A home with a giant kitchen island with storage has been my dream for years and years now. I finally have made this dream come true after we renovated the main living areas of our large but quite outdated home. Everything from the kitchen island ideas to the light fixtures and awesome architectural details on the ceiling are absolutely stunning and exactly the look I was trying to achieve. As far as kitchen design goes, most of the room is probably considered quite basic (I mean who hasn't seen white cabinets and dark wood floors before). The kitchen island is the real show stopper though. I wanted something combined all of my favorite aspects of the best kitchen islands that I found online -- something dark that would contrast against the white cabinets, and I wanted it to have tons and tons of storage as well as a large enough surface to seat at least 6 people. We got all of this and more in the giant square marble-topped unit that our designer created.
In my opinion, a kitchen island with storage is one of those elements that can really make or break a home in a buyers eyes. I can't tell you how many clients that I have brought through absolutely stunning homes that they loved everything about, only to be discouraged (and ultimately lose the sale) because the kitchen did not have an island. For this reason, if you are in the building or renovating process, I would highly suggest looking into kitchen island ideas with seating because they are essentially insurance policies for later if you consider selling the home. I don't see their popularity waining anytime soon because structural trends like this tend to last much longer than say the hottest kitchen paint colors 2022.
We had to play around with the foot print of our downstairs area in order to figure out how to fit a kitchen island with storage as well as enough seating for the kids. An island was the single thing that I wanted to make sure we got with our renovation last year because, not only are the trendy, but they really made sense for how we use the kitchen. I have always been attracted to large kitchen island designs because they are so versatile and really provide a great anchor to the space. Even though our kitchen is not very wide, our contractor came up with this long and narrow design that manages to fit a bunch of storage, seating and even a second bar sink at the end. Don't be discouraged as you look through small kitchen island ideas (I was at first), you just have to be creative with how you utilize the space.
When we built this home, a kitchen island with storage was an absolute must for me. I told this to our designer from the get go, and boy did she deliver! First of all I didn't even realize that you could buy kitchen island cabinets this large let alone actually dominate a space with a unit this big. When she first told me her idea, I was definitely intimidated. I thought that a gigantic u-shaped island that realistically had as much square footage as the rest of the cabinets in the kitchen would simply be too much (and I love islands). I am so glad that I trusted her though, because I cannot imagine anything better than the large kitchen island with seating that they built in here. It is the first thing that any guests talk about when they come in the house, and I am continually astounded by just how functional it is day in and day out.
Over the years people have come to know me by my signature design element -- a large kitchen island with storage. When I first launched myself into the design world, I worked on the entire house (and still do), but more and more people requested my unique kitchen designs, so that is the niche market that I have begun catering too. I try to incorporate a large kitchen island into each and every one of my designs because they are not only highly functional, but also quite beautiful as well. The island in these photos is probably my favorite in my entire portfolio because we got so creative with the hidden storage and functionality. It was really important to incorporate an abundance of seating as well as kitchen storage ideas. So, behind the bar stools, we hid a whole set of cabinets that could be used to store seldom used items like fancy serving ware and small appliances.
As you can see from this photo, we went out on a limb and tried to be trendy by making the finish of our kitchen island with storage a completely contrasting color than our all white kitchen. I know that a natural wood stain is really not that "out there" compared to a lot of pictures of kitchen islands I have seen online -- I love the idea of a bright blue or green unit in the center of the space, but it just doesn't go with our aesthetic. We wanted to do something that would definitely be trendy and give some dimension to the space, but nothing too crazy that we may regret in a few years. I could be biased, but I have seen a lot of beautiful kitchens over the years, and I think that our home now makes it to the top ten.
