Did you know that the average UK kitchen isn’t much bigger than it was in the 1930s, the decade when kitchens were at their smallest?
And that the average Brit spends 12% of their time in the kitchen – that’s almost three hours a day – even though the chances are it’s one of the smallest rooms in the house?
With five of us living in a two-bedroom flat it’s fair to say space is at a premium at Crummy Mummy HQ, what with three kids in one bedroom and no outside space to spill into.
After buying our property and revamping the bathroom last year, we’re now turning our attention to the kitchen, and like 60% of Brits storage tops our list of priorities when it comes to the renovation.
For the last few months we’ve been choosing a design and short listing our must-haves, and from a nifty waste bin to a space saving larder it’s amazing the clever ideas there are out there (if you’ve never used a room design app before you haven’t lived – such fun!) So, with that in mind, here are 5 simple space saving ideas for small kitchens.
5 simple space saving ideas for small kitchens
1. Invest in inner storage
From pull-down shelves to a hide-away waste bin, with the right storage you can fit pretty much anything you want to in a kitchen cupboard. We’ve currently got a family-size kitchen bin and a cat litter box among the items taking up floor space in our kitchen, both of which will be tucked away when the new kitchen is installed. Brabantia’s rubbish bin range features storage solutions including the built-in waste bin to ‘sort & go’ bins which fit to the inside of cupboard doors. They also do multi-compartment recycling bins, so rather than having your empties taking up even more floor space (ours currently live in a bag on top of the cat litter box) you can have the recycling tucked away too. And don’t worry if that sounds a bit whiffy – Brabantia’s ‘perfume your bin’ odour reducers fit inside the lids to get rid of nasty smells – which as a mum of three is an innovation that gets the thumbs up from me!
2. Think outside the box (or cupboard)
When it comes to kitchens there can be a lot of ‘dead’ space, like the space between the top of the kitchen cupboards and the ceiling, and the space above the fridge. Baskets for storage above the kitchen units and a set of tins stacked on top of one another above the fridge are great ways of making the most of this space, while a breakfast bar can double up as both a worktop and a table.
3. Add shelving
They say a messy kitchen is a happy kitchen, but a messy kitchen can also be a source of woe if yours happens to be on the bijou size. Items cluttering up our kitchen worktops include tea, coffee and sugar tins, a mug tree and a kitchen roll holder – all items which could easily be stored up and out of the way. In a bid to maximise space we’re planning to have our kitchen cupboards fitted flush with the ceiling, then running a shelf under the wall units and above the worktop to house all the bits and bobs you need to hand but don’t want cluttering up the workspace.
4. Create a display
If there isn’t space to put everything in cupboards and drawers make a show of them by hanging them up instead. Cooking utensils can all be hung from rails on the wall – or ceiling – instead of taking up drawer space, as can pots and pans you use on a daily basis (which is also the perfect excuse to invest in some nice shiny new ones!)
5. Install a bottle fridge
And yes, I do mean a wine fridge (bear with me on this one!) As a family of five the bottom of our fridge is loaded with various bottles and cartons of drinks – rolling around, falling out and taking up space, meaning that food that should really be stored in the fridge ends up on the kitchen worktop instead. A bottle fridge (and you can get super slimline ones too) means you can store all the bottles separately, maximising the use of space in the fridge and keeping those worktops clear. Plus it gives you the space to keep an emergency bottle – or two – cold.
Do you have a small kitchen like us? Do you have any other space saving tips? I’d love to know what they are!
This post was written in collaboration with Brabantia.
I have a really small kitchen and I hate it. I can never keep it 100% clean and there is no window in the room so there is no air flow. It makes it hard to even want to be in that tiny kitchen for more than a few minutes when the oven is on. I like your ideas. I have actually started looking into a rack for hanging my larger utensils to keep them off the counters to give myself a bit more space. Maybe do that for the pots and pans too 🙂 #MMBC
Great ideas. My kitchen is tidy and I have some baskets which slot in under the kitchen shelves which use the wasted space and they’re fab. It doubles the cupboard space.
I love the sound of a bottle fridge. My girls love their drinks cold and there’s always their bottles using up space in our fridge. #MMBC
Some fantastic ideas and I absolutely agree about having a wine fridge to help make space in the main fridge. That is what we have done in our kitchen #DreamTeam
Fab tips and I like that bin idea. We have a fairly big kitchen- but its over due a complete over haul and creating good storage is going to be a big thing for us. Thanks for joining us for the #DreamTeam xx
I think storage is key when it comes to helping with msaking use of small spaces. There are some fab ideas on pinterest that would never even think of but genius X #kcacols
Great ideas I think I need to look at some better internal storage for our kitchen. #KCACOLS
We have a “large” kitchen, but it’s built in such a way that it’s “all over the place”. Sadly we do not own (yet), so can’t do much about it. But there are some great tips here I’m going to try! 😀
#KCACOLS
We have a rather large kitchen but still stuck on space, but I think shelves are going to be the way forward for us!
#KCACOLS
We have just bought the house we have been renting for the last seven years so we can finally renovate it (it badly needs it!) to the way we want. It’s a small enough room so like you good use of the space is very important. The guy who is building it for us is a friend and sat with us as we told him all of our ideas. He is so good at using a space creatively that I am really excited about getting it fitted. It should be in in the next four weeks (I never thought of a bottle fridge) but the biggest thing he kept on praising was the lemans corner unit so we are having one of them installed. It certainly looks good but I will know for sure in a few weeks time! #KCACOLS
Great tips! I have a chrome display unit that we got from IKEA. It’s great because it has shelves for pots and pans and hangers for your utensils. Saves lots of space. x #MMBC
I am lucky to have a really good size kitchen, but this is as I only have a living room and kitchen downstairs so it is technically a dining room/kitchen. Ironically, I don’t cook and you can fit my mum’s and two sister’s tiny galley kitchens in mine, go figure lol! They have had to be really clever with space too but reading this has made me realise how much space I have wasted in my kitchen too! Thanks so much for linking up at #KCACOLS. Hope you come back again next time
Pinning this as we are having a new kitchen fitted in just over a month! Great ideas #KCACOLS
These are some great tips. My husband is all the time rearranging our kitchen trying to make it more appealing for me since we can’t afford to remodel it yet. He makes all kinds of displays with our cookware. #KCACOLS.
Fantastic tips! I have a kitchen the size of a closet! Thanks!
#kcacols