The 3 Best Features to Add to Your Kitchen Island
If you are doing home renovations, most likely the kitchen is part of, or the main renovation. They say that the kitchen is “the heart of the home” so of course, you want to put a lot of love into it. Updating the kitchen can make your house feel more like a home. There are many purposes to a kitchen. It’s essential for preparing nutritious meals for your growing family, it makes entertaining a breeze, and it can also increase the value of your home to potential buyers if you are ever looking to sell in the future.
Here are some of the features to consider when building or adding on to a kitchen island.
1. Space for Lots of Seating
Seating may seem like a no-brainer, however, it is often missing and always requested. Having seating at the island is something that can literally bring family and friends together. While you are making dinner, your kids can be sitting either doing homework, reading, playing on their phones, or, actually spending time talking to you!
If you are entertaining, you are in the kitchen getting everything ready, while in the meantime, your girlfriends are sitting around the island, sipping their wine, chatting and laughing it up. That way, you aren’t missing out on anything while you are hosting.
2. Drawers Instead of Doors
When designing your island, you really want to think about things that will be stored in the island and what you are going to be using the island for. Will you do your meal prep ie. cutting, chopping, etc. on there? You most likely will be. I would recommend drawers instead of cabinets and doors. Drawers are easier to see things that you have stored, and make things more accessible when you are going to use them. It will lessen the bending, squatting, and “moving things out of the way to get to the thing behind it”. You can customize it so you have shallow drawers at the top for things like silverware or cooking utensils, and then deeper drawers underneath it for pots, pans, or anything else that you may want to put in there.
3. Enough Outlets for the Electronics
I cannot stress this enough. If you are putting an island in your kitchen, you need to put electrical outlets in it. Why? First of all, because it is just handy to have them so you can plug in any small kitchen appliances or charge electronics. Secondly, it’s CODE! I recently met up with Brian, the owner of MHI Construction, who has done full scale home renovations (among all of his other talents), and of course, kitchens! Kitchens came up in our conversation and he told me that “any fixed island is required by code to have outlets”. You don’t want to have to have to use an extension cord to plug in an appliance on your island because it is just UNSAFE.
Depending on the space you have and how big the island will be, you may decide to add in other bonuses such as a prep sink, a wine fridge, or even a spot for a pull-out trash can and recycle holder. The possibilities are endless. Not sure what you’d want in the island or how to make the most use out of it? That’s where we come in!
If you're ready to design your most luxurious kitchen (with an island, of course), reach out to us. We can't wait to hear about your project.