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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think kitchen Islands are the artex of the future?

628 replies

GervaseFen · 24/08/2020 20:59

I was watching a home renovation programme and every time they stick these massive blocks in the middle of the kitchen before ripping out the walls to 'connect' to
the garden. This time the island was a huge rectangle and took up most of the room with a little table in the space at the end. I can so image the future shows having people walking around and identifying these as the first thing to rip out and exclaiming over how much space they gain.

OP posts:
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minipie · 25/08/2020 19:03

I’ve got an island, open plan kitchen/living/dining room, big glass doors, and lots of different greys (plus other colours). MN nightmare apparently.

I love it.

Gardenpad · 25/08/2020 19:12

Oh course too many things in a room is a bad idea. Eating in the kitchen around the table is my priority....so we renovated so we could have a table that can sit 12 in the kitchen and we use it everyday, in the same room we have an island with a veg sink and a hob - there are two areas for food prep - enough room for two people to cook together - pass by each other open the fridge or the dishwasher without it being obstructive. 4 bar stools that face in the island get used daily , most to chat to the person who's cooking or for breakfast, we'd never eat our dinner there, it just wouldn't feel sociable sitting in a row, and enough room for two 3 seater sofas and a log burner and 7 metres of bifold doors - It's such a cheery place to be in the winter - so much light. I love my kitchen - other people love it too - I'm quite sure my house will date - it was dated when we bought it and we renovated to please ourselves, it's a bit sad that people don't go for what they want rather than restricting themselves to currently sellable features because it will always date - some ideas quicker than others - when di you get what you love.
I hate the whole shaker, hand crafted kitchen look that loads of people still seem to love and I despise conservatories - it wouldn't put me off buying a property though - I'd just plan to get rid at some stage - you have to make a house your own.

Gardenpad · 25/08/2020 19:16

@minipie

I’ve got an island, open plan kitchen/living/dining room, big glass doors, and lots of different greys (plus other colours). MN nightmare apparently.

I love it.

Me too - some grey, turquoise, red, royal blue, some black, orange mustard, denim, white walls, wooden floor. I just wish I had the taste of MN - What is current now? Does anyone know?
Goosefoot · 25/08/2020 19:17

@Bluntness100

Doesn’t everything date though? Does it really matter what the fashion is in twenty years? At that point you’ve a twenty year old kitchen which needs replacing likely. Same as your flooring, or wall coverings.

I can’t see how I could ever be remotely bothered if my island was dated in twenty years. By very definition it would be as it would be twenty years old by then.

We are having this discussion on the bathroom, bath or no bath. We are putting one back in, but we don’t have baths as a family, and are doing it for resale purposes. However when we come to sell, I’m hoping it’s at least fifteen if not more years away, so it will need redoing by then anyway. It will be dated by its very age. So I don’t get the point.

And I don’t get the point of if something will date in twenty years or so. Because by then it’s dated anyway, but things like islands etc have been about for ever..

I think there is a bit of a cycle. A new design approach of some kind comes in, and people then think the last design approach was awful and want rid of it. Thirty years later people realise that actually it was fine when the quality was good, and start looking for homes where it wasn't ripped out, or trying to restore the ones where it was.

Most recently we've seen a lot of this with mid-century stuff, but before that it was Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian properties. People gutted them because they went out of fashion. Oops.

Home design shows have a lot to answer for though, they seem to have made a lot of people believe you have to have the most up to date features and trends, especially in the kitchen. So you get people putting granite countertops into homes where they look awful.

Nellisterr · 25/08/2020 19:18

Having an open plan kitchen and entertainment area with an island that fits the proportions, is much better than having a pokey kitchen, closed away from the rest of the house where your family might be! Why would anyone want to cook alone after being in work all day? Also, fed up of bashing my head on a cupboard when chopping - I know my husband feels the same. On an island, we can chop together across the way from my beautiful son's face who is sat at a breakfast bar end! I'm all for them!

Mouldiwarp1 · 25/08/2020 19:26

@Thewiseoneincognito Another one here with bifolds as well as an island. The floor is engineered wood. We also have one of those huge corner larders (glory hole) that people can be sniffy about. The room is about 30x14 foot and is very much two separate areas - kitchen (with island) and fairly utility lighting (not - spots as I hate them) at one end, and dining at the other with different lighting, 8 ft table and antique Welsh dresser. The island means that if we have people round for dinner the lights at the kitchen end can be turned down and the cooking mess is invisible from the dining table (blocked from view). The bifold doors open out onto proper old York flagstones and my car is an old Merc, of which I am the third owner. We don’t have any crushed velvet anywhere and my knickers are M&S.

Gardenpad · 25/08/2020 19:29

Most recently we've seen a lot of this with mid-century stuff, but before that it was Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian properties. those kitchens were very functional, for the servants - no one had big kitchens they entertained in...it's a change in lifestyle and function, not just a change in fashion.

FelicisNox · 25/08/2020 19:32

I love a well placed kitchen island if the kitchen is big enough but this whole totally open plan living thing where they knock out every wall downstairs to make one big room is so irritating.

Imagine cooking strong smelling or fatty food: your whole house (and your soft furnishings) will honk.

Mouldiwarp1 · 25/08/2020 19:33

Oh and what’s wrong with the smell of food?! I’ve seen this numerous times on Mumsnet. What are you all cooking - kippers? My cooking smells great. I also have an extractor fan and windows that open if I want to get rid of smells.

