Kitchen island/table

[Tomboytown]

anyone eat on their island at bar/worktop height?
Trying to decide whether to make it multi level. I think I like my feet on the floor and I have a back problem which means I need a bit more support. Can't imagine long social dinners at an island.

The whole point of my post is to figure out how to eat at the island

Is this the only eating area in the kitchen?

How many people do you need to accommodate with seating?

If you also have a large enough table then I’d just do whatever you want. I’m not really a fan of sinks in islands so can see logic of having it partially hidden behind a higher section.

If this is going to be your only seating though I’d want to make sure I had 1 solution that accommodated everyone - I wouldn’t want people dotted about at different heights.

We have a breakfast bar which is higher than a standard kitchen worktop (though the worktop is all one height, there is a step down on that side of the bb hence it seeming higher). It works well for casual seating when someone is cooking, or for a quick meal but I wouldn’t only want raised seating, it’s not at comfortable or sociable as sitting round a table imo.

People have this thing about islands & breakfast bars. Really I think they can work very well when there is enough space for a table as well. However as the only seating in the kitchen I don’t personally think they work as well. If you don’t have space for both I would look at using space around the walls to get the workspace you need and then how you can have a proper table in there. What are the dimensions of the room?

There are plenty of designs that attach a table to the Island but you do need space. I could have had a breakfast Bar on the far side of my Island but it would not have been a good use of space and it would be very linear. We find people sitting around the circular table at work surface height works well. We have a 6/8 seater table nearby though.

If it was my only eating space I would go for rectangular or square but lower than the Work surface. I only have two usable walls so an island with double sided and end cupboards gave a lot of storage. You get storage under the table too. It depends on the space available and the shape and usable wall space.

Hi bubbles,

What wood have you used for your bi fold doors out of interest?

Thank you.

I'm going to start over

Kitchen is 7m x4m
Have decided on units along one wall and an island. Island could be 4-5m. To include sink, dw and bins. (1.8m) the rest can be seating/table
I'd like a higher bar area to hide the sink but but also because I want a couple of high stools as I find that sociable when I'm pottering/drinks/snacks. I don't think high seating all around will work as I think table height seating is more social for meals, so I'm thinking to lower the end to table height. I'd love 8, but I think that's a squash.
I do have another room to use as dining room, but it's not a permanent dining room.

A variation of this
I have another design meeting next week, but still undecided

And knocking chimney breast down which will give approx 400cm on the width

I'm still not sure with your sizes whether you have enough room. You'll have so little worktop space in your wall run that the island will be needed for that, reducing the 'table' space in your island.

Sink and higher level bit for seating around isn't practical for reasons as already said, I still don't get why you are so fixed on that.

The whole thing could be a big expensive mistake but you seem very fixed on it.

Good luck as I'm not sure what advice you really want. For what it's worth I think you need a total redesign.

I love a kitchen island, but I don't think they lend themselves to eating meals at.

You can't really put shared dishes in the middle, more than a couple of people and they can't see each other. Stools just aren't as comfortable as dining chairs, even with foot rests. I wouldn't really want to look at the pots waiting to be washed in the sink while I ate.

Ours gets used for breakfast and homework.

Even a casual meal and we would eat at the kitchen table.

Ideally I would plan to have enough seats for your family at the island. Then if possible also have a kitchen table.

Hi Tomboy coming in to give you some moral support! I have a spit level island , mine is higher all down the side open to the room, for socialising, hiding the kitchen mess while we eat and mostly just because I always liked sitting at the bar ( realise that makes me sound like a old lush) we do have a table for meals though but I sit at it a lot.

Just taken a photo from the other side! It's very sociable when you're cooking and it naturally becomes like a proper bar when friends are round!

You will need to keep your bins clean, because you can't risk people are eating over your waste and can smell it. Kitchen units are not air tight. As said for me a sink in it if you want to use it as dinner table isn't good. You're moving to eating your dinner over your waste and round your dirty dishes. On a practical sense it's really not ideal.

I think you're stuck between what you like aesthetically, versus the reality of what works best for what your actual needs are.

As said islands can be great for long family social meals. Mine is huge, but I have nothing on it, and my rubbish isn't in it. If something needs to go there, make it a hob that blends in, or your going to spend your time clearing rhe dishes and pots out the sink, as well as any food/grease that's come off rhe dishes into it, before you eat dinner.

