Bespoke Kitchens Cornwall

Most often we are involved in designing and making new kitchens where customers are embarking on a wider building project.

For example, many customers build extensions on their houses that are part kitchen and part dining area.

Customers accept that, by building an extension, they may be eating a bit into their garden. But in a sense, especially if they can incorporate plenty of glass into the design of the room, they then bring the outside into their homes. This can create a wonderful living environment where the garden itself becomes part of the room.

Often these spaces are really quite large and the design challenge is how to unify the space and make it a pleasure to use.

One reason that kitchen islands have become so popular is that they can bridge the gaps in large rooms. When, for example, you are prepping food on a kitchen island you can avoid walking long distances from the prep area to the cooker.

By making your island a prep. area you then have the possibility of making it a very sociable experience where you can chop an onion and chat to family and friends as they sit on an overhanging countertop opposite you.

Sometimes we incorporate the sink into the island and this can work well if the architecture of the room makes is difficult to put a sink in a run of cupboards against a wall.

At other times, we fit a hob in the island. This too can work well and you can prep food in areas immediately adjacent to the hob while looking out into the room.

The challenge then becomes how to fit an extractor to take away cooking fumes.

There are several options. You can either build a structure down from the ceiling and build in an extractor into it.

Or, if the structure of the ceiling has enough space and the ceiling joists are running in the right direction to run a duct pipe to the outside, you can fit a ceiling extractor. Some of these are very discreet. For example, Westin make ceiling extractors with no visible controls or lights and painted white.

Alternatively, you can do without any extractor above the hob. Instead, you can opt for a downdraft appliance which is an all-in-one hob and extractor.

Bora, for example, make brilliant devices which extract fumes very efficiently.

In conclusion, kitchen islands not only act as stepping stones in large rooms but they also provide versatile, sociable spaces where people can both prepare meals and chat. What better?