Wow...what an eye pleasing thread! Loved it! :-)

Wonderful pictures.

Holligator... I LOVE your cabinets.. are they quarter sawn oak? Can you tell me more about them? The color looks excellent.

I love your range hood too!

Thanks.

Tina

Here's mine!

Here's mine - pre-remodel. During construction - almost 19 years ago - it became known as "the island from hell" because the cabinets were done, but the design either wasn't or wasn't acceptable to us. It's interesting, but the small bit of formica counter on the top has always been a problem, as has the large grout around the facing tiles on the front.

We're not 100% sure what's going to happen to it. We'll be replacing the cooktop and downdraft, and putting on new counters, either Corian or granite. We'll probably lower the raised section a bit. Still, it's a nice island, and I think somewhat unusual.

Thanks, buffalotina! The cabinets are cherry with a natural finish. They are custom made by a cabinet maker in Interlachen, Florida.

holligator - thank you. I feared they were custom made and they just exude quality. I don't know why I thought they were QS oak - maybe I should consider cherry as they look excellent.

Tina

Jeannie_kitchen -What manufacturer of kitchen cabinet did you use? They're beautiful.

Colls - you may want to call out Jeannie on a separate thread or try to email her from her "My Page" as she may not check back in here.

Eliz

I'll squeeze another island in on this thread.
(Struggling to resize this picture. Sorry.)

Here's mine. My kitchen is super skinny (just a tad over 13 feet wide), so I had to compensate by designing a very long island ... 41 inches wide and 12 feet long!

The island countertop was finally installed yesterday. DH came home and said, "Wow, it looks so huge. What will we ever do with all this room??" My daughter promptly demonstrated today how useful all that surface area is when she started working on her science project! Excuse the mess. =)

Cabinets are russet stained, framed inset. Countertop is honed carrara. This side has two shallow banks of "junk drawers on each end and room for 4 stools (only have 2 so far).

This side has a MW drawer and drawer below, 2 banks of drawers, 36" fridge drawer and prep sink base. There's an overhang on this short end for a 5th counter stool.

Blakey-

I love your light fixtures! Where are they from?

I have decided that I am totally over designing my kitchen. All I really need is erikanh's island. It has a sink, refrigeration, a microwave and plenty of space for my laptop. I'm set!

The whole kitchen is just amazing erikanh. Words fail me.

Hey erikah, got any closeups of your prep sink? I ordered the same one and I kinda wanted to see what its going to look like (Im overly anxious!).

This is all pure island eye candy! I want one of each.

Woohoo! I finally got my island finished (well, still have toekick/baseboard)! Custom side trim made by my cousin.

Before (no pic of the real "before" when we didn't have countertop last year - been working on this nearly 2 years, along with the rest of the house):

{{!gwi}}

After

The center of the 9 ft x 4ft (to point of angled cabinets on ends) island is a 60" bathroom vanity, so it started out 3" lower and 3" recessed from the ends which are 143-degree angled kitchen base cabinets. After adding the countertop on the lower area (dropped edge to try to keep as low as possible, but still 3/4" thick laminate), we had slightly over 2" of sides showing, and 3" in front that met an angled edge. So my cousin beveled an edge on one piece of oak, notched it out, used pocket screws to join it to the 2" piece running under the upper countertop and butting into the plugmold. I stained and poly'd (waterbased) it, he used 18 gauge brads and a nail gun to tack it on - shouldn't be too hard to pry off if we ever have to refinish the side pieces. The 3/4" x 1/2" piece under the plugmold is another story - we'd have to take the countertop off to get that out (and might have to take the upper counter and plugmold off too). It's silicone caulked underneath, all sides of the oak are poly'd, so shouldn't have to worry about spills, and I think I got it on thick enough so I don't have to worry about splashes (didn't want plastic look, so brished on 1 coat, sanded, brushed on 2nd coat and then wiped excess off).

The same day (last Friday) he put up the oak shoe I had finished to hide the gap b/t the counter and the wall, and got the window casing up - yeah, no more blue tape!).

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Now the cabinets at least are done (except for toekick/baseboard and crown molding), so I don't have to worry about spills!

i'm glad this thread has been resurrected now that i'm in the finished club! here's mine.

{{!gwi}}
{{!gwi}}
{{!gwi}}

there aere some fancy islands here, thanks for postings photos

Here is mine. The base is 3' x 8'. Our house is MCM and the old cabinets were extremely MCM - slab drawers and doors with no handles. We went with Shaker and a simple handle style to keep the lines simple fitting with our house but a change from the old cabinets.

The back of the island (meaning the family room side) has two one foot deep and two foot wide cabinets under the bar. The ends at the back have one foot wide cabinets facing the sides of the island. The one on the right has tray dividers in the bottom to hold baking sheets and wire racks and a pull out shelf above that holds some cake pans. That and the cabinets across the aisle from it form my baking area. The one on the other side has two pull-outs, one for cutting boards and one with some miscellaneous stuff. There are also two electrical outlets mounted on the sides of those cabinets - one under each end of the bar.

