12 May 22, 2022The Sunday TimesHome
M
ost kitchen projects
now start with a
Pinterest board and an
armful of glossy
magazines. When you
reach this point be aware that a nudge
campaign has already begun. Because
every aspirational shoot of an open-
plan kitchen with a garden view
through the bifold doors tells you that
what you need to make your life
complete is a kitchen island.
There’s no doubt that islands are
the aspirational option, but if you have
little space or an awkwardly shaped
kitchen, a central island will destroy
the flow of your room. The top two
island alternatives are the breakfast
bar and the traditional kitchen table.
So, to continue the romantic
metaphor to the bitter end: which
should you snog, which marry and
which avoid?
Let’s start with the pros of an island.
It is an efficient way to configure sink,
hob and storage in a single cuboid, an
opportunity to solve a space
conundrum with a handsome chunk
of cabinetry. Natasha Bauer, aka
@notting.hiller, shoehorned the
functions of an entire room into her
island. When Bauer and her boyfriend
moved to a new home in southwest
London and began planning the
kitchen, she realised space was too
tight for a utility room. So she devised
a 2.6m-long kitchen island that
included everything she needed for
laundry and cleaning, including a
washing machine and cupboards for
products, as well a sink and food
preparation surface above.
Bauer, a surgeon whose home has
just been listed as a location house for
filming and photoshoots, says: “You
have to have an idea of how you will
use it exactly quite early on, even
before the flooring is done, so that the
electrician can lay the electrics and
the plumbing can go in quite early.”
The size and shape of your kitchen
should dictate whether you can
cohabit happily with an island. Here’s
the lowdown from an expert in
compact kitchen design at Ikea: “In
theory, for a kitchen island as wide as
1.25m, the room must be at least
roughly 4 sq m — that’s with just one
run of units on one wall. So the
smallest a room could be is 2m x 2m, if
the room is a perfect square, which
rarely is the case.”
A skinny breakfast bar may be a
good island substitute in a smaller
kitchen, although you won’t be able to
fit big appliances under a breakfast bar
because breakfasting presupposes
legroom rather than a washing
machine under the counter. “They’re
places to stop and grab a coffee, for
the kids to sit after school while you
are prepping dinner, or somewhere to
eat while working from home,“
according to the kitchen designer Tom
Howley. “Unlike kitchen islands,
integrated seating is a must-have for
breakfast bars. Breakfast bars are
much more casual affairs.”
They may be informal, but they
require precision planning. Sam Watts
is discontented with the breakfast bar
in his home just outside Totnes in
Devon, where he lives with his wife,
Tania, and their two boys, Teddy, four,
and Monty, nine. “We have a breakfast
bar that drives me up the wall,” he
says. The overhang is wrong, the space
for your knees and the place where
you put your seat — all those things are
wrong. We are about to have a huge
home revamp and change it all.”
Watts is well placed to recognise
errors, being the founder of theW For a sleek,
modern effect,
this Devine
Collection kitchen,
in Serpentine,
features an island
matched to the
joinery, with a
matching worktop.
Tom Howley
kitchens start
from £20,000
tomhowley.co.ukISLAND
ROMANCE
Should you plump for the on-trend island,
the reliable breakfast bar or the homespun
kitchen table? Here’s our lowdown
on which to snog, marry or just avoid
SIMON BROWNKATRINA
BURROUGHS
@Kat_Burroughs