Why don't you move the cleanup off of the more trafficed island to a less prominent location? 4x8 is plenty large enough to serve as the cleanup station, but it's not the best or most attractive use of an island.

because there's no other good place to put it...
see whole kitchen plan here:

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen plan

What material are you using for your counter? If you are using a natural stone, why not just maximized the full slab? If it's wider, that's ok. You just don't want it to be so wide that you can't reach the center to clean it.

I don't see anything wrong with it. We have a 9 foot island with a stove in the middle (37.5") and there is room on both sides.
If you worry about water and the people seated, just add a little buffer made out of the counter material. I had a pic of one like that saved for a while, but can't find it. It was like a rectangle/shelf laid on its long edge and each side had a triangle shape that tapered from the tallest part at the corner down to the counter. They have splash guards like that for the side of bathtubs to keep the water in. You would just lay it differently than this pic shows....

Here is a link that might be useful: bathtub splash guard

Sure you can move the cleanup off of the island! Put it where you show the fridge currently and put the fridge all the way to the left on the cooktop run so the cooktop is between the two towers of the wall oven and fridge. (Or move the wall oven to the left and put the fridge where the wall oven is shown currently.) Then move the prep sink off of the back wall and onto the island. The way you have it set up now, your back will always be to your guests and family at the island. Make the island be the center of all of your prep activity!

48" should be fine. The cabinet depth is 24", you need at least 15" for overhang for seating. That leaves another 9" of "dead space". That should leave you a full 24" of counter space between the back of the faucet & the edge of the overhang.

A better question would be what to do with the 9" of "dead space". You could do shallow cabinets on the back of the island for extra storage. If you have the room in the kitchen, you could add another 3" to the island depth and have a 12" deep set of cabinets (instead of 9" deep) on the back side (these would be the same depth as your wall cabinets). Extra storage is something you can always use more of!

Hope this helps!

I agree with beekeeperswife that you should consider going larger to maximize your slab (caesarstone is 56"). Then like mydreamhome says above, you can do 12" cabs on the back side of the island and still have a comfortable 15" overhang for seating. Our island is 54" and in fact I'm sitting at a laptop with coffee behind the sink right now. Plenty of dry land here. :)

BKW - Yes, taggie is right, we are considering Caesarstone.

Taggie - good to know that you like that width. How long is your island?

LWO - I don't know if that wall is big enough...it's only 68 inches. With a 36 sink base and a 24 dishwasher we'd only have 8 inches of space leftover. Not enough for a trash, and then dish storage would be far away so you'd be hiking back and forth to empty the DW?

I'd make it a priority to separate the cleanup and the prep better. As it is, all of your prep will be facing away from the island or crossing over into your cleanup area. None of it's great for entertaining or even just rolling out cookies with family. Your traffic patterns fight each other.

A single 25" sink in a 27" sink base cabinet is plenty big enough to serve as a cleanup sink. Whole cookie sheets fit into the bottom. And you can get a double pull out trash into a 15" cabinet. 24" for the DW and a 3/4" panel for it's side and you have room left over. Some dish storage can go above, maybe even with a pretty plate rack if you like that sort of thing. Other dish storage can go into the island directly across. It'll be easy for kids to help unload straight into drawers there.

The prep sink on the corner of the island with the fridge behind it (where you currently show the ovens) will make it convenient for food to flow from storage to the island for prep, and then just a quick turn to put it onto the stove. You'll be facing out on the island for that 70% of the time you are prepping rather than the back wall for that 80% of the time you are in the kitchen. (70% plus the 10% cooking time)

cottonpenny, our island is 10' long. We went as big as we could get with the single slab of caesarstone.

I personally love having the sink & dw in the island -- cleanup zone on one side, prep on the other. Like you, we also have a second smaller sink on a side run but that's in the beverage/snack area and it works great to keep hubby and guests out of the main working area which I like to have all to myself.

