Whipping up a Small Kitchen
Space. It’s big. Really big, however, sometimes amidst all that space you buy a house that is extremely limited in space. Nowhere is limited space more apparent than in a small kitchen. You have so many different appliances and food items that need to be stored away, but you either don’t have the shelf space to store them and they take up space on the counter, or they get forever lost in the over-stuffed drawers never to be seen again. I am here to say no more! Together, we will find the ideas and techniques used to put everything in its own special place. Through our design sensibilities, your kitchen will not only look organized, but it will also look good.
Utilizing Space in a small kitchen:
Using your Wall Space
Sometimes, your cabinets and shelves are not enough to store everything in your kitchen. It’s up to us to look elsewhere at whatever blank space we might have and turn it into storage. One of the easiest places for us to begin this process is our walls. Floating shelves provide a lot of storage without taking up much wall space. The easiest thing to use floating shelves for is an extension of your pantry. You’ll best utilize the space with any and all boxes that can fit tightly packed together. Check out our Floating Wall Shelves with faux Leather Straps for inspo!
For whatever doesn’t fit on your shelves, baskets exist to come to your aide. Tall, thin baskets are great for holding any longer utensils such as ladles, spatulas, and tongs, but beyond that, baskets can come in just about any size. Look into what doesn’t quite fit in your current kitchen setup and you’ll find a basket for it. Our Metasequoia Hanging Wall Baskets would work great for this!
Using your Cabinet Space
Through wall shelves and baskets, we’ve cleared your countertops and made some extra room in your cabinets. However, there are still cans hidden by other cans. You spend thirty minutes trying to find the right spice for your casserole. Your favorite mug is buried amongst a small avalanche of plastic cups you got for free at that work charity event! Utilizing your cabinet space to the best of its ability is crucial for organization and keeping the clutter to a minimum.
One of the best ways to see everything in your cabinets is to put some items on risers. If some of your cans are stacked slightly higher up than the others, endless sorting is way less necessary. These risers don’t need to be anything fancy. Consider something like our Scalloped Tray Riser Set to spice up the inside of your cabinets (pun absolutely intended, and we refuse to pretend it’s not).
Spices used to be a rare commodity for the average family. In the modern age, everyone has more spices than we even know what to do with. Unless you’re a salt and pepper purist, you can spend what feels like hours of time pulling different shakers down from your cabinets. All of this can be solved with the use of a lazy Susan. By putting your spices on a rotating platform, you can spin the contraption around, and what was once the back of the cabinet has now become the front. Check out this great lazy Susan!
By now, you’re probably pretty tired of hearing about the inside of your cabinets, but what about the underside? If you take the initiative to hang a metal rod underneath your cabinet, you have a space for a wide assortment of items. With a few S-hooks, you can hang your mugs in an easily accessible area. Place the rod near your kitchen sink to hang your hand towel. This is an amazingly easy DIY solution to increase your storage space, and one we highly recommend if you’re looking for low budget options. Conversely, some shelves come with S-hooks already hanging from the bottom. This wall shelf has 4 hooks pre-installed for any kitchen supply needs.
Using your Ceiling Space
Another criminally underused space to store items is shelving attached to the ceiling. These can come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but one of the best uses we’ve seen is to get multi-tiered hanging baskets and use them to store your fruits and veggies. Not everyone knows, but apart from leafy greens, it’s usually better to store your produce in a room temperature environment rather than in your fridge! Use this as an excuse to add some natural color to your kitchen decoration. As a personal bonus, hanging your healthy food out in the open at eye level convinces you to reach for those options a lot more often than if they’re hidden away in a crisper drawer. These Tiered Hanging Galvanized Planters would work great for this!
If your house has a kitchen island, consider hanging a pot rack above the counter space. Pot racks are a game changer for organization because they reorganize some of the biggest items in your cabinet, giving you even more room for whatever else you might use that storage for. Depending on the size of your kitchen, a pot rack might not be for you, but in the right space, something like our Industrial Metal Hanging Pot Rack is sturdy and will bring your kitchen to an entirely new level.
Using your Fridge Space
Sometimes in an incredibly small kitchen, you might not have enough space along the walls to add extra storage. This is when you need to really start getting creative with your extra storage. Many people use their fridge magnets for decoration, to-do lists, and photos. How about making some space on the fridge for some containers? You can use magnetic hanging baskets and bins to hold some of your kitchen appliances and utensils. Not all magnets are created equal, so be sure to check how much your product is able to hold before purchase.
Decoration Ideas:
Congratulations, your kitchen is now organized! Every surface is clean of clutter, and the cabinets hold what they’re supposed to and nothing more. Now that there’s clean counter space everywhere, it just a good a time as ever to start looking into decorating your unexplored counter! Listed below are a few ideas to renovate your small kitchen.
Window Gardens
If your kitchen has a window, consider putting some greenery on the inside. Natural decoration adds a sense of calm to any space. This window box can include anything from decorative flowers to resourceful and renewable herbs.
Decorative Storage
No one said your new storage couldn’t also be decorative. Use your newfound organization as a practical outgoing statement piece in you home. Depending on the style of your kitchen, this could mean anything from minimalistic and modern to found wood and rustic décor.
Wall décor
If you have any wall space left, hanging up pictures or other ornamental wall décor can add a pop of detail to your small kitchen. These can match to whatever theme you may have set for your kitchen. Keep a lookout for similar color patterns, and shape language for good fitting pieces. Our Decorative Wooden Hanging Gable would work well with any neutral colored or natural wood accents.
Hanging clock
There are a lot of clocks in a kitchen, between the radio, the stove, and the microwave. But none of these clocks are appealing to look at. Instead of using these, use an easier to view wall clock such as this one. You’ll never have to check those little green digits for the time again.
