Small but Mighty! - The Ultimate Guide for a Small Kitchen

This blog post will give you lots of great tips to help you design and get the most out of a compact kitchen. From giving the illusion of space, to maximising storage and reducing clutter this blog will give you everything you need to completely transform a small kitchen. Using a clean and simple colour palette can really help to ‘open-up’ a room. Lighter shades such as white, cream, pale blue and pale grey allow natural light to bounce off walls and surfaces. Our Kew Penthouse kitchen mixes baby blue slab doors with white walls and accessories to provide a bright and airy space. In addition to colour, the texture and finish of cupboards, floors and worktops can also help to form an illusion of a bigger space. We love how the Redhill kitchen uses reclaimed gymnasium floorboards with a high gloss finish to magically reflect light from the full-length window at the end of the room. By laying boards lengthways, from one end of the kitchen to the other, it also creates an illusion of length, making the space feel larger. Natural light is a miracle worker when it comes to compact kitchens. The addition of full-length windows to a room allows daylight to flood in and make a space seem larger. If wall space doesn’t allow for a window, why not try adding skylights or even a glazed roof? These leave more wall space for cabinets and storage and can completely transform a kitchen. If large windows or skylights are still not an option, there are lots of other alternatives which will make your kitchen look just as bright. For a reasonable cost, you can buy daylight bulbs which emit bright light aiming to mimic the uplifting feeling of natural daylight. Under cabinet lighting is another alternative as it creates an optical illusion by drawing attention to wider areas of space, we also think it can look really trendy in a kitchen! When you have a smaller size kitchen, it is important to keep the room minimalistic and uncluttered. To save valuable worktop space you can maximise areas of available wall to use for hanging utensils, pans and knives. ‘Magic corner’ cupboards are also a great solution to make sure you are using every inch of storage space to its full potential. We love to integrate pull-out larder cupboards in our design as these provide so much space for storing food items and only take up a narrow gap amongst other cabinets. Floor to ceiling built-in cabinets are also a great alternative for using every bit of available space in a kitchen. Another great solution to keep your kitchen neat and tidy is to hide appliances behind cabinet doors, this means they blend in beautifully with the rest of the room and don’t spoil your gorgeous design. If space is particularly limited, you can buy compact or combined versions of appliances such as a Washer-Dryer. We love how gorgeous the doors look in our Heathwood Gardens kitchen, which perfectly hide the client’s appliances. A great way to enlarge a compact kitchen is by opening up rooms to create a larger open plan space. In recent years, we have also seen a shift towards ‘broken plan’ living which uses a striking island or breakfast bar to create a room divide without blocking light. We love how our Westbourne Gardens kitchen uses a flow of matching brass handles with no door to carry light from one room to another and create the illusion of space. If space is really limited and you don’t want to commit to a chunky island or breakfast bar, why not add wheels to make the island moveable or consider a floating breakfast bar, like the one in our Ladbroke kitchen. These help to keep a room feeling open, rather than enclosed. They also give versatility for when you require more space or seating. Our designers are always happy to give you advice on what is best for your kitchen, no matter the size or budget. If you would like to begin your new kitchen journey, you can call our helpful team on 01328 838 854 or email info@nakedkitchens.com and one of our designers will be happy to help.