Dirty dishes will be going to dishwasher as a drying place. All we are doing really is change the size of kitchen island from 4'x10' to the mentioned size and push out the working space from 42" to 50". Now, the more i looked at it, the more I want to leave it as is except to have the edge of the island in standard beveled instead of semi bullnose. we may change the color of island's cabinet from white to walnut or dark maple and change the inside granite's countertop to black color to make it looks contrasting What do you think of the backsplash, it's kind of plain looking. Maybe put a few dots on every other tile??? This post was edited by Novie on Thu, Jan 23, 14 at 23:05

If you have three kids, do NOT settle for seating for only two! When we built our house 10 years ago, the original plan for the house only had two island seats...one thing I insisted on was three and I am so glad I did. Do you have a layout or floorplan you could post? This is sort of hard to describe (and without a floorplan hard to tell if it would work for you), but the shape that has worked well for us is what I would describe as a wedge shape or wide pie shape. Two side of the island are at straight right angles to follow the L-shape of the cabinet run they are across from. But the other side, the seating side, is a curved arc shape.

Actually, now that I look at it, the plan appears to show a counter depth fridge (30"). The fridge we've selected is 35" deep (plus about 2" in rear for water and power connections). This would mean that the distance to the corner of the peninsula would be closer to 30" before shortening the peninsula! With shortening the peninsula just 6", would the 36" be enough room considering that the fridge is not directly across from the peninsula but rather at an angle? eastbaymom - good point about being able to pull the fridge out. I believe we're just doing the standard 1.5" overhang so should still have about 38" between edge of island and fridge, with room to pull out a 35" fridge. Thanks everyone for the advice so far!

Try the Kitchens forum.