Everything about our house is Amazing with our large master bedroom and walk through closet that connects to our generous sized master bathroom to our over sized basement! Our kitchen however is a complete bewilderment as to how it ever came into existence. Our home is a 1920 craftsman bungalow with one of the first known garages to be built into the homes infrastructure and is an absolute treasure that we almost didn’t buy because Eric couldn’t get over the small kitchen.

#1. De clutter counter tops

Knife Storage

• hang knives on magnetic wall hangers.

I can’t recommend the steel knife holders as they scratch and damage the knives. See my post how to to upgrade steel magnetic knife rack.

Spice Racks

• We built a pull out cabinet next to the stove and fridge with counter height spice shelves

Store rarely used items such as toasters and blenders in lower out of the way cabinets. My blender and larger rarely used appliances, waffle maker, XL stainless steel mixing bowls, etc.. are actually kept in a stand alone cabinet in our basement.

Build a stand for over the back of the stove to Utilize space for larger food items such as food storage jars.

#2. Hang pots

a pot rack that doubles as storage shelves for stock pots and the like.

#2. Optimize storage

What no one ever tells you is that a lot of these creative storage ideas can come at a premium price. For example adding a basket to the inside of a cabinet door means that precious storage space is lost. I added a basket to my lower cabinet door, without thinking it through, and while the basket is helpful it wasn’t 100% necessary. It gets in the way of me being able to store the blender and other large items. It would be better to just add baseboard kick drawers instead.

• Add toe kick drawers on the way!

Turn useless lower cabinets into pull out storage.

This was one of the first upgrades we made to the kitchen! Right after installing a new dishwasher and refrigerator.

#3. Get creative with 3m command hooks

I have Command hooks for my pots and pans lids as well as other under the sink kitchen utensils.

#4. Organize The Sink Space

• In small kitchen living using a cross bar to store my cleaning bottles has been the best upgrade ever!
• I added a drawer pull out in front of the sink for sponges and other various items.
• Adding a water barrier cabinet mat has saved me in a few wet messes.
• Using a storage bins to easily pull out cleaning supplies has been a simple but imperative addition

#5. Coffee & Tea

When your home is so small that there is not one inch of empty wall space, let alone the plaster and lath= zero studs, to hang some immaculate self made or Etsy bought coffee cart/shelf other solutions are found. There is zero floor space to have an actual cart in our house and let’s be honest a coffee cart is a useless waste of space that collects dust and grime that no one really wants to bend over to have to use daily or multiple times a day in Eric’s case! Instead I made this small shelf to go over the top of the Keurig 😊. We now have a Permanent home for my tea and our moka pots.

#6. Downsize and organize Garbage and Recycling

The Joseph Joseph garbage and storage was one of the first upgrades I made in our small kitchen. It is the perfect realistic size multi purpose garbage can. I use the bottom pull out drawer to store the garbage bags, produce bags, batteries, light bulbs, etc..

IKEA Trones recycling bins

Fun Fact Believe it or not but these slim hanging bins actually originated outside of the U.S. as removable recycling bins. It wasn’t until a few years ago that the ikea U.S. marketing revamped the Trones and started marketing them as “shoe organizers”. They are now only sold in 2 packs which makes me feel very lucky to have bought them in the original 3 pack versions.

My top bin is mixed recycling, second bin is reusable shopping bags, and the bottom bin is for glass recycling.

My kitchen is so small that we don’t have a microwave in the kitchen!! Just how small is so small? Well here is a picture to show that only two floor mats with a 1-2″ gap can fit on my kitchen floor.

Still to come baseboard kick drawers!!!