Making the Most of a Tiny Kitchen

As I've mentioned before, my house is TINY.  It's cute, I love it, and I wouldn't trade it, even for 1,000 more square feet.  But it's really small.  So in order to stay happy with my lack of space, I have to be careful about how I use it.  I have lots of tricks, especially in the kitchen.

1.  Keep items that live on your counters to an absolute minimum.
Every item on your kitchen counters takes up visual space.  Some are necessary, like my darn coffee maker that I can't seem to ditch, some are aesthetic, like the ceramic bowl I made in college, and some things are just clutter, making the room look smaller.  If you're unhappy with your space, it's important to evaluate how many things are visible in your kitchen.  Are they making your kitchen into a pretty, useful place?  Or are they just there making your room look cluttered?

2.  Use every spare inch.
If your home is like mine, you probably didn't have appropriate storage when you moved in (Why are old houses notorious for the lack of storage?) Space is such a hot commodity in a tiny house, and sometimes, you just have to create it for yourself.  When I moved into my house, there were only three miniature drawers in the entire kitchen.  None of them were wide enough to hold a normal utensil organizer.  So, I had to get creative.

I started hanging things from the insides of the cabinet doors.

Command hooks work so perfectly for hanging things up because they're removable and won't damage the wall they're hanging on.  I have pulled some off and placed them elsewhere when I didn't like where they were.

3.  Pare down kitchen items ruthlessly.
The picture below is a good example of NOT following that rule to the letter.  I have two glass measuring cups and two graters.  I really don't need two.  It's just that I have been keeping two around so I don't have to wash dishes so often.  Which is a pretty dumb reason...

Anyway, the cupboard from that picture (the part unseen) is habitually running out of room and disorganized, despite my best efforts.  This summer it will be getting a much needed overhaul, and the duplicates have to go.

4.  Invest in extra shelving and organizational systems.
Unless you live in a house with a custom-built kitchen, chances are that your cupboard space is not ideal.  In my house, some cabinets are way too big and awkward, while others are too small to fit anything useful.  The key was buying tools that would keep my things neat without wasting space.

In the examples below, the drawer where I keep my knives was way too narrow.  I already had the knife holder from my old kitchen, but it was just a little too wide for the drawer.  So, I counted how many spaces I needed in the holder, and had Awesome trim the organizer so it was exactly the size we needed.  Then there was bonus space left over for our pizza cutter!

The other picture is of my baking sheet/cutting board/cooling rack cupboard.  The original space was really strange.  It was the depth of a standard cupboard, but only had one tiny shelf in it.  There was so much wasted space!  So I bought that nifty organizer.  I think it is meant for baking sheets.  Now I can basically "file" all my cooking and cutting boards away and they're ready to go and easy to access.

5.  Make it functional AND pretty!
That rule has been the biggest aha that I've had in this house.  I always used to keep aesthetics and practicality separate.  Then one day, on a whim, I "wallpapered" the inside of my medicine cabinet with scrapbook paper.  The epiphany I had was that I got a happy feeling every time I opened up the medicine cabinet (which makes tooth-brushing much more pleasant), and I also put more effort into keeping the cabinet neat and uncluttered.

I'm sure you saw all the cute paper backings in the above pictures.  Having the insides of my cupboards look pretty makes a huge difference in how I treat them.  I'm more inclined to keep them neat if they look nice.

What tricks do you have for organizing your kitchen?