Small Kitchen Design Ideas

Small kitchen design ideas should be ways you come up with to save as much space as possible while having everything you need in the kitchen. As stated before, a small island in your small kitchen design can help save space when it comes to storage for your pots and pans or utensils. If you are not financially able to work an island into your small kitchen design idea, you can use a mobile butcher block cart. This is a good idea for food prepping or to just use as a buffet.

The cart is very resourceful, and can be stored easily by sliding right in next to your sink. A small kitchen hutch is also a good idea since it has pullout parts like storage drawers and cutting boards. A small hutch also has glass doors on its upper portion where a few plates and fine china may be stored. An open plate rack can be built in or placed against the wall as an addition.

Kitchen tables can be placed in a small kitchen. If there is an island in the kitchen, you are already saving space. However, if you want a place in the kitchen to be able to sit down for meals you can nestle a table against the island. This will leave more floor space around the work space and the table altogether. Additionally, you can conform your island into a peninsula by adding it to the end of your sink counter space.

This will open up the middle of the floor for you as well as provide unrestricted access to the sink, stove and dishwasher. In order to preserve
kitchen space and have a more spacious look, built in cabinets are another kitchen design idea. Wall cabinets are in a location that is easily accessible, yet they are not in the way or taking up any excess space. If you have cabinets that have space above them, small baskets can be used to hold some of the loose items that lay around taking up counter space.

Lighting can play a big role in the way your kitchen space can appear in size. A small kitchen does not need fluorescent lights as they can depress a small kitchen. Any lighting that can be put up under wall cupboards will not make the room appear too bright or too small. Lighting should blend in with your colors and overall décor to give the room a good contrast.

The appliances should be next to each other when you are designing the kitchen. This increases their efficiency and prevents you from having to walk across the entire room to get from one appliance to the other. If you do not require a large refrigerator, you can purchase a smaller, deeper one to save more floor space. There are software design tools that can help you come up with design ideas for your small kitchen and appliances. You can also get great ides from home improvement stores.

Small Kitchen Design

The Secrets of a Good Small Kitchen Design

The small kitchen layout is the curse of many cooks, apartment dwellers and home owners around the world. Most people give up in defeat and naturally assume that the best solution for the tiny or kitchen layout is to move out! But this is not necessarily the true in all cases. In fact many cramped cookeries can be reformed with a good kitchen layout.

Small Kitchen Layouts Are Unique To Remodel

Small kitchens (with 126 square feet of floor space or less) have always been considered to be troublesome when you need to remodel them. This is mainly because you just don't have the flexibility as you do when working with larger kitchen design layout spaces. This is why you must learn to be very creative when planning your small kitchen design.

Yet kitchens can be very expensive to remodel and if you use a solidly prepared small kitchen layout, you can save yourself lots of money since the cabinetry and appliances for kitchens are often under-sized.

The 3 Popular Small Kitchen Designs

The most common kitchen layout is the "One Wall" or "cluster". In this layout as the name implies all the appliances and sink are pushed up against a single wall in a line. The advantage of this design is that you fit in any appliance; in any order you desire as long as the wall is at least 8 feet in length. And if the wall is less than 8 ft. you can still use smaller size equipment such as a 20-inch cooking range instead of the standard 30 inch. You save on space and money in one purchase.

The next kitchen layout you should consider is the "corridor" or "galley" kitchen. A galley was originally designed as the cooking area onboard a boat or ship and the concept quickly caught on in cramped city apartments and townhouses.

The corridor kitchen is basically the workstations are divided into two parts, with the sections placed along parallel walls with a narrow walkway or corridor between them. This is like having two "one wall" pieces instead of one. And like it cousin the single wall, the corridor kitchen is very flexible and versatile in appliance and storage placement.

The last type of kitchen layout is the "L-Shape". In this design you can group the sink and appliances in the corner of the "L" or set them on one leg or the other based on your plumbing or power outlet requirements. Ideally you want to keep your sink, stove and refrigerator close together in order to cut down on wasted movement while preparing and cooking meals.

Other Items to Consider in a Small Kitchen Layout

Other things you need to think while planning your small kitchen design, is the kitchen cabinet layout and furniture. Many small kitchens can be overwhelmed or appear crowded due to the fact that people typically install as many standard cabinets against the walls as they can.

Renovating a kitchen is the perfect opportunity to try out recessed cabinets (which fit between 16 inch studs and are great for those weird spots behind doors or other nooks and crannies); using floor-to-ceiling cabinets or pantries for more storage space. You can also consider moving space hogs like nearby washer, dryers and water heaters to other locations in the home to increase space.

Now that you understand a little more about which kitchen layouts may work best in your home you can start work on a kitchen design that fits your budget.

By Zelda Du Plessis

Perfecting a Tiny Kitchen: Design Tips for Smaller Apartments

By Alexander Fishback

Plenty of Americans spend their time not residing in fancy sprawling mansions, but rather, trying to make things work in more compact locales. And a lot of the time, these locales end up being home for longer than some might want them to. After all, apartment dwelling is becoming more commonplace for those who aren't just in college. With bills high and wages low, it makes sense to find a way to save money, and renting something a bit more compact is often the better bargain. Even for those who are in the middle of a bustling city, where all housing is expensive, understand that opting for something smaller means saving a big chunk of cash.

For those who are trying to make a tiny apartment work, sometimes figuring out how to spruce things up and keep life feeling interesting is as simple as picking a single room of the house, and then maximizing productivity as far as layout and looks are both concerned. For those working with a small kitchen, there are plenty of simple tricks that will have renters or owners feeling as though their space provides all that it needs to, rather than stressing out about the limitations of being cramped. Here are some simple design tips for smaller apartments and the best ways to handle working within a kitchen space that is a bit lacking in size.

Shelving is the absolute most important priority for anyone who is considering some home renovations in a cramped kitchen space, and should be the first starting point, even for those who don't spend hours cooking. With the proper kind of shelving and storage, things can feel organized without getting cramped, and can even show off items that are cute without giving the impression that everything is cluttered. Those who are serious about the country kitchen feel should stick to cabinets, but anyone else who has the opportunity to build up might be a lot happier with the world of shelving, as it makes it possible to go even higher up on the wall space, and without being concerned about whether or not there is going to be too much overhang into the general area, making for a more claustrophobic feel.

A few words of caution and advice on shelving and storage in a tiny kitchen: it always makes more sense to consider the below space, i.e. cabinets underneath the sink and drawers, rather than simply thinking of going up first. And those going up will find that the more simple the shelves, the easier it is to actually locate the items being used for cooking. Consider how nice it will be for glassware and vintage items to actually be out on display, rather than stuck collecting dust in the back of some pantry.

Choosing the proper colors is also another simple way to keep things feeling bigger, rather than enclosed, in a tinier kitchen. If hanging up a mirror is out of the question, as mirrors can make a space feel considerably larger, then picking white or another color that opens up a room, rather than making it feel tiny, is the best way to go. After all, this makes it far more plausible for those who don't have much to spend on giving the impression of a larger space to pull off one of the simplest yet most effective design moves out there.

Sometimes all it takes to find the best deals out there for switching up what one's home space looks like is a single CLICK. With homeproimprovement, there's no wondering how to best handle sprucing up one's kitchen, no matter how large or small.