Does Your Kitchen Feel Small?

Does your kitchen feel small? Do you find that when you are standing in your kitchen, it feels cramped? Do you have a smaller kitchen that could use some more space? There are ways to add more space, or the feel of more space, to your smaller kitchen without doing an extensive remodel. You can make a few changes here and there to open up the room. Here are a few suggestions.

Lighting

One of the easiest ways to open up a room is to have good lighting. Dark corners or areas in your kitchen can make it appear smaller than it actually is. By reviewing your lighting needs and brightening things up, your kitchen can appear bigger. You can add more lighting, update your lighting fixtures, or change your lighting altogether. It is best to review your lighting several times of the day so that you can see how your lighting needs change as the day goes on. Also, consider the time changes that occur as the year goes on when it gets darker earlier.

Maximize Space

Another way to open up your kitchen is to consider how you are utilizing your space. Can you add shelving to the walls? Maybe you could have hanging pots and pans instead of using cabinet space for them. Pull out shelves will help you reach more items easier and help you utilize cabinet space you didn’t consider before. You could hang the brooms and mops from clips instead of having them take up floor space. Look around your kitchen now and see how to improve on storage space.

Open Space

A way to create space in a smaller kitchen is to open it up more. You can see if you can create a cutout between the kitchen and the rest of your home. You can review walls and see if they are all necessary as well. By opening up your eye line between your kitchen and the rest of your house, the space will look larger.

Layout

An option available is to do a remodel of your space, either small or large, to allow for a better flow. Review your current workflow and traffic patterns to see if there are changes you can make to help your kitchen run better. You can create a model of your current space to move appliances and storage around to see if you can find a more efficient way to layout your kitchen without actually making changes yet. Of course, budgetary concerns and material availability will also be a factor.