To think kitchen Islands are the artex of the future?

[GervaseFen]

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.

Makes sense to have your washing in the room where you get undressed, not to sort your dirty socks next to food

Honestly that’s quite grim, you don’t need to do that. Sort your laundry in your bedroom then just pop it into the washing machine. Put food away in fridges or cupboards. There’s honestly no need for you to be sorting your dirty laundry next to your food.

I like islands in the right setting. It's nice to be able to cook and have your child do colouring near you. Also I've seen a lot of kitchens with units on one wall, then an island then the rest of the space "non-kitchen" which keeps all the kitcheny stuff in one area.

I also agree that if you're not tall a table can offer the same thing and is versatile (e.g. my mum sometimes needs 3 massive tables in her kitchen for parties so good robhave flexibility. However the space under the table is wasted.

I would love to see some pics of your islands etc - just love home decor!!

My tastes are completely unfashionable, all my walls are magnolia yellow ish and I LOVE it 😂

There’s honestly no need for you to be sorting your dirty laundry next to your food.
unless you have kitchen exclusively for show, it's still the last place where you want to handle laundry, dirty then clean.

It makes sense in term of plumbing in tiny spaces, but frankly I'd rather have a larger bathroom and remove some of the floor space in the middle of the kitchen - in a small home, it' s not needed if you are struggling.

Utility room on the same level where you would hang the laundry to dry make sense if you can afford to have one, but when you don't, the kitchen really isn't the best set up.

My kitchen:

What there is left of it is in the corner of a building site and is a relic from the .... '70s? '80s? i don't even know! It has pale greeny yellow plaster walls with brown and beige tiles underneath and a lot of cob-webs. The gas cooker is like one from the 60s, with a 'boob level' grill with handles you bang your hands on all the fucking time. I have about 1m sq worktop space. The opposite end of the room is my 'utility area'. It has no ceiling and I have the tumble dryer plugged into a big cable swinging from the joists (which slips down sometimes to strangle you as you walk underneath) and a few storage boxes on stools which are my 'cupboards'. My microwave is balanced on a lump of old worktop which is balanced on an old kitchen cupboard carcass. A half smashed down wall leads nicely into a dinning room with an asbestos ceiling (and i mean asbestos) and a set of 6 bed side tables along one wall with more storage boxes on top offer plenty of space for tinned and dried goods. The rabbit's winter residence is found in here and DHs scratch decks and 8000 records. My fridge freezer is in the hall (with some rubble on top of it) attached to another head height extension lead because we have no electric in there as that ceiling is also down. My kitchen ceiling and hall ceilings are now piled up outside the front door incidentally. I have lived like this for 3 years now.

BUT! It will be wonderful.
And i will have a humongous space with an ISLAND and enough room to dance round it. Space for my 8 seater rustic pine table and a ........... glorious day! .......... big fuck off induction hob!!! :):)

Like many things in vogue they're not new, they were de rigeur in the late 60s/early 70s, along with arches between rooms and artex everywhere. We looked at a house where one 25 foot wall had been artexed with what looked like the bottom of a beer bottle, deep, dust-gathering ridges.
I always thought that if there was an island then a table was unnecessary as the island doubled as that purpose.

Honestly that’s quite grim, you don’t need to do that. Sort your laundry in your bedroom then just pop it into the washing machine

I've never had washing machines in the kitchen, so what do you do with items you can't simply pop in the washing machine? I often need to treat stains, soak something etc. Is that done in the kitchen sink?

Is that done in the kitchen sink?

I would not leave anything to soak in either a bathroom or a kitchen sink because it would get in the way of using the sink. That is what buckets and tubs are for.

I think I have to treat stains about once a year, so it isn't really a problem.

I'd also prioritise kitchen floor space over bathroom floor space because I don't usually share the bathroom.

I've never had washing machines in the kitchen, so what do you do with items you can't simply pop in the washing machine? I often need to treat stains, soak something etc. Is that done in the kitchen sink?

I take what I want out the laundry baskets in our bedrooms. Walk down stairs pop it into the machine. Job done.

I cannot recall a time I needed to soak anything in a sink or treat a stain. I guess some folks do, but it’s not something that really occurs in our home.

unless you have kitchen exclusively for show, it's still the last place where you want to handle laundry, dirty then clean

Why? Our clothes aren’t that dirty, in fact we’d have worn them in the kitchen before putting them in the laundry basket.

The kitchen is clean. It’s not like we’re running the gusset of our knickers over the work surfaces, the items are in our arms, machine door open, shove it in, shut door, add detergent, Switch it on. End of cycle, take it out, walk upstairs or outside and hang it Out to dry. It doesn’t touch any surfaces in the kitchen. And it doesn’t pollute the kitchen just by being in there.

Are your clothes particularly dirty or something? Or is your kitchen? I genuinely don’t understand how their very presence in your kitchen is somehow a contaminant either way?

Most people allow pets into the kitchen, and for many people its the room they enter first if they are covered in mud.

It's one thing to keep a kitchen clean, another to expect it to be a hygienically sealed oasis.

@Bluntness100

unless you have kitchen exclusively for show, it's still the last place where you want to handle laundry, dirty then clean

Why? Our clothes aren’t that dirty, in fact we’d have worn them in the kitchen before putting them in the laundry basket.

