Our small kitchen is spruced up with bright green paint.
Back in August, after we first moved to Baltimore, I had a very emotional day, a day where I freaked out about the size of our small kitchen. I do this every once in a while, especially when I’m making a new dish and haven’t figured out how to organize everything. That’s when I have bowls and ingredients everywhere, and I never feel like there’s enough space.
But now that we’ve had our apartment for eight months, we’ve figured out a few ways to make more space in our kitchen (and to spruce up the space we have):
1. Paint your kitchen a fun color. Yes, this tip isn’t really about saving space. But it is about working with what you’ve got. Right after my emotional kitchen day in August, Kenny went out and bought a can of bright green paint to make our little kitchen more cheerful and pleasant to cook in, despite its size. (Nice of him, right?) He also hung the “Le Pure Cafe” sign over our sink, which I think gives the space some extra personality.
A table like this one serves as an extra prep area in the kitchen.
2. Buying a food prep area from Ikea. Ikea sells carts that can serve as food prep areas. We used one when we lived in Queens, and it worked really well. Because our table had a storage shelf underneath, we doubled our counter space and increased our storage area. That table won’t fit in our space here, but we got lucky: our kitchen already has a built-in table we just weren’t using. The other night, I used the table to make dessert while Kenny prepped dinner on the counter.
Hooks create more kitchen space, even if they only hold up an oven mitt
3. Use hooks on the wall or inside cabinet doors. When we first got here, I thought our kitchen had a decent amount of cabinet space. Still, we have a lot of kitchen equipment, and we’ve quickly filled it up. That’s where hooks come in: they can store pots, pans, or utensils when cabinet space runs low. Just look at how effectively our hook is holding up my Top Chef oven mitt. Now this important kitchen instrument has its own space, and I always know where it is.
Anyone else have a small kitchen? How have you saved space?
I have a pretty small kitchen in my apartment (maybe even smaller than yours, I’m not sure). I save space by not having all the modern luxuries (which some might consider necessities)—no blender, no toaster, not even a microwave oven. I couldn’t have a dishwasher if I wanted to. I even got a used microwave for free once, but I ended up giving it away again; there was just no space for it.
It’s probably not the solution for everyone, but if you can do without those appliances, it sure saves space.
@Chillingworth: Good point, doing away with kitchen appliances that are essential to you makes a big difference. We don’t have a microwave either, but we do have a rice cooker, toaster, mixer, and coffee maker, all of which take up a lot of counter space. Thanks for the suggestion!
[...] it took a couple of hours to make and chop everything, all in a small kitchen that quickly ran out of space – which, I have to admit, was so frustrating that I eventually [...]
I’ve discovered plastic (dollar store) organizers for kitchen drawers. I’m lucky enough to have large drawers, but they’d be nothing without proper dividers and compartments. I’m not really sure how to work with the corner cabinets though. It seems like something is always getting stuck way back in the corner, never to be seen again. I have very little counter space, so one thing I want to do is mount the microwave (it’s essential for me.)
@Sherry: Great idea! I should get one of those for our forks, spoons, etc. They’re laying in a shelf with no divider whatsoever, and it drives me crazy sometimes! Mounting the microwave sounds smart too. I don’t have one, but I I try to keep small appliances on our kitchen shelves. Thanks!