Most people on gardenweb are strong proponents of a cleanup sink on a side run with a separate prep sink in the island. I don't like that myself but that's because I'm the main one working in the kitchen and I want to have the working zones (whether prep or cleanup) to myself without people underfoot getting water or making coffee, etc. If I had a larger family at home, including someone who actually would DO the cleanup while I cooked (a pipe dream for me, lol) then I might well feel differently.

Bottom line of what I'm trying to say: think about how YOU will use your kitchen, and make it work for you. That may or may not mean a sink in the island, I don't know.

GreenDesigns I might be wrong but I don't think that side sink is the prep sink. I assumed it was a secondary beverage sink, with her prep area on the island to the left of the sink.

Cottonpenny, maybe you could post some info about how you envision the kitchen working for you and your family and what you'd use the sinks for?

So much to think about! Love GW...

I am the only cook in the family...DH grills. We have a 6 month old son and maybe one more in the future so would like to plan for young kids. But I also realize that this young time is fleeting so I want it to be appropriate for teenagers too. I grew up cooking with my mom and so did my brother, so I have hopes/fantasies that my kids will like to cook with me too. As young children and as teenagers. So a 1.5 cook kitchen? ;-)

We are not neat people, and don't really expect to do better anytime soon. We tend to leave dirty dishes in the sink if the dishwasher isn't empty or if something needs to soak. I wanted the prep sink to be able to fill up the sink to wash greens and drain pasta if there are dishes in the sink.

I do tend to wash a pan here and there while the onions are sauteing. I do also really really hate cleaning up, so wonder if it being the thing that faces the wall and is separated from the rest of the kitchen would make it even more unpleasant? It would be easier to move the prep area to the main sink if there was someone I wanted to face than it would be to clean up in the prep sink, I would think.

My mom has 2 sinks, one to the left of her range separated by a stretch of counter where she leaves a cutting board, and I like that arrangement. So that's why I put the prep sink on the range wall. I'm open to other arrangements of prep sink/cutting board/stove, I just don't have any personal experience with them.

Anyway, that's almost a novel, so I'll stop. I'll think about GD's suggestion - smallest Kohler Whitehaven is 30" so if I did that, DW, and 15" trash I would be 69 inches and it's probably possible to steal an inch from the pantry.

My island is 10 ft by 54". (granite measurement) I like having my sink and dishwasher on my island. The only thing I would like better is having it under a big sunny window.

I have 24" cabinets on the sink side and 18" under the seating side. Those inconvenient cabinets come in handy for seasonal storage and one is dedicated to kids school supplies/art storage.

What I don' like about my island after living with it for six years: when everyone is eating and visiting around the island, I always stand on the sink side, because I want to see everyone. Next house, I will design an island that is not rectangle. It will have two seats on two sides, so four people can see each other.

{{gwi:1389705}}

Cottonpenny, given the way you'd use your kitchen I would agree that you should look at a separate cleanup sink where the fridge is now. You might be able to shrink the pantry back a little to have a slightly longer cleanup run on the side.

Perhaps you can consider putting the fridge where you have the wall ovens shown, and the wall ovens at the other side of the run with the range centered pretty much where it is. Then your island just has a prep sink that should always be clear for you, and won't look messy with dirty dishes piled in the central focal area. I think that would be a layout that would make you happier in the long run.

Maybe I should start a new thread?

How about this layout?

I lost my coffee bar/toaster area. And I don't know where the microwave should go. Help?

Swap the fridge and the ovens. Put the MW in a base cabinet next to the fridge. Now you'll have little to no crossover from people sneaking drinks or snacks while you cook and you have a big old single sink to pile up the dirty dishes until the other half puts them in the DW. Swap the DW and trash and put a drawer cabinet facing the DW on the island for dish and silverware storage.

Why do I move the refrigerator father away from the family room if I don't want people crossing over?

Oh dear, I hope that didn't come across as rude. It's a genuine question - I really appreciate all the advice and I'm very excited!