Designing the perfect Island
The island has become the heart of the modern kitchen — where we prep, gather, work and talk. But a great one is about far more than a beautiful slab of stone. Here is how we design ours.
- The Sheraton Design Studio
- June 25, 2026
Read 4 minutes
Ask anyone where they spend their time at home and the answer, more often than not, is the kitchen — and within it, the island. It is where breakfast is made and homework is done, where guests gather with a glass of wine while dinner comes together. Because it works so hard, the island is the single element we spend the most time getting right.
Over hundreds of projects we have returned to the same handful of principles. None of them are about fashion all of them are about how kitchen
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kitchen actually feels to live in. These are the questions we work through on every island we design.
One
Begin with how you’ll live
Before we draw a single line, we ask how you really use your kitchen. Do you cook every day or entertain at weekends? Will children perch here after school? Is this where the family eats, or a place to prep before moving through to a dining table? The answers decide everything that follows — the size, the layout, whether the island carries a sink or hob, and how much seating it needs. An island designed around a real routine will always feel better than one designed around a photograph.
T W O
Get the proportions right
The most common mistake we see is an island that is the wrong size for its room. As a rule, leave at least one metre of clear space on every side — ideally 1.1 to 1.2 metres on the busy runs — so two people can pass and doors and drawers open freely. Too little and the kitchen feels cramped; too much and you will walk miles between hob and sink. If your space is tight, a slimmer island, or a peninsula, often works harder than a square that swallows the floor.
“Get the fundamentals right and the island becomes exactly what it should be — the natural centre of the home.”
T H R E E
Choose a worktop you’ll love living with
This is where beauty meets reality. Natural marbles like Calacatta are breathtaking and develop a lived-in patina — but they etch and stain, so they suit those who will embrace a little character. Quartzites offer much of the drama with far more resilience. Engineered stones give consistency and durability for busy family life, while warm timber softens a scheme. We will always talk you through how each behaves day to day — and a waterfall edge, where the stone falls to the floor, turns the island into a piece of furniture.
F O U R
Seat it properly
If people will sit at the island, the details matter. Allow around 60cm of width per person and an overhang of at least 25 to 30cm so knees tuck comfortably underneath. Decide early between counter height and bar height — counter height generally feels more relaxed and sociable. And leave room to actually draw a stool out without colliding with the run behind.
F I V E
Light it in layers
Lighting transforms an island. Hang pendants 75 to 90cm above the worktop so they illuminate without blocking sightlines, and scale them generously — two or three well-chosen fittings usually beat a row of small ones. Add discreet task lighting for prep, and put everything on dimmers so the same island works for chopping vegetables at eight in the morning and pouring drinks at eight at night.
S I X
Plan the practical from the start
The island is prime real estate, so plan it hard. Deep drawers hold far more than cupboards and keep everything to hand. If you are placing a sink or hob here, think about extraction and plumbing early. Build in sockets for the way you really cook, integrate the bins out of sight, and protect one clear, uninterrupted stretch of worktop — the quiet luxury of space to actually work.
Every home and every family is different, which is why no two Sheraton islands are the same. Get the fundamentals right — function, proportion, materials and light — and the rest follows naturally.
The Sheraton Island checklist
- At least one metre of clearance on every side
- A worktop matched to how you actually cook
- Roughly 60cm width and a 25cm-plus overhang per seat
- Pendants hung 75–90cm above the surface
- Sink, hob, sockets and extraction planned early
- One clear stretch of worktop kept free to work on