I have lived in two places with breakfast bars in American style kitchens. I found that I tended to spend a great deal of time sitting there so a bar stool with a comfortable back is important. I made mine from pine, copied from some I saw in a bar. I was also given an old captains swivel seat from a yacht so I built a stand for it, reupholstered it and unfortunately left it for the new tenant who liked it. That was one of my favourite seats, to sit in comfort at a breakfast bar rather than balancing without a back to lean on.

Hi Jeremy, I specify this quite a lot for home bars. I usually have them made, any good steel fabricator can made one up for you. Remember to ask them to build in a drain valve into the bottom to allow you to drain the water off after the ice has melted. Sounds obvious but it's an important detail. The one you show is surface mounted which is ideal for most tops. If you have a granite / marble / quartz top they look neater under mounted. In the words of Blue Peter, heres one I made earlier.... I designed the ice bucket in an "L" shape This was another pair of ice buckets built into a kitchen island: For appliance for bars generally I use COD Electric in Altrincham http://www.codelectrical.co.uk They deal with most suppliers and should be able to advise if there is a standard product on the market. Hope that helps, Martin www.angel-martin.com www.3dinteriorillustration.co.uk

my thinking was the table could be pushed flush with the island the majority of the time leaving a gap to walk past of approx 140cm. Thats with a 110cm gap between island and units, 90cm island and 90cm table. Or if you rotate the table and have it pushed with one end against the island, a 120cm table would sit 4 and leave 110cm to pass which is the same as the gap between island and units. If it was an extending table it can be rotated 90 degrees on the rare occasion more seating is required. Yes, it would mean it would probably close off that side of the room but if it's not a daily occurance? Some compromises will have to be made if you really want to fit everything in that space unfortunately.

Agree with Jonathan - lots of choice on auction sites and mostly reclaimed so absolutely the best choice in terms of environmental impact. (Also from a cost point of view too!). There’s also a few new traditional styles that have soap draining areas (from what I can see, they are mainly recessed areas that have a draining point, so not strictly a soap dish). Heritage is just one brand that have several models that might fit the bill. Sadly I think all options are more traditional styles. If you want a more contemporary look, there’s loads of nice soap dishes on the market.