I think you need to start from scratch on design ideas. 7x4m room. Where are the windows/doors? What needs to go in there? i.e. do you have a dining table elsewhere or will all eating be done in the kitchen.
Islands make much more sense as part of an open plan space to divide kitchen from non-kitchen. Just having a giant island in a kitchen that fills much of it looks odd and wastes so much space

New houses have gap between sink and island large enough for a wheelchair to manoeuvre.

If you can eat elsewhere, then the higher seating is fine. If you can’t, I don’t know how practical it is.

We just planned our kitchen a few months ago and I ended up going with the sinks on the back wall and the hob on the island instead. There are a lot of places where you can even have little hidden doors that slide back to reveal the sink area during the day/in use and you can just shut them and (shut out the mess) when you want a tidy looking kitchen in a social area.

We ended up going for all one height on the island. I have L-shaped seating like you but decided that practically and space-wise, it better for us having one large single clean surface. Having said that, you could potentially go for something trendy like a floating ultra thin worktop and then just have some cool rustic wood slabs for a very slightly raised look if you’re desperate for that two tier thing. It’s very popular here on the continent. Too high though and it does get harder for the old and young to enjoy the space.

I think it’s fine to want an island, I’d just make sure you have at least a 1.2m of walking space behind it. If you have 2.4m of walkways, 60cm depth for the wall cupboards and an island depth of 1m, you’ll be bang on for a 4m depth, so I think the space is okay.

I'm suggesting that I move the seating area lower, furthest away from the sink
Just a couple of stools for casual at the high bit.

If I don't make the island into dining then my dining table is going to go there. It's where it is now. Currently it's by the dishwasher
I could change the hob and sink over, but I'd prefer a sink in the island rather than a hob.
I think in open plan you're either looking at the messy hob or messy sink area. As long as it's not right next to you I'm ok with that.

Similar

User: I don’t have Bifold doors. They are French doors and they are oak.

Tomboy: I think a 2 m usable Island is small in the space you have. You seem to want two dining areas. People will sit at the lower table and talk to you! They won’t be in the outer Hebrides!

Of course you can have a sink. And bins. I have two built in bins in the island. Near the hob/oven. They are not really near the sitting area though.

Planning an island really depends on the room and how you walk around the island. 4m isn’t that much to put in a big island with walk around space. You have to allow room to pull the chairs/stools back for example. You have much more room at the end of the island and I would concentrate on installing seating there. Have you considered built in benches for example? You can get ones with hinged seats with storage under.

In all my previous kitchens I have found that people would prefer to stand rather than sit at a proper table when they first come in/get a drink/snacks. I find that awkward, so want something bar height. I need worktop and then I want to be able to eat dinner- usually 6 people

We are currently renovating our new house and living in it with minimal furniture so the only place to sit ( other than camping chairs) is at the IKEA kitchen island. It's a killer after 3 weeks....It's not a long term solution for eating at. I would suggest some time with boxes on worktops at different heights to find out the height that works for you for cooking and eating.

I think what this thread shows is that what you want in your kitchen is not what many people would choose. That’s totally fine, it’s your kitchen, have whatever you want. My only proviso would be if you think you may move not too far in the future, in which case you may want to rethink.

Personally in a 4m x 7m room I’d go for units on one of the 4m walls, a parallel run with a 1m walkway between & on one side, and this could perhaps have a breakfast bar area too (which could be raised). Then there would still be space for a table which I think most people ideally want in a kitchen.

But it’s not my kitchen and you obviously have a very fixed idea of what you’d like, so go with it!

sdaisy: that layout leaves a huge space for a table. You could use 5 m of the 7m wall and build the island opposite which would be 3m long so you can walk around it. That would be 600mm deep to house everything and the raised or overhang could be 400mm making it 1 m wide. There is then room to walk around it, even with chairs and short enough to put the table down the other end of the room.

My kitchen is 5x7 m and not having formal dinjng gives so many more options and you get a wow kitchen. The circular work surface level table that I have at one end of my large is a better solution - the ops kitchen has room for creative solutions. However with a dining table, it’s not going to be great. I would go with formal dining elsewhere.

Large island ....

@BubblesBuddy yep fair point 3.5 x 4 probably is a bit big for a table (though not huge), but 2m like in your suggestion perhaps a bit narrow, in which case I agree a table solution within the island probably works better, if the OP is wedded to the huge island idea.

It took us ages to work out our kitchen layout, including masking it out on the floor as well as doing 3D planners etc so we could really see how it worked in the space we had. It’s no easy feat!