Small kitchen layouts can be designed to maximize space and create a functional, stylish, and spacious space. To maximize space, consider adding a slim rolling kitchen cart or bar cart to hold your mise en place or serve as extra counter space. Packing in clever storage is key to all small kitchen layouts, and maximizing natural light can make a galley feel bigger.
To design a very small kitchen layout, the floorplan is the most crucial step. A successful small kitchen design includes features that make a full-scale kitchen convenient: a seamless workflow, techy appliances, ample storage, and layered lighting. Clever, well-thought-out small kitchen layout ideas are key to designing a space that’s functional, stylish, and maximizes the room you have to work with.
The best layout for a small kitchen should utilize every inch of wall space available, think of ways to build a wall or steal space from other areas, and use the full height of the room by placing cabinets right up to the ceiling. Be as open as possible and use the full height of the room by placing cabinets right up to the ceiling.
Incorporating built-in benches, choosing the right cabinets, maximising storage space, and using color and style are essential for creating a small kitchen design. Sticking to one or two colors and choosing similar shades for cabinets, walls, and floors is key to small kitchen designs.
With the right design elements, even the smallest spaces can be transformed into the kitchen of your dreams.
📹 How To Maximize Your Small Kitchen | Design Ideas
Tiny kitchen? No problem! I’ve got you covered! In this video we are talking all about big ideas for small kitchens! Let’s leave …
📹 How To a Design Small Kitchen for Maximum Function
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Hey all! This is my (future) kitchen! Very surreal to see it posted here. Just for a little context the space is a 740 sq ft ADU being built on the back half of a property. The long wall faces a back fence. The window seems to be quite polarizing but I think it will let in light, a bit of scenery and I think gives a cool architectural detail to a small space. I’m likely going to end up with a version of the design he shows around the 7 minute mark. Thank you, Mark! I could not be more grateful for your help on the project.
I LOVE my shallow tall pantry! It’s my favorite cabinet in my kitchen. Not only have I adjusted the heights of the shelves in it, I’ve ADDED shelves to it, nearly doubling its capacity! Besides being shallow like a wall cabinet, instead of being 36″ wide it’s made of two 18″ wide cabinets and though I didn’t choose it (it was here when I bought the home) I’m so very glad they went this route. My wider wall cabinets are a pain to adjust the shelves and I have to adjust for the tallest item stored in the entire width. The 18″ wide units seemed to be the perfect size, no matter what I tried to store there. It came with 3 shelves in the lower portion and 1 in the upper on both sides, so 8 shelves total. Instead of buying wire shelf racks I bought plywood cut to size and added 7 more shelves. The taller portion has metal shelf standards instead of peg holes every inch or so. This means I can adjust shelves to within the nearest 1/4″ or so that I need for the items stored, leaving lots of space to add more shelves by just getting more clips and plywood.
I love my counter depth refrigerator, which I think helps a lot with visual flow as well as ease moving around the kitchen. My dad, when he was building his house, added extra depth into a portion of the kitchen wall, so his standard refrigerator could back up into it, and look counter depth. The room he stole space from was modified so it looked normal. His solution was better than mine, in that regular refrigerators are a lot less expensive than counter depth, at least that I’ve seen, but altering the wall is not always an option. I wish I’d followed you on youtube when I did my kitchen remodel 9 years ago. This was another great article.
Another tip for organizing a small kitchen is to take utensils commonly stored in drawers that are not used very often, but are needed for the few times a year you use them and put them in a bin or basket on a high shelf to free up the most used real estate in the kitchen. Some items (such as measuring cups and spoons) can also be removed from drawers and hung with command strips or a pegboard mounted to the inside of a cabinet door.
My 50 year old kitchen is a 72 sq. ft. galley style kitchen, but I must say the builder, Del Webb, designed it rather well. They must have consulted Mark Tobin! LOL!! I live in a retirement community, Sun City, AZ, and many people my age make reservations, not food, for their main meals. I cook a fair amount, and the kitchen has functioned quite well for the 11+ years I’ve lived here. Railroad dining car galleys were miniscule, yet the chefs in those kitchens cooked hundreds of meals from scratch daily, so size doesn’t always mean much in terms of the number of meals that can be prepared. My kitchen has all lower drawers (except under the sink) and there’s enough landing space in all of the important places. One thing your last rendering didn’t do was take the door swing next to the stove into account – a detail that’s been discussed on the live stream.
Anyone with a small kitchen needs to think about …how they actually cook. Not how they wish they cooked, or should cook. Be honest with yourself. Your designer isn’t your shrink or your priest. Second thing is to consider which appliances can do more than one job or are used 2x/year at most. Got rid of my stand mixer because of that. Bought an Instant Pot because of that. Finally, weed out the old utensils, pots, and baking pans. Own as few as possible. You can always buy more if you got rid of too much. But that won’t happen, I promise you. And be realistic: if you really need a bigger kitchen, then you are gonna have to build it by adding an addition or carving space from another room.
I have not finished perusal yet, but I have a suggestion about the corner/counter/fridge situation. Don’t put the base cabinets next to the fridge against the wall. Move them out so a normal depth fridge can look like a counter depth fridge. The countertop will be deeper. You can put an appliance garage across the whole width of the counter and because the countertop is deeper, you’ll still have a useful counter.
Reducing the fridge’s size may be fine if it’s just for one person. But if it is for two or more, it may not work as well. I don’t. use much canned food, I do use a lot of fresh food with prep done on the weekend. Smaller fridges always make it a bit more difficult especially since I try to limit my shopping to once every week or two.
Very inspiring ideas. I’m currently working on redesigning my galley kitchen, I need inspiration. ^__^ About cabinet to the ceiling, I did that in my main bathroom, both above the toilet and beside the sink unit. I really needed the extra storage. I’ll probably do the same when I’ll redo the laundry room.
My kitchen is from ’59 that we added 8′ to but because of mechanicals, a stairwell and two existing windows can’t be changed to make it more functional. (it comes in around 200 sq feet total) I love to torture myself by perusal kitchen articles and wish for magical changes to happen in my own kitchen, haha. Love this shorter format article instead of the lives, thank you!
What about a galley style using essentially an island? Essentially shorten the wall to the left along the long wall so that it is a little longer than fridge depth, that leaves room for people to walk around it and have an island with no cabinets above. Also lets you leave the window and have no corner cabinet. Not sure if there would be enough storage, but I think that would add some. Another thing I have seen is to have cabinets above the long window, just make them white and have no hardware so that they disappear into the wall. That gives it a modern aesthetic while also adding more storage. Since htey do not mind hiding the hood (at least the images showed the hood inside cabinets) there would be no break in the cabinet.
Mark, These are great ideas. My biggest change would be removing a wall. If I did I could move the fridge like this. Then I’d move my sink under the window beside the dishwasher. I could even have an island without that wall. Dreams are one thing finding the money to do it is another. Thanks for a great article
I prefer your option at minute 7:00. When I think of a kitchen layout, I think of the order in which I’ll be retrieving the food, preparing it and then cooking it., So it comes out of the pantry and fridge, gets washed at the sink, then cut up and cooked so it should be pantry, fridge, landing zone, sink, prep area, stove, and stove landing zone.