How does this affect your aisle widths? That'd be a huge consideration (probably #1) for me.

I'm a bit under 5'4". We have an island that is 48" (51" counter). We don't have seating at it, but just reached across to check how it works. I can see it being a little bit of a stretch, but if there is someone to reach out and grab the plate it shouldn't be any problem, and has she considered that she'll be holding the plate on the side nearest her, so it's not like she has to reach the whole way? Or the plates can be set where it's comfortable for her and someone on the seating side can pull it to its final location?

Personally, I'd like the extra 6" (if it doesn't crowd aisles) particularly behind the sink and faucet. We had an 18" eating bar in our last house and it was very comfortable for plate and cup and a little room for the ketchup bottle or what have you. With a sink and faucet right there, the distance will help the person seated behind feel like it's less in their face.

I would stick to the 40" to make it comfortable for your wife. I'm 5'4" and our island is 42" wide. It's easy to clean because I can reach all the way across instead of having to walk all the way around to clean it.

It's hard to say if your island is too big without seeing your layout. As long as your aisles are roomy enough and the island doesn't block the traffic between sink and fridge or stove and fridge, etc., it should be fine. Mine is 12 feet long. =)

Who's the main cook in your household? If it's your wife, have you considered making the island lower than the standard 36" height to provide a more comfortable work area for her?

Pic include here.....

Here is a link that might be useful:

Looks like you have plenty of room if your wife will not be unhappy. I'm sticking to what I said because of the seating behind the sink. I'm also more in favor of an island that appears hefty, rather than ones that look kind of skinny for how long they are...So that probably colors my opinion, too.

Is the island going to line up with or be centered with the stove/fridge wall cabinets? I'm not sure if it's doing either in the drawing, but that might have been just a quick sketch?

Good catch/question. It definetly floats and isn't truly lined up with anything in particular.

Tried to make a reasonable 'triangle' with the Fridge/Sink/Stove

Started with 4' aisle on the one end (stretched the back to 4'6") and just let it grow from there. If anything, have tried to keep it to the 'left' so that it attempts to center on the great room. It obviously doesn't. Centering on the wall cabinets is tricky as it then slides into the dining space. Lining up with our walk-in pantry seems like a decent walk through.

The cabinets are custom and can be any size that are required.

Original plans had a 33" counter between the Fridge and stove and a shorter one next to the stove. I didn't mind it sticking passed the island since that back wall seems like dead space anyways.

Thanks for you responses!

You think I've got a line up issue?

Since you have a sink in the island, I would go w/the deeper island and the deeper cabinets. An extra 6" of cabinet space will be significant and an extra 6" of counter will not only reduce splashing of anyone seated at the island, but also help provide a bigger expanse of workspace. Normally, an island w/a prep sink has that sink in a corner so the rest of the island is wide open for workspace. But, when a main sink is in the island that's rarely the case...it's usually smack dab in the middle and divides up the workspace into small chunks (assuming you don't lose it to dirty dishes).

One comment on the DW placement. I would switch the DW to the other side of the sink. In it's current location, it will be opened into the back of the legs of anyone standing or working at or around the range. If they're carrying boiling water to drain or moving a very hot pan/pot, I would hate for them to step back and stumble b/c the DW is open & they didn't know. It's also in the way of that same person when draining that boiling water...even if they know it's open.

Yes, it will then be across for the refrigerator, but you're in the refrigerator for short amounts of time and even if you stumble into an open DW, at least you won't have boiling water in your hands!

The other thing the current location does is block access to the kitchen from the DR when you're clearing the table (see TresGirls, I was listening tonight!) Yes, the dishes can be put on the island and then transferred to the sink...and that would be an acceptable compromise if the other factors didn't exist.

Where's your microwave? Trash pullout? I suggest the trash pullout to the right of the sink for accessibility from the sink, range, prep area, & DR (again, TresGirls!)

Note: If you do decide to go w/the deeper cabinets, be sure they pull the sink forward in the cabinet, not center it. Regardless of the depth of a sink base, the sink still needs to be as close to the counter edge as possible.

***** Sorry for the interjections...ClayBabe & I met w/TresGirls this evening and she brought up these points about the DW location when I tried to talk her into putting it where you have it in relation to her DR as well. But, in her case, the DW on the left was slightly across from her prep sink and the range was on the side wall...so it really wasn't as big an issue for her. But, she brought up very good points that I passed on here... *****

Thanks for the responses!

I'll hit questions/points....

Microwave is a standard over the range/oven style.

DW open with oven/stove user - this doesn't concern me too much, as we tend to be either in prep/cook mode or clean-up mode. In our current kitchen, I honestly can't recall a time where we were using(loading/unloading) both the DW and oven/stove at the same time.

DW placement for clearing/cleaning dishes - I think this is a great point and I'm glad you brought it to my attention! Hadn't thought about it in terms of clean-up. We did think about it in terms of putting away though. For the most part everything that would be coming out of the dishwasher would be put away on the back wall (either upper cabinets or bottom drawers). It seems like the correct location for putting away.

So, at some point it seems like a toss up - a little more pain to get dishes to the sink or by moving the DW, a little more pain to unload. Personally, seems like you load piece by piece over 1-2 days. I like to unload in about 5 minutes. I think the temptation will be to leave it as-is. But you've definetly given us pause to consider it over the weekend.

