KITCHEN ISLAND IDEAS L SHAPED
[music] are you a diyer looking to sharpen your skills? looking for solutions for home improvement issues, getting advice when needing to hire a contractor, and staying up to date on the latest the industry has to offer on news and trends? you are in the right place. welcome to discover your home with your host, mark lotz. good
evening everybody. this is mark at discover your home. thank you for joining me on this blustery wednesday evening here in the windy city. we're going to talk a little bit tonight about kitchen islands and some of the shapes and sizes that we're seeing in regards to the islands that are in your kitchen. we're not talking about the hawaiian islands
but we are talking about islands that big bank of cabinets and giant slab of quartz in the middle of your kitchen. so what are we seeing today, what's out there, kind of throw out some ideas to you folks and then we'll have at it first and foremost what we try to let people know is you're gonna want to have a minimum clearance to all your
appliances, preferably around 42 inches especially between your dishwasher, your refrigerator, your stove between that and the island if you got a little bit bigger kitchen fantastic you don't have a problem with that but in a lot of cases you're kind of nip-and-tuck with the with the the the 42 inches in my kitchen i have a little smaller
kitchen so yeah that that becomes a little bit of challenge so layout is is very important when it comes to doing your kitchen island and making sure the size fits and in countertop space and everything like that so well first and foremost what you want to do is determine the purpose of the island
is it for meal preparation? you know generally that's kind of what a lot of smaller kitchens are used. mine is perfect for that it's it's a great slab to do a lot of chopping, everybody can kind of work around so it's really kind of nice. it works well for our kitchen personally. also entertaining or being able to dine right there at the at the
island which is kind of their again getting back to size as far as the amount of space in your kitchen, you're gonna definitely want to think about considering that. we found in a lot of homes in the 80s and 90s had these big islands and they were just for utilitarian purposes. they were just there for functionality, just a big top
cabinet space, but really didn't get to utilize it for more entertaining purposes. a lot of times now we're moving cooktops, sinks over to the island, so you've got a larger island, you might you know talk about different shapes and everything. but you're seeing a lot more that's moved from say either you're moving the sink over to the the island
or maybe you're putting a small preparation sink in your island and we're also doing a fair amount of cooktops to that we see. our traditional shapes pretty much a rectangle. what we're seeing now is more or less getting either more of a squared look or possibly a squared look with a radius countertop so it kind of gives a feel
for a little bit more space for people to sit at while they're eating their meals or being entertained. some of the odd size shapes that we like to see out there our l-shaped or j shape. there again you know just something where you can turn it a little bit and you're gonna find that you're gonna
you know they're getting an l-shaped with extra cabinet space. in some depending upon how it's laid out in your kitchen we've seen some that are, will use that that back wall area as a bench area and that will lead into the dinette area so that's kind of a really cool look so if you're looking to change up your kitchen
that might be something you want to consider to incorporate that island part of that island into kind of the dinette area of your kitchen which really becomes an almost kind of you get half and half on that one. what you're gonna get is a little bit more functionality in the larger kitchen with more cabinets, more countertop space, more entertainment
space. we did a project last year that she simply had a six foot wide rectangle by 24-inch cabinet and all we did was add another we took out the old island added in a new island and then butted a 12 inch cabinet to the backside so she could have extra space and then kicked out an extra 12 inches of countertop space so she could entertain you know
serve her family, husband, guests while she's there. before it was just really functional. it was her cooktop was there, the pop pop up vent hood was there. so it was just one of those things that it was used for one purpose now she's got some beautiful chairs around it now you know she can be cooking and entertaining your guests or a family
it's kind of multi-purpose now. the sink in the island we're seeing a little bit more but you definitely want to make sure it's still near your dishwasher. okay it's just always nice because you're not dripping from here to here keep it close you might find that it can be a little challenging if you're gonna go and move your sink over. i find
that a lot of folks are going ahead and doing preparation sinks. when we see l-shaped or j-shape size islands it really gets back to kind of more of an entertaining purpose you're gonna get much more cabinet space you're gonna get much more countertop space and really it's it gets back to kind of how you like to lay things out and how if it's you, your
family, and your lifestyle. you can still put that stove top in the island and still have a lot of space what you'll find is you can bump that extra you know you can bump that countertop space out just a little bit more to give yourself you'll have to have it reinforced but be able to have it as an eating area or even put a upper level above it as a
kind of either eating or bar area around the cooktop areas. so these are some of the things that we're gonna suggest to you folks when you're going ahead and remodeling your kitchen. hopefully you can take some of this and run with it. certainly go out there and take a look on on pinterest and houzz and there's some great areas to find some great
systems great suggestions out there. so i want to thank you again for joining me i’m mark at discover your home. thanks for having me and have a wonderful evening and we'll see you next week good night thanks so much for listening to this episode of discover your home with your host mark lotz online at lotzremodeling.com
that's lotzremodeling.com on twitter and facebook @lotzremodeling. we'll catch you next time.
