Reader question: Is it island time for me?
Help! I stay in a small residence and I'm considering changing my kitchen table and chairs with an island. Would this be a very good or a terrible idea? It's the best eating area we've got in our small house.
Spaces layout
I can not tell certainly due to the fact I cannot see the gap or the size of the desk in query. So I'm going to answer this from the intestine. My intestine answer is not any; don't do it.
Let me preface all of this by saying that all rooms and all clients are different. Some people get a lot of use out of an island and some rooms can accommodate one with little difficulty. However, you told me two things that are offering a clue. First, your house is small. Islands tend to work better in large rooms. Second, you tell me that your current table is your only eating area. So putting in an island means that you're sentencing yourself to a lifetime of eating at a counter.
I talk about this topic a lot. I suppose I'm some kind of a kitchen table advocate. I write for Houzz.com and I devoted a whole IdeaBook to kitchen tables a couple of weeks ago . Here it is:
10 Reasons to Bring Back The Humble Kitchen Table
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Forgoing consuming at a table and instead consuming at a counter does a pair of factors that I think are crucial. More critical than any storage profits you may get out of an island.
The most important thing that happens at a kitchen table is that you eat across from someone, not side by side like you would at an island bar. When you eat across from someone, your dinner mate is the focus of your attention. Human beings don't just communicate verbally. We communicate non-verbally just as much and in order to pick up the visual cues someone else is sending, you need to be able to see his or her face. This visual communication happens a lot more easily at a table then it does at a counter.
In addition to the communique aspect, while you're eating at a desk you're having dinner in an area set apart specially for ingesting. But greater than that, it is a space set aside for eating with different people. It's plenty simpler to make food count number once they appear in a area set aside for them in particular. Island counters are by way of definition multi-purpose surfaces. Eating at one isn't always an event, irrespective of how mundane.
But at a desk, it's less complicated to show off the electronics and focus on what is crucial --your family.
When the only eating area you have is a counter, it becomes to easy to have shared meals fall by the wayside. It makes the "we're too busy nowadays" lie easy to internalize and make true in your own life. The fact of the matter isn't at all that "we're too busy." Instead, what "we" have is an inability to prioritize. If you make shared meals a priority you will have them. An important statement that you're making them a priority is to keep your kitchen table.
So, you asked and I answered. While it's true that installing an island doesn't doom you to divorce and delinquent kids, keeping your table will make shared meals a more common occurrence in your home.