The kitchen is clean. It’s not like we’re running the gusset of our knickers over the work surfaces, the items are in our arms, machine door open, shove it in, shut door, add detergent, Switch it on. End of cycle, take it out, walk upstairs or outside and hang it Out to dry. It doesn’t touch any surfaces in the kitchen. And it doesn’t pollute the kitchen just by being in there.

Are your clothes particularly dirty or something? Or is your kitchen? I genuinely don’t understand how their very presence in your kitchen is somehow a contaminant either way?

so you have clean clothes, good for you

My laundry includes normally used clothes, bed sheets, sport kits covered in mud, basically anything and everything.

My kitchen is not clean when it's being used, kids eat in it sometimes, we cook in it, that's the whole point of a kitchen.

Dirty socks and unfresh underwear do not belong to the place where we cook food, and freshly washed laundry doesn't belong to a room where we use .. oil/flour/tomato sauce and anything you can think about.

I have 4 kids, there are plenty of occasions when I need to treat laundry for stains before washing it and I am not doing that in the same room where I am making a chocolate cake or a prawn dish! Who wants fresh laundry to stink of garlic?! It just makes absolutely no sense to mix laundry and cooking.

Maybe some people have a kitchen big enough for a couple of separate sinks, I don't. My kitchen sink is exclusively use to wash hands and vegetables!

Dirty socks and unfresh underwear do not belong to the place where we cook food, and freshly washed laundry doesn't belong to a room where we use

Why are the dirty socks and unfresh laundry being left in the kitchen? I don't think it's being suggested that freshly washed laundry has to be left in the kitchen. I wouldn't want it to be left in the bathroom either. The freshly washed laundry goes to the place where it will be dried.

I am currently sitting in a kitchen which has (at one end) dirtyish walking boots and wellies on a boot rack, a big bowl of blackberries soaking (I can see some small critters coming off them) a bowl of chopped garlic and ginger (covered, for tonight) some tats about to be peeled and mashed, a washing machine on the go from which I will carry the clean load to hang in the boiler cupboard, a very wet ‘waterproof’ dripping from earlier storm-enforced water Butt sludge clearance.
All surfaces are ‘clean’. Table where we eat will be washed before we eat.
I have a feeling this will cause conniptions for some but for me a kitchen is and will always be a multi functional place.
I don’t here have the luxury of a separate ‘boot/utility’ room so the outdoors kind of has to meet the indoors here.

Anyway, to recap santaclarita, you definitely don't want one of these?

www.blakeandbull.co.uk/collections/drying-racks-rails-for-range-cookers

I have a feeling this will cause conniptions for some but for me a kitchen is and will always be a multi functional place.

why always the need to go to extremes?
My PREFERENCE in my own home is a kitchen used to ... cook.
I don't like multi-fonctional rooms, and that has been reinforced by the lockdown. No one is going into a rage because others enjoy doing their laundry in their kitchen it just makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

Neither does this insistence for putting loos in bathroom. I don't like the place where people poop, have occasional diarrhoea, are sick anywhere near the place where I brush my dish or have a bath. After so many months out of school, I am expecting a full revival of various bugs for my school aged kids....

The kitchen is not where we put our wet clothes or shoes either. 🤷
and it really isn't the place where I would entertain friends or family.

*Brush my TEETH
jeez, talk about multifonctional if I start doing the clearing up in the bath!

kitchen goals

as this is the reality for many people who can't afford better, I am not sure it's such a sweet picture

@merrymouse

Anyway, I think the premise of the OP is wrong.

Anybody decorating their house with the idea that it will add value in 10 or even 5 years time is misguided - but does anyone really believe that?

If you plan to move in a couple of years, you probably should take account of current trends, if not decorate the house for the person who will actually live there - you.

I didn't say anything about resale though. I actually dislike the trend for decorating for resale even when people have no intention of moving. My point is that I reckon when we are having a lazy evening watching home renovation shows in a few years everyone will be raving about the space gained/improved by ripping out the island (and perhaps having half-wall windows instead of full length for more flexibility for furniture).

Fair enough Gervase!

as this is the reality for many people who can't afford better, I am not sure it's such a sweet picture

SantaClarita that is genuinely an aspirational lifestyle picture in the UK.

People want to have a kitchen full of labradors and wellingtons. They want a cat who sleeps in the laundry.

Santaclarita you have an awful lot of rules. I’m sure you know those rules don’t apply to most people who do have loos in their bathrooms and do have washing machines in their kitchens, but they are your rules and must haves and you need to do you.

The rest of us really don’t have the same issues, and you need to not be angry about that. You need seperate rooms for everything, from brushing your teeth to shitting to washing your clothes to cooking your food.

Most of us happily have a loo in our main bathrooms, have no issue with shoving clothes in a Washing machine in the kitchen and it’s not a big deal.

We don’t leave our clothes laying around in the kitchen or soaking in the sink, we don’t brush our teeth in front of shit splattered loos, our kitchen work surfaces are clean and wiped down, food is put away, The floors are clean. For most homes this lay out of loos in bathrooms and washing machines in kitchens is totally normal.

I think we all get you can’t live like that, and that’s ok. Just as how everyone else lives is also ok. Right?

Who wants fresh laundry to stink of garlic?!
Maybe don't leave fresh laundry hanging round the kitchen
That is a nonsensical arguement against washing machines in kitchens 😂