Tips For A Smaller Kitchen

A small or awkwardly shaped kitchen takes plenty of thought. Using good planning, design and preparation is key especially when considering how you use your kitchen on a daily basis.

When you are embarking on revamping your kitchen or completely installing a new one, blogs like ours can prove priceless.

By taking into account how you currently use your kitchen, you may have already found that it doesn’t work for you. Awkward spaces often mean strangely located cupboards and appliances, and little or no storage space for all those gadgets and appliances.

Quite often, you might find a sloping ceiling in your kitchen where your stairs eat into some of your room.

Small spaces can make working in your kitchen quite frustrating. But don’t worry, help is at hand thanks to My Beautiful Kitchen. We’re really nice, you see, so we’ve come up with some tips to help you make the most of your space. Enjoy!

Planning & design – During the planning and design stage, think about storage that is wall mounted in order to save floor space. More floor area gives the illusion of a bigger space, plus most of your appliances will need to be at base level. Think about integrating appliances, too.

Reflective finishes to units help to reflect light, making your room seem bigger, too. We think Greenwich White units (like the ones in the picture) are a great choice.

Walls – Store items on your walls. Think racks for knives, hooks for cooking utensils and shelves for items you don’t want to store behind a cupboard door.

Make the best use of the wall space available that help you to keep work surfaces clear and free from clutter.

Glass – Consider glass fronted cabinets, either frosted or clear glass, rather than solid doors. Choose clever lighting for inside the cupboards, too.

Décor – Keep the décor light. The extra space you will feel that you have will be increased hugely with whites, creams and light pastel colours. Downlights, wall lights and in-cabinet spotlights will enhance areas that you cook, eat and prepare in.

Flooring – If possible, try to keep the floor the same as your adjoining room. So, if your kitchen comes off your hall and that has laminate flooring, run the same laminate into your kitchen.

It helps create continuity and, again, the illusion that the kitchen area is larger than it actually is.

Storage – Awkward kitchen spaces can give you a headache. Not being able to prepare food next to the hob or being unable to store your pots and pans can be terribly frustrating. Use clever storage ideas such as corner cabinets which can help to maximise the amount of precious space you have.

Try adding a kitchen trolley on wheels that you can store to the side when not in use. You could even store nice bottles of products like olive oils, seasoning and herbs on a small tray that matches your colour scheme. This way everything is to hand when you cook and not stored away in a drawer or cabinet – giving you more chance of housing other items that you want to store out of sight (the under-used break-making machine, maybe?).

Appliances – Steam ovens, dishwashers, tumble dryers, fridge freezers; whatever you choose, you will need to consider the space you have.

Ovens integrated into a tall unit are a great idea for smaller kitchens. They offer great practicality, with storage above and below a single oven.

Firm plans are essential in any good design. Here at My Beautiful Kitchen, we work with you to achieve the look that suits you and your family just perfectly.

Listening to your ideas and what you wish to aim for in a new kitchen space is something that we excel at. We don’t just sell you our ideas, we take on board everything that you want to achieve, coming up with solutions for extra storage or awkward spaces and making your kitchen work for you.

For more information or advice, feel free to call My Beautiful Kitchen on 0141 771 3640.