The goal is simple: make your small kitchen more functional. There’s no question that you need more storage and counter space. You can have it by utilizing each square inch as efficiently as possible and making your small kitchen work more advantageous.
How To Maximize Space in Your Small Kitchen
Here are ways you can maximize a small kitchen space.
Let’s Start With Vertical Storage
You want to hang out as much as possible. And there are countless designs of easy-to-install fixtures and tracks that make this feat possible. It’s an untapped storage resource, mostly the vertical space of a kitchen.
Hang your chosen system on the wall. It can include open shelving, a rail, or a magnetic knife rack… all designed to make the counter space more free and available.
Plus, navigating the kitchen has never been easier, with most of your tools and gadgets visible, as they are now suspended and are a breeze to access.
Cookware, dishes, and utensils are also within easy reach.
Maximizing Space
We often neglect certain things – ideas or opportunities – because we are wired to take them for granted.
For instance, the space around our refrigerators… You never gave it a second thought, right? Typically there’s not much too room to even speak of.
But say you could make about a foot of space from the fridge to the wall simply by moving the large appliance over to one side.
With that newly opened space, you could create a hidden roll-out pantry. This would be the perfect space to store non-perishable items such as canned goods and other kitchen-related goods of the right size.
Look for DIY instructions online. There are a variety of easy-to-make and install designs out there, and the finished results (especially when constructed of wood) are quite attractive and convenient.
Similarly, a pegboard backsplash made of stainless steel can pull double duty. Besides the job of protecting the wall from all of the spills and splatters that occur daily, it can also serve to have all of the kitchen related tools you use available in a moment’s notice.
This is another great potential DIY project – making a one-of-a-kind double-duty kitchen backsplash for your home! It’s easy, especially considering that you can find stainless steel pegboards at most building supply stores.
If you are working with a very tight kitchen, you may have to consider some drastic measures to create that much-needed extra space. For instance, you could install a fold-out kitchen table serving counter space. It’s as easy as it sounds.
A wooden table top (size to be determined by the area you’re working with) that is attached to hinges against the wall. When extended, it is supported by a locking bracket.
When not in use, simply collapse the counter, which will be level with the wall, freeing that previously occupied space.
Hidden Storage
So, what other potential areas of free space are we neglecting? You probably never would have considered using the space within the toe kick area. Why not?
By converting the space usually ignored behind the baseboard, you can utilize it and make it into floor-level pull-out drawer storage. This ingenious retrofit can be done on most standard base cabinets.
If you don’t like that, there are so many more creative kitchen storage solutions out there that you could implement.
Thinking Outside The (Cabinet) Box
You might even be lucky enough to find some hanging space for utensils on a curtain rod above a window. If so, see what vertical storage you can create from it.
Related racks work similarly and are great for getting pots and pans out of the way (they are always best installed next to the oven).
Now, what do you think about the space your sink provides? Sure, you always need it for various reasons, but how about an easily removable over-the-sink cutting board?
Not only can you rinse and chop veggies without wasting seconds between them, but you also free up much of your counter space for other purposes.
Here’s another idea you may not have considered: how about continuing your kitchen storage potential in a nearby room? Is there a nook or rarely used closet there that can serve to provide that extra bit of needed storage?
Perhaps there is a recessed niche you can use to put various kitchen tools or nonperishable items in. Be creative and install a curtain so that the sight of kitchen items in a random room is concealed from view.
Corners are your friends, too. They are perhaps among the most underutilized spaces in a home. In the case of maximizing kitchen potential it’s all about installing a series of small corner shelves.
They’re unused spaces that you can build on to create ledges that are convenient. Tucked safely back within the counter area, these shelves are still easily within reach.
Corner cabinets are also similar in size in terms of the amount of space they take up compared to corner shelving.
Corner shelving is just another example of how thinking outside of the box can produce more solutions often than you thought were possible. Check out our other stories for more kitchen improvements like these upgrades for your kitchen cabinets.
