When living in a small space, maximizing every inch of your apartment is important. One of the most used rooms in any home is the kitchen. It is essential to make this room as functional and beautiful as possible. However, it can be challenging to cook in a small kitchen.
Some of the elements in your kitchen that might be limiting your available work or storage areas include:
- Too many unused appliances occupying valuable countertop and cabinet space
- Not enough cabinets to store all of your dishes, pots and pans, tools, and food items.
- Lack of clearance for large cooking surfaces due to small countertops (not enough room for stove top burners)
Fortunately, there are several tricks you can use when cooking in a smaller space. Here are four ways to decorate a small kitchen:
Install recessed lighting
When prepping food and cooking, install recessed lights or hang pendant lamps over your tiny kitchen work surface to make it feel bigger. In reality, recessed lighting is an easy way to make a room feel more spacious without the need for major renovations. It is also a good idea for kitchens because of its potential safety implications in commercial establishments where people use knives and other sharp tools near each other (less chance of accidents due to recessed lights).
The recessed lights are long and thin, so they do not take up much space on the wall or in the ceiling.
Hanging pendant lamps over your work surface is another option to make it seem less confined. The lamp will provide additional lighting while also giving you some height to reach items that might be hard-to-reach otherwise. Recessed light fixtures can also help highlight certain areas of your kitchen, like backsplashes if there is one behind where you will be chopping vegetables or prepping food or other focal points such as art hanging above an island countertop.
Use light colors/reflective surfaces
One of the best tips for kitchen design is to frame your small space with taller, lighter-colored cabinets and countertops to bring the eye up toward a higher point of view that makes everything seem more spacious on the lower level of one’s eyesight.
You can also hang tall mirrors or reflective surfaces over windows or near doors. Therefore, they reflect sunlight into other parts of your house, making them feel cozier and warmer than before because you can see natural lighting from outside coming in (try adding curtains for an even richer effect). That helps create an illusion that creates more depth perception for those who are standing on their tippy-toes trying to reach high shelves where it might be difficult if not impossible otherwise.
Choose furniture pieces made from lighter colored wood like oak instead of darker mahogany since dark woods will absorb heat rather than reflect it into the room.
Opt for open shelving
Open shelving is a great small kitchen decorating idea. It also helps you save space by storing bulky items under the shelf and out of sight but in an easily accessible place. When using open shelving for dishes or cookware, try hanging them from hooks instead of stacking things on top of one another so that they can be accessed more efficiently when needed. Also, open shelves are easier to clean than closed cabinets because there are no crevices between every dish and pan stacked upon each other.
Opt for a minimalist look
Minimalism is opposed to the idea of excess, and it promotes simplicity in design. The kitchen space will feel less crowded when the furniture is minimalistic. Arranging your pots and pans on hooks or hanging racks will help you save countertop space and cabinets from accommodating more food storage containers.
By choosing to keep only necessary items within sight and reach while giving up other things you previously thought were important. Such a way of living helps reduce clutter-related stress levels, making for an overall more relaxing atmosphere. You can also incorporate white or light colors into your decorating scheme with a minimalist look to avoid leaving dark corners from all the existing items on hand.
Having a small kitchen is not always ideal. You may be limited in how much you can cook or have to rearrange your furniture frequently. However, it is possible to make the most of your space and turn it into a highly functional and comfortable place to cook.
In summation, the best small-kitchen decorating ideas include opting for a minimalist look, using recessed lights and open-shelving. Most importantly, you should ensure you are aware of the limitations of your space before making any purchases or renovations to your kitchen.