The kitchen island is possibly the most controversial bit of countertop in the realm of kitchen design. With arguments ranging from the practicality of having the extra counter space to the appropriateness of overcrowding your kitchen to simply having more room to collect an ever larger pile of cooking utensils. There are, however, some compelling reasons to get an Island of your very own. Here are the top three.

Make a little room

The standard kitchen model goes something like, "food and dishes occupy every inch of cabinet space, and pans go in the drawer beneath the oven, while the pots share space with the cleaning supplies under the sink." It doesn't have to be that way. You could, in fact, have floor to ceiling cabinet space if the counter top migrated to the center of your kitchen.

Keep it simple

There are endless ways to customize your kitchen. You may find it easy to overcomplicate the space if you aren’t careful. Putting everything related to cooking into one space could make it easier to actually get some cooking done.

Cook with the people you love

The days of the walled off kitchen are over. For close to a hundred years, the conventional wisdom that laborious and choresome tasks had no place in polite society drove the kitchen into a small corner of the house until even the idea of having a window into the kitchen was shocking. The walls are down, and cooking among friends and family is in. So why face the wall? Bring it out into the center and give the family a place to gather.

It's definitely time to consider customizing and redesigning your kitchen, and when you do, remember all of the options that having and island opens up for you.