The front side from right to left has a 24" sink base with prep sink and prep tools kept underneath like salad spinner, mini food processor, mortar and pestle, etc. There is an electrical outlet on the panel in front of the sink - the island outlet that gets the most use. The next cabinet holds the microwave with a spice drawer above and pot holder drawer below. Then a 36" cabinet for the range top with two pot drawers underneath. Finally, a 12" cabinet with pull-out shelves for oils, vinegars and other bottled supplies.

Here's a picture of my island, which I spent a LOT of time planning for. I'll try to show everything that is stashed in it in the following pics. BTW, DEEP DRAWERS ARE KEY!!!

Here's a pic showing my pull-out trash/recycling, my warming drawer (much prefer it here rather than under my wall oven!) and other storage drawers. Note the tall, narrow door which I had made deeper than it looks so it can store all my cutting boards, including the one we use to carve a turkey! It's next to the garbage pull-out. There is a small shelf on top for small cutting boards, and the larger ones fit on the bottom. The bottom section is about 5 inches deeper than it appears to be. You can sort of see what I'm talking about in the next picture showing the inside of the cabinets where the stools go.

Here's a pic showing storage space for rarely used items in cabinets behind stool area.

smarge, could you tell me the dimensions of your island? This is going in my Wish List!

smarge - NICE island!!! Incredible marble - what kind is it? I can see it's polished, how's it holding up?

I haven't posted my kitchen yet, but I'll give a sneak peak of just the island.

hsw_sc -- The upper (seating area) portion of marble is 80" wide and the lower, working portion is 74.5" wide. The cabinet base from front (drawers) to back (hidden cabs, by stools) is 48" deep. The height from floor to top of upper marble is 42.25".

The marble is Danby VT marble (claims to be denser than most granites and is sold as being suitable for use in kitchens) and it is 1.25" thick.

It is slightly polished, not a full mirror polish. I asked the fabricator to try to match the sheen of my perimeter counters which are Caesarstone Raven "polished". (You may or may not know that polished Caesarstone, silestone, zodiac, etc does not have nearly as high a reflective sheen as polished marble and granite).

How is the marble holding up? Well, as you can see in the pictures, it is beautiful looking when not looked at too closely. However, there is etching all over the place, which basically looks like "water stains" or glass rings or splotches that need wiping up, but can't be wiped up, etc. We're planning to have it honed in the near future so that future, unavoidable etching won't show as much. Meanwhile, it didn't take long to learn to stop noticing every new etch mark since there was no way to prevent it except by not using the counters!

What is that countertop princess? It looks good.

Here are my kitchen Islands. The one in center of kitchen we use for prepping and I have overhangs at both ends with bar stools tucked under for guests who want to visit while I am prepping, or help out. I also use them when I am weary and want to sit to prep. the other island is our entertaining/dining island. We use it for casual daily eating
fits about 5 or 6 bar stools along back side and the other side houses drawers and cabs, a warming drawer(I love it!) and
our beverage snack fridge. We use both of them all day long!
Happy island planning! CLICK on pics to see album

Christine

Thanks for the info smarge. Your island is just slightly longer than our current peninsula, and the set up you have would work well here. I'm currently on a "find everything that you like and put it in a binder" phase.

I love the marble,too. We stayed in an old villa in Italy last summer that had 50-60 year old marble counters and farm sink. They were etched and stained to heck and back and still looked gorgeous.

Thanks! The countertop is granite - white river. It's somewhat similiar to kashmir white but with some gray veining, brown blobs of color, and granite inclusions.

I'm posting my likely future table/island. Not red, though and maybe with a zinc top.

Hey nomorebluekitchen, your island is alot like my plan, could you tell me the name of your stools and where you got them. They're just what I'm looking for.

Crazyhouse6....Can you give me the measurements of your island? Excluding the bump out on one side,or you can give me both(with & without) how long and how wide? And also, I know it's asking alot, but how much overhang is there on the "chair" side"? My cabinet builder suggested a 3.5'x7' and I was thinking 4'x8'. So that's why all the questions. I absolutely love your kitchen and Love Love the island. Yours has so much charm! Thanks for any and all help!

Thanks NC Cowgirl - The island TOP is 9'7" long, 3' wide at the ends and 4'2" wide at the max. curve. The island cabinet is 8'4" x 2'1" (EXCLUDING the bumpout and the legs that hang out on the seated section on one end). The bumpout is 3' wide x 11" deep. The overhang on the arch and at the end seating spot is 12". The overhang between the bumpout and the leg ends gets wider. Not sure how much support it actually adds, but we do have a piece of wood that runs from the legs to the bumpout. Our granite fabricator was comfortable with this setup and stressed a max. of 13" overhang. I hope this info helps you out.