Thanks. Peter

Buehl - Too funny! I've spent almost the entire day thinking about whether to switch around my dishwasher and trash. There are definitely pros and cons to each placement. One possible solution I've been researching today is the use of two stacked dishwasher drawers instead of a conventional 24" dishwasher. With the drawers, you wouldn't have the 24" door hanging down and completely blocking the passageway; during clean-up, you could just open a drawer as needed and as far as needed to load the dirty dishes. Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of complaints about quality of dishwasher drawers, though. What do you think of this idea?

pjhorst - Sorry to hijack your thread, but dishwasher drawers might be something for you to consider, too. In my case, my refrigerator is essentially where your oven/stove is, so having the dishwasher to the right of the sink would be directly across from the refrigerator (not great during clean-up) and my aisle is only 42", so the blockage issue is worse than yours. At least you would still have 30" to pass through your aisle when your dishwasher door is open.

We have a 9ish' (close to 10) by 4' island, with sink centered that looks out into our open family room, so similar plan. Our dishwasher opens into our stove top (no ovens there, though) area and it has worked well for us because a priority for me was placement of pullout trash closer to fridge for my prep area. While I don't mind the location of the DW, every once in a while I do wish for a couple more inches inbetween the cooktop wall and island - I have 36" which works, but a smidge more would be perfection when it's more than just me in the kitchen. For our island we used standard depth cabs on the prep side, then added 2 12" cabs flanking for baking pan and tall storage. This gives those sitting on the 'ends' of the island just over 12" of legroom, and those in the middle get over 15" - very comfy IMO. Don't know if you can even see this well in the picture...still trying to find the perfect stools :)

I do think that the 40" of space in between our island and the collumn (and imaginary line extending from that), plus the hallway space before our couch is gigantic. I do think a few more inches on my island would have been fine because there is so much space. But, it's also become this standing/hanging out place during parties, so having the open room is nice. I'm 5'5" and find that I go all the way to the other side to clean the island anyway. But I'm pregnant, so big belly is starting to get in the way. blah, blah, blah...long way of saying you could get away with the extra 6".

How old are those kiddos, Peter? Once they get old enough to get assigned the empty-the-DW chore, I suspect you'll find that the DW will often be getting emptied at the same time that you or your wife are cooking dinner. At least that's the way that it worked when I was a kid because mom would discover that I hadn't done it yet when she went in to start dinner. For that reason, I would recommend shifting the DW or stove for the safety reasons mentioned above.

We have a large island and we made it deeper so that we could utilize the ends of the island as well as the front and back. For example, we placed our trash pullout on the end so that it was conveniently located to the prep and dish area, but other also easily accessible without entering the main cook/prep areas. The cabinety of our island is 7' x 3.5' plus a curved overhang that adds another 12-18" to make the island roughly 7' x 5'.

I'd be happy to post pictures of all sides of our island, just let me know if you're interested, but here's an overview:

A deeper island could have the following benefits in your kitchen:
-Better protection of island seating from sink splashes
-More storage. Although your kitchen is large, because of its central location limits wall cabinets, a bit more storage could really come in handy.
-The increased depth would balance the long length of the island
-A more substantial island would do a good job of balancing your kitchen witb your room size.
-The opportunity to have cabinets open on the ends could help reduce crowding in what's really a galley kitchen. For example a bank of drawers that opens towards the dining room could hold silverware and dishes that would be conveniently located to both the island seating side and the dining room. That way the table could be set without disturbing the cook.

The only drawbacks I can think of are:
-Your wife not being able to reach across to put plates in front of the kids. However I think this si minor and certainly short lived as the kids will grow quickly and be able to slide a plate towards themselves
-slight increase in cabinet cost (again very minor in the grand scheme of things.

Regardless of what you decide to do for the island size, please consider curving the seating overhang out rather than having it be straight across. That greatly increases the ability of peopl seated there to enjoy eachother's company. An added bonus: if you curve the island overhang so that it's 18" in the center, you'll have some extra room for your long legs.

Kids are 5 months and 2 years.

Dishwasher drawer option is appealing, although our appliance contact doesn't see value in them. Very cool looking though.

I think we have settled on the bigger island. So, 10' x 4'6" it is.

Just need to evaluate a few interesting drawer options and consider pro/con on the DW placement.

I've noticed several comments about trash pullouts. Seems like a waste of decent cabinet space. Am I old school in that we simply place a small trash bin under our sink and take it out to our trash can daily (sometimes twice a day depending) ?

Have you considered adding a pull out step stool, built into the base of the island. My island has a 1 foot by 2 foot stool that pulls out from underneath and it is great.

actually, my wife has mentioned it before. Just wasn't sure where it would go and what it would like it. Can you take a pic of yours and post?

Regarding drawer-style dishwashers, now that I have one, I will never go back to one with a regular door again. The drawers are so much easier to load and unload. Plus, you can use one at a time or start one load while still loading the other drawer. With just two of us, I typically use just the top drawer, but when there's company (which is often), I always use them both. Together, they hold about 20% more than a regular dishwasher.

One huge advantage of drawers--and advantage I wish I had been able to include in my design--is that you can buy them separately and have one on each side of the sink, with storage beneath them. Or, if you have flirted with the idea of getting two dishwashers but aren't sure you need two, you can always get one and a half with three drawers--two stacked and one additional.

alku05 - What kind of support do you have for your overhang? I notice you don't have legs. I am planning an 18" overhang and am trying to see different options for support. Thanks.