How to renovate your small kitchen

While any good kitchen must be both practical and aesthetically pleasing, achieving both these goals might seem difficult when we're stuck with a smaller kitchen. However, this doesn't mean you have to give up on giving this room a makeover. With this is mind, here are some useful tricks to inspire you.

Renovating a small kitchen: a question of creativity

Small tips to maximize your storage capacity

Since you already have such little space, you'll have to think about any solutions that can help you bring extra storage to free up some space and manage the clutter created by dishes and household appliances found in your kitchen. The first tip to help you manage this issue is by evaluating the storage you can create for those appliances. In fact, a microwave can easily be hidden in a cabinet, provided that it isn't touching the back of it to avoid any risk of fire.

Next step is to make use of the entire height of the walls and install some tall cabinets. This will let you enjoy every available corner to store your dishes and kitchen accessories. You could even add some drawers close to the ground to put your pets' water and food bowls.

For the drawers located closer to the counter, insert some organizers. This is the most efficient way to maximize your space so you don't loose any centimetres available. Angle cabinets with swivel shelves are also remarkably useful to avoid losing any space in the corners of your kitchen.

In order to limit the loss of space caused by opening your cabinet doors, these could be changed for sliding doors. You'll win a precious amount of space and a lot of ease in your movements while going about in your kitchen.

In kitchens that are very small, even your dining table can be stored inside your wall if fixed to it.

Practical illusions to create when renovating your small kitchen

Like in any small room, painting your walls using lighter colours will visually increase the size of your space. If you're thinking of creating contrast, you could paint the lower half of your cabinets white a darker colour and the upper part with a lighter one.

Mirrors can also be of use with their capacity to reflect light, thus creating the illusion that the room is a lot bigger than it is.

Some small tips...

Like any other kitchen, you need the convenience of having on hand practical cooking items like knives or spices, so why not expose them? Mural spice racks installed close to your oven will help with preparing delicious recipes for dinner. The knives can be easily displayed on a knife magnet mounted on the wall. In addition, pots and pans can be hooked to a suspended ceiling unit.

Multifunctional furniture to serve your needs best

If we already clearly demonstrated that a large amount of cabinet is more profitable in order to store your kitchen accessories, it is important to specify that a multifunctional storage unit is your best option. It allows to directly integrate a dishwasher in the same piece of furniture that houses the cabinets. Not only will you avoid the clutter that would create this element, but you'll allow it to blend perfectly into the decor.

Small appliances: why not?

Logically, when your space is restricted, the size of your appliances should be chosen in consequence. Tell yourself that all the lost space caused by a fridge or a voluminous dishwasher could've been used for something else.

A small kitchen open to the rest of the house

A closed room on it's own will obviously look smaller than if it was open to the rest of the house. That is why taking down the walls to your kitchen to open up the space can be beneficial to people's perception of the space when they're inside the kitchen.

An alternative to an open kitchen would be to create a room that is partly open, which could be delimited with a wall at mid-height or with a glass wall. Although this option constitutes a small divider, its transparency won't be a nuisance given the fact that it won't create a visual barrier with the rest of the room.

To see some examples of renovation projects completed by contractors affiliated to RenoQuotes.com, head on to our article about 10 examples of inspiring kitchen renovations.

You are currently planning a renovation project for your kitchen? Read our Kitchen renovation guide to find a lot of useful information.

We also suggest that you check out our checklist for kitchen renovation projects, as this article contains a ton of information and comes with a document you can use to organize your project. 

Text: Karine Dutemple

Translation: Christine Simard