If your kitchen is beginning to make you feel claustrophobic, you may think it’s time to move or at least knock down a few walls. Before you pack up and leave, try a few of these simple tricks to make your small kitchen feel bigger.
- Utilize Your Available Space
Your kitchen may be small, but chances are, you have a lot of space being ignored above eye level. Instead of keeping pots and pans inside drawers, try hanging them above with a pot rack. Or, you can install a pegboard and hang your pots and pans on the wall to give you more room to store appliances inside cabinets and drawers.
- White It Out
To make a small kitchen appear larger, use white paint. The color white automatically makes any room feel cleaner, airier, and lighter because it reflects light. Going with lighter colors on your walls, cabinets, and countertops will give your kitchen the appearance of being larger. You can still keep pops of color with backsplashes, rugs, appliances, and kitchen tools, but use white as the main theme to give it a more spacious feel.
- See Clearly
If you have solid wood cabinets, you can replace the wood with glass to add depth to your kitchen. It may seem counterproductive to showcase your kitchen clutter, but removing the wood cabinets and replacing them with glass doors makes your kitchen feel much larger and helps spread light throughout the entire room. Painting the walls behind the cabinets an accent color (other than white) also makes the room feel larger in contrast.
- Reduce Clutter
If you need more counter space, get rid of the appliances that are the major space stealers. If you don’t use your blender, toaster, mixer, or food processor often, store it in a closet, on top of the fridge, or in a cabinet. Instead, leave only the appliances that you use daily on the counter. You can also get rid of that clunky knife block by installing a magnetic strip on the kitchen wall for knives to stick to so you can free up even more space on your counters.
- Light Up Your Life
Natural light will make any room feel bigger and more spacious. In order to trick your brain into thinking your kitchen is big and open, you should get rid of window coverings to allow the natural light of daytime flood the space. Buying appliances that reflect light is also a good way to keep light bouncing through your kitchen area. You can also create your own light by installing under-cabinet lighting.
