Small Kitchen Remodeling: 7 Tips For Successful Projects

Planning a small kitchen remodeling project? Check out our tips to set yourself up for success.

1. Tailor your remodeling projects to how you actually use the room. If you don’t cook much, but mostly eat out and heat up bought food, then maybe the cooking area can shrink in favor of the kids homework area, because that’s more important and useful to your household. If you grow a lot of food and spend days canning, then space for that may be a priority. The pretty-picture kitchens are designed for priorities which may be completely different from yours.
2. Design yourself at least one decent sized counter area. 30″ is big enough for one person to do most prep, baking and cooking tasks, though more space would be better. If you break up all your counter space into little bits and pieces less than 30″, you’ll feel cramped with every job you do.
3. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. What are you planning – a complete gut job with total replacement of everything from the studs in? Individual projects which add up to a makeover? Make sure you’re budgetng time and money in a way you can sustain.
4. Consider smaller-than-standard appliances. Most of today’s trends are towards larger rather than smaller – giant pro-style gas ranges, wide french door fridges, huge farm sinks. If your kitchen is small, these oversized styles may be counterproductive. Apartment-sized appliances may do everything you need and give you more working space (18″ dishwashers, 24″ ranges, undercounter fridges). Or, you may want one star appliance to be larger-than-life, and the others to be slimmed-down to make space.

1. Don’t try to squeeze too much into the kitchen. While the glossy magazines are full of great ideas for special-purpose areas like beverage and snack centers, baking centers, butlers pantries, etc, they mostly work in large kitchens. In a small kitchen, focus on the essentials – cooking, prep, cleanup and storage – and keep the feeling as spacious as possible.
2. Try laying your flooring diagonally. Whether tiles or planks, in wahetever materials, diagonal laying is a classic method to get longer lines and the perceptiopn of more space.
3. Consider lighting. Good lighting can make a small space seem bigger, while inadequate lighting can make a large space seem unfriendly or smaller than it really is. Task lighting is especially important, so include under-cabinet lights for your wall cabinets in your plans.

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