Small Space Kitchens

For Stirlgirl...

A while back, Stirling said her new kitchen in Charlotte is tiny and she needed some suggestions.  So here, a round-up of small kitchen ideas.  Other than these first three images, these aren't necessarily pretty images, but they give good practical ideas that you could execute more attractively.

Above-- this adorable small kitchen makes good use of the Ikea grundtal kitchen accessories-- the stainless steel wall-mounted racks and hooks.  

Another key to this kitchen, which stores almost everything in plain sight, is the unified color scheme.  The green/white/stainless combo looks clean and sleek here, whereas if there were all different metals and color dishes, it would look cluttered.

So as you build your kitchen, aim to keep all your dishes and cookware in the same palette. 

Hanging hooks under shelves is a great way to store mugs, as in the above photo.

Next, five ideas from Apartment Therapy's the Kitchn blog on extending counter space.  

First, undermounted cutting boards.  These actually used to be very common in 1920s homes and they're a great idea! 

Click through for a bunch more ideas...

Fold-up counterspace on an empty wall can be mounted with hinges.

Moving microwaves and other small appliances up to shelves frees up counterspace (and looks less cluttered.  I have a personal pet peeve for appliances on the counter!).

Another good use of the grundtal hooks, as well as a clever fold-up wall-mounted dish drying rack in case you don't have a dishwasher.

Putting a large cutting board over the sink can also free up counter space.

In Julia Child's kitchen (preserved above in a museum, and also recreated in Julie & Julia), she hung her pots on hooks mounted on pegboard.

Here's a cute reproduction of this idea..

These shelves are actually in a kitchen, but it made me think that if you have a big bookcase right near the kitchen, you could style the bookshelves with a mix of cookbooks and your prettier kitchen items, like ceramic bowls or cast iron or enamel cookware. 

This image, also from apartment therapy, suggests hanging utensils on the side of the refrigerator. If your refrigerator was right next to your stove, this could be both handy and more unobtrusive than hanging them on the wall over the stove.

This images isn't so pretty, but shows another good idea for undermounting-- you can put in a rack to undermount wine glasses (or any glasses with stems).

Also not so pretty, but a good idea-- a super high shelf could be installed to hold less-often used items, whether food items or dishware.  My mom has always kept pretty cake plates and serving dishes up on top of our cabinetry.

Another article from the kitchn lists more tips, many of the same already pointed out here, but you can read the whole thing here.