We are designing our home and have a very large great room. Our plan will allow for an island that is 6 by 9. I think that would be lovely as I prepare a lot of whole foods and need a lot of open counter space. I hate working on surfaces where there is a cabinet over head. I have kitchen designer with a supply company telling me 6 is too wide. However I have seen a lot of islands that seem to be at least as big as I want in the design photos on Houzz.

Thoughts?

You can do 6 ft but you'll have to have a long seam in the middle of the island and unless you're incredibly tall, it'll be hard to reach them middle of the island to clean, etc., making it, more or less, unusable space.

5 ft is the max I'd go and you'll still need a seam as it's almost impossible to find 60" tall slabs of anything. In the past, I had an island that was 10'6" by 4'6" with no sink and it was heavenly. My current island is 10'9" by 48" but has a prep sink. I had to really stretch to reach the middle of the 4'6" island since I'm only 5'3".

I have garden beds that are 5' wide. It is really hard to work in the middle. More is not more functional. I am about functionality first.

6’ makes no sense- the middle isn’t functional or cleanable.

Why would you want an island 6’ deep? Totally unusable in the middle.

6’ is not functional cleaning it will be a PITA and you gain nothing from that size island as far as work surface. Just because you see a picture of something does not make it good. BTW you need an actual KD independant and not a cabinet sales person for sure .At least the one you have has common sense. If you want a bit of help post your to scale floor plan here with al dimensions , windows doorways etc clearly marked.

It is sized to meet the needs of the owner.

I am not participating in this contest unless the prize is revealed ahead of time.

Look on the bright side, it can be used as a ping-pong table, the size is almost the same.

Measure what you can comfortably reach on a 36" counter. By bending slightly I can reach 28" comfortably. I can reach something as far as 42" but not comfortably. I would never want an island wider than 56" . Even that dimension would leave me responsible for cleaning the island.

Tape it out on the floor or set up folding tables, chairs, saw horses, whatever etc and try out how for a few days how the dimension feels to you.

The big bowl in the middle is because it's dirty under there.

There are seamless counter materials and others where the seams are not a detriment.

We've done many in the 84Wx48-54D range. 84 works with a large kitchen sink flanked by a dishwasher and drawer bank.

my island is big...it's a full slab, probably 60" wide and it's a challenge to clean the center. Would I do it differently? No...I love it. It functions exactly the way I imagined...but I knew going into it, it would be a challenge for my short self to reach the center.

My shoulder hurts already.