Small Kitchens. 5 Design ideas for a successful small kitchen design

1. Plan your small kitchen design so suit your lifestyle

At the early stages of con­sid­er­ing a new kit­chen it is recom­men­ded that you take a good look at your exist­ing kit­chen and reflect on how you use it, as much as how you would like to use it? Regard­less of size any new kit­chen should be planned to suit you as an indi­vidual and to best suits your per­sonal needs and life­style. For example, the needs of a fre­quent and adven­tur­ous cook would dif­fer from someone who favours fast undemand­ing cook­ing. This dif­fer­ence in per­son­al­ity and life­style would be reflec­ted in the respect­ive designs. A microwave and/or dish­washer might be an abso­lute neces­sity for some people whereas oth­ers have never felt the need for one so would prefer to use the space these appli­ances would take up in an entirely dif­fer­ent way. The more you con­tem­plate your own pref­er­ences and every­day routines the more able a designer will be to affect a kit­chen design that func­tions per­fectly to accom­mod­ate these.

How should a kitchen design reflect your personality and lifestyle? This is definitely a point for consideration when planning your new kitchen as whether you have physical impairments that need facilitating, religious customs to exercise, own pets, or desire a kitchen that will maximise on a limited amount of space, whatever your needs your kitchen should be designed to personally accommodate them!

A friend recently told me she inten­ded to dis­pose of her exist­ing kit­chen island. This came as a sur­prise given that kit­chen islands are a coveted fea­ture among homeown­ers! How­ever, on delving fur­ther her reas­on­ing proved that her young chil­dren of ages five and two strongly dis­like the island, find­ing it a struggle to sit at. The lay­out is also such that it is simply not suited to a busy mum keep­ing a con­stant eye on two young chil­dren.

Small Kitchen Layout

Clever solution to gain some extra storage space by hanging glass wall cabinets above kitchen peninsular achieved without building a wall.

2. Choose Kit­chen col­ours to suit a small kit­chen design

Choice of col­our has a great effect on how big or small a kit­chen feels so it is import­ant to get this right! Any designer worth their salt would be well aware of this and should recom­mend suit­able col­ours for a small kit­chen design to achieve an impres­sion of a lar­ger room. A gen­eral rule of thumb is that the lighter the col­our the big­ger the room will feel. Sim­il­arly gloss options enhance a feel­ing of space as they reflect rather than absorb light (which darker, matt col­ours tend to) and this reflec­tion draws the eyes upwards. White, gloss paint is prob­ably the best option for a small kit­chen. Furthermore white gloss paint on the ceil­ing is an effect­ive tech­nique as, like the units, it reflects light back across the kit­chen. Cab­in­ets to match the col­our of the walls fur­ther enlarge a space within a small kit­chen and done cor­rectly unify the room, as opposed to mak­ing it feel bland or stark. In con­trast, accents of bold col­our, whether block or frag­men­ted, can work well against white for a visu­ally pleas­ing effect whilst not con­fin­ing the room.

3. Use both, Natural and Artificial lighting with a small kitchen design

Nat­ural light

Where pos­sible it is advis­able to make use of day­light and sat­ur­ate a kit­chen with as much nat­ural light as pos­sible as it will reflect back off your kit­chen cab­in­ets and sur­faces. This will make your kit­chen seem both lar­ger and brighter. Block­ing win­dows should be avoided as it restricts the amount of light that can flood in. For the same reas­ons a win­dow blind may suit bet­ter than cur­tains as they allow more light. Where pos­sible, glaz­ing the ceil­ing is also bril­liant for this and espe­cially within a small kit­chen design.

Arti­fi­cial light­ing

Max­imum expos­ure to nat­ural light may be restric­ted but can be well sub­sti­tuted through the use of arti­fi­cial light­ing. It is import­ant to use an appro­pri­ate num­ber of lights in suit­able col­ours and loc­ate them so that they enhance your kit­chen rather than over­power it. Incan­des­cent lights are those with a more yel­low­ish tone and these work well as ceil­ing spot lights dir­ec­ted at the cab­in­ets beneath. They also work well on the under­side of the top cab­in­ets so that the spot­lights shine down onto the work sur­faces below. White spot­lights work well within glass cab­in­ets as the light bounces off the glass cast­ing shad­ows and in so doing gen­er­ate a feel­ing of increased move­ment and space. Fur­ther­more base cab­in­ets and plinth can also fea­ture lights. These reflect off a tiled floor and par­tic­u­larly for the lat­ter, col­oured options can cre­ate a very mod­ern and styl­ish feel.

Natural Light

Where pos­sible it is advis­able to make use of day­light and sat­ur­ate a kit­chen with as much nat­ural light as pos­sible as it will reflect back off your kit­chen cab­in­ets and sur­faces

4. Reduce kit­chen clut­ter within a small kit­chen design

Sim­ilar to the effect of over­filling glass cab­in­ets, there is noth­ing that will make a kit­chen feel smal­ler than crowding it with per­sonal belong­ings and house­hold paraphernalia! It is advis­able to have a good spring clean ahead of your new kit­chen to rid your­self of house­hold items which are not needed but which take up space. Fol­low­ing this try to main­tain a clearer and tidier space within your new kit­chen. How­ever if you are a nat­ur­ally untidy per­son and know this may be a struggle then factor this in dur­ing your plan­ning stage and con­sider incor­por­at­ing more stor­age options as a solution.

In terms of redu­cing clut­ter it is advis­able to avoid over-elaborate or ‘busy’ detail within the design itself such as orna­mental cor­nices, or overly-decorative handles. Within a small kit­chen design handles can quickly appear too numer­ous. Altern­at­ively a style such as the hand­less kit­chen design works much bet­ter as its smooth and clean lines look extremely soph­ist­ic­ated but without dimin­ish­ing from the spa­tial feel of the kitchen.

5. Is open plan an option?

You may not have con­sidered it but there may be pos­sib­il­ity for knock­ing down a wall sep­ar­at­ing your kit­chen and another room, to cre­ate a much big­ger, open space. This would allow for a much big­ger kit­chen, or even give you room to incor­por­ate an island or pen­in­sula. Altern­at­ively a low half wall, or a hatch built above counter level into a kit­chen wall that sep­ar­ates a kit­chen and din­ing room would have the same effect of open­ing the space up. This has the poten­tial to let light through from addi­tional sources in the next room. It expands the space and in prac­tical terms makes cook­ing a much more soci­able exper­i­ence. For example, if your kit­chen is too small for people to gather in whilst you are pre­par­ing a meal, then you are still able to carry on a con­ver­sa­tion and be included in what is hap­pen­ing in the next room via the open space.

Whilst they work well it is strongly advis­able to check plan­ning restric­tions or fire reg­u­la­tions in advance of under­tak­ing any struc­tural works.

Open it up

You may not have con­sidered it but there may be pos­sib­il­ity for knock­ing down a wall sep­ar­at­ing your kit­chen and another room, to cre­ate a much big­ger, open space.