I love this thread, so it's nice to see it pop up again. So many different and beautiful islands/kitchens!

Thought this was worthy of a bump, in hopes other posters who have finished since 8/09 might wish to show their islands...

I just am amazed at the beautiful islands. I'm still in the planning stage.

There are many ideas here.

Would love to see pictures of butcher block islands that people actually cut on and have sinks installed in. Anybody?

We have a simple island, but I love the granite on it and we use it for breakfast and almost all the prep. Granite is verde esmeralda (but it's 3 years old and different from what they're quarrying now and calling verde esmeralda). I did have part of my cookbook collection in the end, but it's just a few feet from the dining area, and the cookbooks seemed too kitcheny, so we put our Chinese horse in there instead and DH's wine bottle opener. I like the extra storage, also. Have to get a better cutting board though; hardly ever use this one, the surface is unpleasant. Size is about 6x4, I think; forgot to measure. We have plenty of walking room around the sides; photos don't show that.

I love this thread! We are planning a 3' by 7' foot island and I am trying to envision it! So helpful to see these pics.

any more?

Here's our island.

There used to be a pony wall extending from that column, and had a return vent. The bookshelf with extra tall base was our solution on where to put the new return return vent. It took a lot of online searching, but I finally found a vent cover that didn't look chintzy and wasn't custom made.

Recharging station hidden inside of one of the back cabinets.

gpraceman, I never get tired of looking at your granite...and I don't know why I keep looking at all these island pics; it just makes me jealous, as I can't fit a decent one in my space.

@KBSpider - The granite is Crema Bordeaux. That's too bad that you cannot fit a good sized island into your space. We had to remove a pony wall in order to have a bigger island. Our last island was only 4' x 3'. Could you steal space from an adjacent room?

Love it. And almost every thread I went into today had a post from you with more pics! Not fair.

I'm in a townhome, and the kitchen is right next to the dining room. The kitchen is 13' x 10', but all the iterations I did with an island show it wouldn't work unless it was without seating. Since the kitchen is currently an "eat in," with room for a table, my best plan right now seems to be a peninsula, which would still allow for some seating, while letting me increase cabinet and counter space in the rest of the space. That's okay, I'll live the "island life" vicariously through all of you lucky folks! :)

Here's our island! Posting it too because it's oriented differently than most - which I agonized over but LOVE now - we use all four sides, really.

You can't see it but our family round table is in an adjacent room (separated just by columns) so we put our food out on the island each night.

We haven't had time to get our two small stools yet - oops!

P.S. We put the Task Lighting undercounter/cabinet, angled power strip under our island (and under our wet bar cabinets. That's a favorite decision of mine - we didn't have to cut the cabinets and I get more outlets across the front. Very handy! (It's in the last pic.)

@KBSpider - Our island isn't that much different from a peninsula with seating. It is a row of regular cabinets with a knee wall behind it and then 12" deep cabinets on the back (well, one is actually 15" deep). The knee wall made things easier for supporting the granite overhang with "hidden" brackets. There is not a big isle between the counter seating and our nook table, but we never intended to have both seating areas used at once.

This shows how the aisle between the island and the kitchen table. Wide enough that someone can get by when a person is seated at either the table or the island.

Here's a drawing of the island.

This post was edited by gpraceman on Fri, Aug 23, 13 at 17:45

Thanks, gpraceman! I'm going to save your plan and study it. I'm at least a year from my remodel, and have already been researching for a couple of years (got sucked into the GW vortex and just can't stop reading, lol), so I've got plenty of time to keep playing with the layout. My big problem is the range is on the long wall, and while I'm okay moving a gas line or plumbing a few inches, I'm not sure my budget would allow a total flip, which would make an island a much more realistic prospect.

Thanks again; it's very helpful!

P.S. So as not to have totally hijacked the thread, akcorcoran, love your island, too (and that light fixture)! :)

This post was edited by KBSpider on Fri, Aug 23, 13 at 18:52

@KBSpider - So, you want to move your range or sink to an island? A gas line is easier to move than plumbing, but it all depends on what's under the kitchen. We had the luxury of an unfinished basement to move our electrical around.

No, no; sorry I didn't explain that very well. I just meant that because the range is on the long wall (13'), I need adequate clearance for the oven door, and since the short wall is only 10', that limits me to only a stand-at island, unless I do it "peninsula-like" against the opposite wall, which I wasn't quite crazy about. I do have a dropped ceiling in the basement, but since this is considered a starter home type townhome, I don't want to get too crazy budgetwise.

Ours is 9' x 51"

This is my favorite of all so far! Love the stools also. What is the countertop? and the size of the island?

I don't know if you were referring to mine? (2 Little Fishies)

If so, it's 9 feet and 51" and the countertop is walnut finished with Waterlox Satin Finish. : )

Thank you!!