Peninsula
An island with one end still attached — the working side, the boundary and the seating, in rooms where that space is better used along a wall.
What most people actually want when they ask for an island.
A peninsula is a run that turns and carries on into the room, joined at one end and open at the other. It gives you the two things an island is wanted for — a working side that faces the room, and a boundary between cooking and sitting — without needing clear space on all four sides.
The design’s own Layouts page makes the case in a line: where there is not a metre of clearance on every working side, “a peninsula does the same job without the pinch points”. A room that is too tight for an island is very rarely too tight for a peninsula.
It also solves the problem islands create, which is services. Because a peninsula is attached, water, waste and power run through the joined end rather than under the floor — usually the difference between a straightforward fit and lifting a screed.
One metre on the open sides
The same clearance rule as an island, but you only need it on two or three sides instead of four. That is the whole reason a peninsula fits where an island does not.
Services come the easy way
A sink or a hob on a peninsula is fed through the joined end. No trenching a solid floor, and no run of pipework committed to before the layout is final.
Seating on the outside face
600mm of width per person and 350mm of knee depth under the overhang. Seating on the far side of the peninsula puts people facing the cook, which is the sociable arrangement most clients are after.
A raised upstand hides the working side
Stoneham build a raised section at the back of the peninsula so a downdraft hob and the everyday mess sit below the eyeline of anyone sitting at it. Worth doing if the room is open plan.
The inside corner, solved properly
Where the peninsula meets the run we fit a carousel or a full pull-out, so the deepest part of the kitchen stays reachable. Specified at the time, it is some of the most useful storage in the room.
The open end is worth detailing
It is the one part seen from three sides, and it is where a kitchen shows its quality — a curved end, a panelled return, or a timber worktop wrapped round it.