Jackparlabane · 25/08/2020 19:34

Agree islands have to be well thought out. My mum had an island in her kitchen and replaced it with a different shaped island. I thought she was mad but it's made all the difference - the room now works.

People kept saying we should have an island in our kitchen-diner, but we decided the room wasn't quite wide enough, especially as the doors are in the middle of each end. So the room is sort of divided by peninsulas, which a stairgate used to fit between. An island would have had to be about 2 feet square to not be in the way, at which point you could have a butcher's block trolley and move it where you want. If the room were a big square rather than two small squares, an island might have worked.

LouisBalfour · 25/08/2020 19:42

it's a change in lifestyle and function, not just a change in fashion.

Exactly. We will never go back to pokey kitchens and rarely used dining rooms.

sunglassesonthetable · 25/08/2020 19:44

Traditionally the victorian house I live in would have had one of those sad scullery type kitchens at the back past the middle ( dark ) type eating area.

No thanks.

MiddlesexGirl · 25/08/2020 19:46

Kitchen islands are terrible. Every time I go to a holiday home there's a wretched island getting in the way all the time. Always glad to get back to my kitchen where there's a proper working triangle.

Thisismytimetoshine · 25/08/2020 19:50

Why are people posting details of what car they drive and what knickers they wear, in addition to bragging about their gigantic kitchens, kitchen islands and room for a pony?
You absolute saddos 😂😂😂

MrsJamin · 25/08/2020 19:52

We have a peninsula, not enough room for an island. I bloody hate "breakfast bars" though - hate being seatede up that high, makes the worktop massively overly wide and the stools just look really messy. Very glad we never opted for breakfast bar for those reasons - they date a kitchen more than anything else. I've see some people have a breakfast bar next to a dining table... just why?? What a waste of space doubling up functions just like that. We have breakfast at the dining table - why people have to have a special area just for 10 mins per day is beyond me

minipie · 25/08/2020 19:56

I've see some people have a breakfast bar next to a dining table... just why?? What a waste of space doubling up functions just like that. We have breakfast at the dining table - why people have to have a special area just for 10 mins per day is beyond me

We have a breakfast bar, right next to our dining table. Breakfast and other family meals happen at the table. A zillion other things happen at the (non)breakfast bar.

Thisismytimetoshine · 25/08/2020 19:58

Such as?

anxietrist · 25/08/2020 19:58

I hate our kitchen, it's all kitchen island and storage with no room to move and no where near enough worktop space! So badly thought out.

ValancyRedfern · 25/08/2020 20:01

Everything very fashionable later becomes deeply unfashionable. In a few years people will be desperate for any colour other than grey and no open plan or kitchen islands.

My parents had a 70s version of the kitchen island - a kind of sticky out spur into the middle of the kitchen, they were so happy to be rid of it and gain the space back in the early 90s. For that reason my mum would never consider a kitchen island!

anxietrist · 25/08/2020 20:04

I think grey already looks dated!

anxietrist · 25/08/2020 20:05

(Sorry 😬)

Ken1976 · 25/08/2020 20:10

@superfairy.Our house was built in 1952 . It is 4 bedroom and was only one bathroom . We were able to make an en suite in my bedroom by moving the separate toilet to the bathroom then stealing a square metre of the landing this gave room for a fairly large shower , a hand basin and a toilet with a doorway knocked through from my bedroom . It works great and you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t built that way. Even better we dropped a band on the council tax because I am disabled and it was done for my sole use . Winner !

Bluntness100 · 25/08/2020 20:11

The other thing though is taste is subjective. Very few people decorate or furnish simply because something is fashionable, so many things are fashionable, it’s generally because folks genuinely like them also.

Things that are truly dated are coloured bathroom suites, Artex or woodchip wallpaper, solidly coloured (red, blue etc) or patterned carpets, certain wall colours like peach, magnolia or terracotta, feature walls with inexpensive big patterned (often floral) wall paper, carpet in the bathroom, orange pine furniture, farmhouse orange wood kitchens, short curtains, net curtains, plastic Venetian blinds, With wooden worktops, gas or electric fake or bar fires etc, so either sixties, seventies or eighties. Which is let’s face it is decades ago.

What’s fashionable now is self coloured fix and fittings, muted Non clashing pant colours, expensive Funky wallpapers, luxury textures like velvet or silk, painted kitchens With metal over tones,Ie copper, aluminium etc, islands, hard flooring with thick piled rugs, large throws, candles, soft lighting, long curtains, Luxury blinds ie velvet, silk, hardwood,, shutters, wood burners, etc.

However everthing becomes dated after a while because it gets old. And when things get to about twenty years old they start to then the corner and become dated the longer they are in place.

MulberryPeony · 25/08/2020 20:20

Peach and terracotta are already coming back! Gives the skin a ghastly glow but it looks nice.

HalloBrian · 25/08/2020 20:34

A lot of you just aren't thinking this through:

No kitchen island = more room for dancing around the kitchen singing with a spatula microphone

No open plan- because they can't find you in the kitchen at parties if the whole bloody room is the kitchen

Also no open plan because the kitchen is where I have a legitimate excuse to get away from my family, enjoy the peace and have my own private dance and karaoke session.

Priorities people!