I don't have an island but I am happy to share some pictures of molding around the base of the island. If there is one below you prefer I can try to find more images or find others like it. I am not sure if your island has seating. hth, ~boxer Unique Homes Arizona Progressive Builders NBN News Devon Blue Bell Kinley Cabinets Bluemont Oak Honey from Solutions People Earthwise Cabinetry Rice Brittney Schuster Plum Builders Post Gazette Martha Style kitchen Case Eight Mark Wilkinson

Here are my island legs, but I'm afraid they might be similar to what you already have in your drawing, lol. Excuse the light "grungy" area around the base of the legs. That's where there was a very big disconnect between me, my builder, and the flooring guys. They put oak quarter-round on all my toekicks and table legs!!! Since the granite was installed already, we couldn't replace the legs easily. Luckily, there wasn't damage that couldn't be touched up once all the quarter-round was removed. Since these pics were taken, the floor has been re-sanded and poly'd so it doesn't look grungy anymore :) In context of my Shaker-style cabinets (decorating in progress):

I have an induction cooktop in a one-level island. We have 2 small kids, aged 4 and 2, who sit on the other side of the island to eat their dinner. I can cook/prepare and face them and a large window behind them. We love this set-up and do not think it is unsafe. The induction cooktop means that the cooktop does not get hot enough to burn, and it is out of reach of the kids (unless they climb onto the counter and crawl over to it, of course). They are close enough, though, to see what I am doing, and they can "chop" something to add (blunt knife!). I can give them a prep bowl to mix in, and they can see what is cooking, and how, on the cooktop. They are both interested in cooking (and eating!), and I've found it a really nice way to get them involved in both everyday meal prep and in baking/special recipes, etc. I think with small kids, any kitchen set-up can be potentially unsafe. Its just a matter of determining the potential hazards in your own set-up and watching for these and making the kids aware of them too. In our last house (which had cooktop against a wall), when my little boy (then 2-3) wanted to help, he had to sit up on the counter between the cooktop and sink -- far less safe and not very comfortable for anyone. Our island is about 4 ft deep by 6 ft wide. The cooktop has about 12-15 inches to the left and i think 30" to the right. There's about 2 ft of counter behind the cooktop. I do my prep on the island -- mostly in that 12-15" to left of cooktop (if I stand sideways, then I have 4ft wide by 12-15" deep!) We have a no-name Italian island hood (Lux-Aire), which i got online for about $800. It seems to work OK, but its not quiet! I am vegetarian though, so I don't often cook meat/fish on the cooktop. I'm linking to some pics below. Here is a link that might be useful: island cooktop

Hi - my island is about as small as a rectangular island comes, and is in a small kitchen (12.5 x 14' I think). There are only 3 practical places to put it but they're pretty limiting as you can imagine. One is to turn it parallel with the long counter (that has the sink in it and two windows above); the other way is to make it appear to be coming out of the old furnace chimney (has the mushroom painting hanging on it) - almost like a built-in counter; and the final way is to do the latter only pull it out from the chimney a little to make its edges line up with other edges in the room (e.g. edge of stove or doorway to mudroom) to give it a feeling of more symmetry and make it more centered. Here are the pics - apologies for the dirty kitchen! The first one is of the island parallel to the long counter: (I'll be replacing the stainless top of the island w/ butcher block since our new counter will be stainless and I don't want to go overboard...that counter will have a white farm sink and gooseneck faucet BTW - I'm always defending it and trying to explain how it won't look too modern in its surroundings! ;) Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen island parallel w/ long countertop