Small kitchens can be irritable to work and demand a lot of patience, time, and effort to keep organized.
Since it is one of the places in your house where you spend the most of your time, it is unfortunate for it to be cluttered and dark. Thankfully, some minor design modifications can turn it into cozy heaven. You can implement the following design adjustments yourself or hire kitchen construction contractors depending on the budget and the nature of the renovation.
1. Lights
Dark shadows, because of insufficient lights, can make your kitchen appear smaller than its original size. So make sure that every nook and corner, especially the areas surrounding cabinets, are well lit. Although natural light is the perfect source to enhance the brightness in the kitchen, unfortunately, it depends on many architectural and financial limitations. In that case, you can DIY its solution by using LED lights or battery-powered bulbs under, above, and inside the cabinets.
2. Colour Palette
Experts suggest using a limited color palette or monochromatic color scheme creates a sense of openness. Coloring the entire kitchen in lighter hues like white, off-white, cream, and grey is a foolproof way of designing visually larger spaces. Moreover, the subtle color transition between walls, cabinets, and countertops broadens the space in the kitchen. Dark colors and sharp contrasts form visual boundaries. Since lighter colors reflect light while darker tones absorb it. So while choosing the paint color for the walls and cabinets, keep these tricks in mind.
3. Flooring
As Tan France from Queer Eye says that vertical stripes make you look taller than your height while horizontal patterns make you appear wider. We can adopt the same principle in the kitchen flooring. Lay the tiles in a vertical symmetry for a narrow kitchen and width-wise for a horizontally challenged kitchen. But if you want to create the optical illusion of an enlarged area, then opt for a pattern that runs diagonally.
4. Furniture
Colour, lighting, and furniture the three design elements that play a key role in determining the spaciousness of a room. The third element requires careful planning, creative imagination, and frequent trips to the market. However, it is the most essential and ends up making a significant difference as sleek furniture takes up less space. Instead of a huge dinner table, buy a narrow and petite kitchen island with small wooden stools. They provide just the same amount of functionality and aesthetics while occupying less area.
5. Cabinetry
Just like the shape and size of furniture in the kitchen, the dimensions of cabinets are just as important. These are a few clever cabinetry shopping hacks that must remember for a small kitchen remodel:
- Taller than standard cabinets for extra space and the illusion of higher ceilings.
- Cabinets with transparent fronts as it creates a space-enhancing effect by reflecting light off it.
- Open Shelves for additional space since you can never have enough storage in a tiny kitchen.
6. Appliances
Appliance selection highly depends on the number of members in the household, dimensions of the kitchen, and its functionality. If you are dealing with a small kitchen, then it is suggested to buy sleek and compact appliances. Recent technological advancements have compacted the bulky vintage appliances into slimmer ones. You can install the stovetop above the oven to save space. If you have 2-3 individuals living in the house, then a single sink will do just fine. These small yet seemingly insignificant tweaks make a world of difference.
7. Decluttering
Regardless of the changes in the renovation phase, you cannot effectively organize a kitchen without decluttering it. Adopt a minimalist lifestyle like the Japanese and go Marie Kondo in the kitchen. Throw out everything that no longer sparks joyfor a clutter-free kitchen. Don’t hoard stuff just because you might need them in the future. Only keep the appliances and crockery that you use regularly while putting away the rest in a storage unit.
Considering the fact that not everyone can afford to knock down a wall, these trivial and affordable adjustments will contribute highly towards creating the vision of a capacious kitchen.
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I love this list of tips–and I can see where each and every one saves money over time!