Kitchen Planning - Opinions and Criticism

Everyone has different workflows. Especially when planning a kitchen, it is extremely helpful to carefully consider while working in the existing kitchen what is unnecessary, what is missing, and what can be optimized. For example, I look forward to a larger sink so that I can wash bigger vegetables like Swiss chard without flooding everything. However, I usually clean and cut vegetables while sitting at the kitchen table. Everyone has their own preferred processes - in my opinion, it would be wrong to impose one’s own concept on others. Everyone has to decide for themselves. For that reason, I also find it wrong to adopt someone else’s concept – whether it comes from the kitchen designer or Instagram – without questioning it.

I would also turn the island into a peninsula as already suggested, thereby generating more workspace and storage. In your design, the workspace is very limited. The question of whether to have the sink or the cooktop on the island (or both) depends on how one is "socialized" in kitchen work. We do it while cooking; others do it while washing up after the meal. We chop at the cooktop; others do it at the sink. For us, the cooktop-on-island solution has proven effective; I would not swap it. What has also proven effective is an 80cm deep kitchen row with shelf space behind the sink. That would extend your kitchen 20cm further into the living area. We manage very well with a distance of 1.15m between the kitchen and the island—people don’t get in each other's way. However, we don’t have a dishwasher that would block the way when open.