How to Optimize a Small Apartment Kitchen
Oooh the joys of a little galley kitchen! You can’t open your drawers and dishwasher at the same time, your oven doesn’t fit a baking sheet, and there’s not nearly enough counter space. The good news is, there ARE a few things you can do to maximize your kitchen’s space and optimize its functionality. Let’s get into it!
1. Get Rid of Stuff!
When living in a small space, you have to be thoughtful about what to keep, and realistic about what you’ll use. People often think they don’t have enough space, when REALLY they just have too much stuff. Time to get rid of all the half-used sauces, mismatched tupperware, and 37 extra coffee mugs!
The real key to limiting your belongings is having a place for everything. For instance, let’s say you allot ONE shelf for glassware. Any glasses that don’t fit on that shelf either get donated or properly recycled. The end. Now, apply this strategy to the rest of your kitchen! Once you’ve established an easy and reasonable system, maintaining it is a piece of cake.
2. Utilize Vertical Storage
You can dramatically increase your storage opportunities by using the vertical surfaces in your kitchen.
Kitchen Rails
Kitchen rails are a great way to store large or bulky items on your wall. They also provide a golden opportunity for functional styling! Pictured here is IKEA’s super affordable Hultarp rail system, holding a range of hard-to-store items.
Fruit
Fruit storage can also be challenging, especially since fruit baskets take up so much valuable counter space. A fruit hammock is a great solution - they can be mounted to the underside of your cabinets using renter-friendly Command hooks. And if you need some extra space for that big ol’ bunch o’ bananas, you can hang them from an ‘S’ hook off yet another Command hook mounted to a cupboard!
Mugs
Since the mugs didn’t fit on our allotted “cup shelf,” we hung them using - yep - Command hooks from the underside of the nook above the sink, which became the tea shelf. Our compact kettle sits on the counter below, completing this self-serve tea station.
Knives
Magnetic knife strips may not be the hottest kitchen accessory, but they save valuable drawer and/or counterspace, so that’s a win in my book. This bamboo one from Amazon is similar to ours, and IKEA usually has a few options as well.
Magnets
And don’t forget the side of your fridge - an expansive, magnetic surface just waiting to be utilized!
These handy magnetic hooks allow you to hang things like oven mitts, towels, produce bags, etc. They’re especially helpful in reclaiming the dead space between your fridge and wall, if you have a gap there.
We DIY’d the spice jars by gluing thin magnets to the lids and labelling them with a label maker.
And last but not least, our minimal paper towel holder fits perfectly beneath the upper cabinets, freeing up even more valuable counter space.
3. Maximize Counter Space
Preserving open work surfaces can be challenging in a small kitchen, but every kitchen needs a minimum of 36” of UNINTERRUPTED counter space to be truly functional, plus as many additional open stretches as possible. Cause let’s face it, bakin’ cookies and makin’ dinner can be mayhem!
Sink Area
Dish racks often take up up wayyy too much space by the sink. If you’re lucky and have an extra-large or double-basin sink, consider a drop-in dish rack. Alternatively you can look for an over-the-sink drying rack. They’re pretty brilliant, but they’re expensive and have to be carefully measured/fitted to your space.
Another way to optimize your sink area is to switch out your faucet head. Even if a coveted pull-down faucet isn’t in the cards, simply upgrading the standard aerator to an adjustable, multi-mode, swiveling faucet head can be a game changer. We love how this one reaches all corners of the sink, and it comes with thread adapters to fit most faucets. (NOTE: Measure the tip of your faucet before purchasing a replacement head, and notice whether it requires male or female threading.)
It doesn’t fit perfectly, but this little drop-in rack from HomeSense does the trick. That space by the sink easily could have been eaten up by a dish rack, but instead we use it as our smoothie- and tea-making zone.
Turntables / Lazy Susans
Turntables have uses FAR beyond the Christmas Scrabble game! Try adding them to your fridge and cabinets to reach things more easily, or place one by the stove to hold regularly cooking items.
This basic turntable fits perfectly on the bit of counter by our stove, holding the salt, pepper, and olive oil for easy access while cooking.
Countertop Extensions
In the end, the most useful thing you can do is extend your kitchen altogether. You can do this by placing an additional surface at the end of your countertop, for example:
A butcher block, which provides additional work surface and storage space.
A counter-height table, which provides additional work surface and an eating area.
A standing-height table, which provides additional work surface, storage space, and an ergonomic prep area for us tall folks. ;)
Jake and I extended our little kitchen by adding the my old drafting table to the end of our counter. Painted, wrapped, and functionally styled, this little addition has made ALL the difference!
4. Use All the Nooks & Crannies
There are often gaps (usually vertical gaps) that can be reclaimed as valuable storage space in any kitchen.
Baking Sheets & Dishes
The cupboard above the stove is often underutilized, but that’s actually where we keep our baking sheets/dishes. One of the many charms of a small apartment oven is that it doesn’t fit a STANDARD baking sheet, meaning the storage drawer below is too small to be useful. I optimized our cupboard by adding an expandable pot lid organizer to store our dishes, a bamboo plate organizer (also available at IKEA) to store our pans, and a couple tall plastic organizers (less expensive at CanTi and HomeSense) to store our amazing Silpat mats and assorted baking papers. Our full-sized baking sheets are stashed above the microwave in our kitchen extension.
The Fridge Gap
There’s often a gap between the top of the fridge and the upper cabinets where you can store bulky items, or use organizing bins to store smaller items. This gap is the perfect place for our vitamins, extra oven mitts, and handy extendable sieve. What could you store above your fridge?
The top of your fridge is also an excellent spot for an extra drying mat for those oversized pots and pans that may not fit on your little dish rack. Buy one in a colour that matches your kitchen decor to make it look intentional and cohesive.
Frying Pans
Frying pans are heavy, bulky, and often have delicate surfaces that should be protected when stored in a stacked position. A great way to store frying pans is in a cupboard using an organizer. This genius little contraption can be used vertically or horizontally, and it’s a TOTAL gamechanger.
Undershelf baskets are another amazing way to maximize the vertical space within your cupboards. These two items allowed us to fit all of our pans, a mandolin slicer, and a panini press all in one little cupboard.
Cupboard Organizers
Another way to maximize the vertical space in your cupboards is with plate organizers and shelf organizers. Both these handy things allowed us to fit all our main dishware on one shelf, without having to stack everything a mile high!
Narrow Gaps
Finally, don’t overlook any “awkward” narrow gaps, usually resulting from poorly measured spaces or poorly fitting appliances. For example, you could stash your broom, mop, and/or grocery bags in the gap between your fridge and wall. In our kitchen, we keep our extra folding chairs (for the eating area extension) and our heavy cast iron pan in the gap between our kitchen extension and counter.
So there you have it folks. I hope this post was helpful, and that you can use some of these ideas to help maximize and optimize your little kitchen!