Kitchen Peninsulas - Advantages and Disadvantages

Kitchen peninsulas are becoming trendy due to their versatility and practicality. With the variety of options, these can energize your kitchen and make cooking more entertaining.
Kitchen Peninsulas - Advantages and Disadvantages

Last update: 22 June, 2020

Kitchen peninsulas are a great option to modernize your kitchen. Today, cooking is a hobby for many people. As a result, people want more than practicality in a kitchen. Many homeowners want kitchens that offer style and comfort. This is more important as kitchens have become the center of most homes.

Often, people opt for a kitchen island, instead of a kitchen peninsula. Truthfully, both are great options. It all depends on your style and needs.

When choosing what’s right for your kitchen, you need to consider the design, size, and space distribution, as well as your taste. We recommend that you seriously consider how much space you have before making any choices.

Space is one of the most important factors in the kitchen. You don’t want to cram too many things into your kitchen and not have any room to move around. Generally, kitchen peninsulas are attached to one wall and offer an extension of the countertop.

As a result, peninsulas take up less space than islands, while maintaining the same functionality. However, you must have enough space around the peninsula on all three free sides.

There are also two styles of kitchen peninsulas. It all depends on the configuration of your kitchen. You can choose to have two sides, in the shape of an “L” or a “U.”

Types of kitchen peninsulas

Creating a dining table

Kitchen peninsulas can be used as breakfast bars.

You can use this type of kitchen peninsula as a place to eat. It’s a great option for a dining table if you have a small space.

Kitchen peninsulas with a worktop and extra storage

Kitchen peninsulas can serve as extra storage.

This type of peninsula has cabinets underneath with drawers and storage compartments. With these kitchen peninsulas, you can significantly expand the storage capacity of your kitchen.

Additionally, you’ll have extra counter space to prepare meals or to house any appliances.

With a sink

A kitchen peninsula with sinks.

By adding a sink, the peninsula becomes the main focal point of the kitchen. All the activity will revolve around this space.

Kitchen peninsulas with a worktop and breakfast bar

A bright kitchen with stool seating.

You can create a breakfast bar. This can also share space with a worktop. Often, you just need to extend the countertop a bit to create room for stools. Alternatively, you can remove some of the cabinets underneath the peninsula to create space.

A kitchen peninsula is ideal when placed in a larger space. This allows you to separate the room.

Advantages of kitchen peninsulas

A modern space decorated in gray and chrome.

When designing a new kitchen, kitchen peninsulas are a great choice. With this design, you can give a distinctive touch to the heart of your home. Using a peninsula, you can create spatial continuity between your kitchen and living room or dining room elegantly and stylishly.

Also, thanks to the peninsula, your space will be open and spacious. This is a very contemporary style with lots of advantages.

Additionally, you can create a breakfast bar right next to where you cook. This is a nice place to share a quick meal or chat while cooking.

Also, by using the peninsula as a division between spaces, all the areas will feel bigger and become more unified. Kitchen peninsulas create a clear distinction between the two areas while maintaining an open concept.

Kitchen peninsulas allow you to socialize more since you can cook and interact with guests or your family at the same time. There’s a lovely, open feeling created. You can even watch your children playing in the other room from the kitchen.

Disadvantages of kitchen peninsulas

A clean, bright household space.

Kitchen peninsulas can make it more difficult to light the space. However, we recommend that you make sure any work areas have good lighting. One option is pendant lamps. Additionally,  make sure that the lighting doesn’t create any shadow.

This style of kitchen doesn’t require as much space as a kitchen island. However, you do need a certain amount of space. This is because your peninsula needs to have surrounding space on all three sides. As a result, we don’t recommend this style for small kitchens.

If you decide to renovate your kitchen to include a peninsula, be aware that this can be expensive. This is because you will need to fundamentally change the distribution of space. With this change, you’ll also need to consider any necessary changes to lighting, water, and gas supplies. All of these changes add to the price.

As we’ve seen, kitchen peninsulas have more advantages than disadvantages. However, whether or not to use one depends on your taste and the size of your kitchen.