelves like this picture, ha, the weight of the cast iron will require solid shelves.
Here's something we had no idea about. 2nd Man wanted a few outlets along the side of the island, as you might imagine. Well, the US electrical code changed a year or so ago and now, no one can put electrical outlets in the side of an island below the countertop! It's a safety feature so kids don't grab a cord and pull something off the island. 2nd Man was NOT happy, but it's code, not much we can do about that, sigh.
So that begs the question, how does one plug in electrical appliances (crock pot, pressure cooker, mixer, etc) on an island without outlets on the side? I mean that's what they are for, extra counter space to do stuff on and put those things you are using to prep a meal.
Solution: pop up outlets!
We will have only one pop up, down at the end near where our overhang is. 2nd Man didn't want it in the middle because of course that would interrupt with dough rolling. It does disappear flat into the countertop. When you need it, it pops up like this:
This is kind of an old picture, they are flush now, but just to get the idea of how they work. You pop them up and plug in the appliances that you need to use (four outlets, two on each side) and then push it back down into the counter when not needed.
One bonus thing (and it's kind of cool) is that you can lay your phone or tablet on it, and it will wirelessly charge. That's convenient. But it's still a pain not having outlets along the side, ha.
As you know in the bathrooms (and butler's pantry), we chose a black that looks like soapstone or honed granite. For the kitchen, including the island, we chose a Quartz in Jasmine White. It mimics the look of Carrera Marble without the exorbitant cost, ha.
We will still have our gray cabinets.
In the end, it should look about like this:
As 2nd Man likes to say, at ten feet long and five feet wide, it will be "fifty square feet of glorious, uninterrupted counter space". He is beyond excited. The dough that will get rolled out on there...ha.
