Make a small kitchen look bigger: Kitchen Design Ideas
Where do you spend most of your time when you’re home? If your family is like mine, it’s probably in the kitchen – where over the breakfast counter, the day unfurls. Over cereals or piping hot dosas and hot cups of caffeine to kickstart your day or a lazy breakfast over a warm weekend where the family comes together – to sit and soak in the beauty of being together.
But, no matter how large a kitchen is, it never feels big enough. From choosing clean lines and geometric angles to eliminate visual clutter and expand the space, even if square footage is minimal to incorporating designs which will stay light and bright – as Sandeep Joshi recommends – reflective surfaces, such as ceramic tile and stainless steel, subtly amplify the effects of natural and artificial light, thereby making the kitchen seem larger – it’s all about creating drama in the small space which creates a visual poetry.
CommonFloor brings you top ideas from interior designers to make your kitchen feel and look larger. Remember – you don’t have to go for all of them. Any one of these suggestions can make a world of difference.
Select narrow furnishings
When space is limited, it is important to choose furnishings and appliances that appropriately fit the scale of the room.
Stretch the floor space
Some patterned wall coverings or floor coverings add visual clutter that makes a space feel smaller, but certain types of patterns have the opposite effect. Oversize diamonds painted on this floor create diagonal lines that give the eye a longer path to follow from one side of the room to the other, so the room feels wider than it really is. Combine this technique with low-contrast colors for big results in a small kitchen.
Paint the kitchen white
With all the traffic and mess that a kitchen can generate, it may seem counterproductive to paint it white. However, painting a kitchen white will significantly open up the space. The key is to incorporate a number of textures and different shades of white in order to keep the room from feeling bleak and sterile.
When white flows form the ceilings to the counters, cabinets and walls, it results in a seamless effect in which the eye can’t locate a boundary. So the room immediately feels more expansive.
Natural light is your friend
You may be limited by the number of and size of the windows in your kitchen, but how you treat them can have a drastic impact. Try to keep the window treatments to a minimum. If privacy is necessary, try a valance. These allow an abundance of natural light without opening up your kitchen to on-lookers.
Remove the barriers
By eliminating walls, both physically and metaphorically, you can trick they eye into thinking the kitchen is substantially larger when the square footage of the space has not changed.
The cart features a solid wood construction in natural finish, stainless steel top, brushed steel hardware, two utility drawers, two shelves and casters.
Depending upon the layout of the kitchen, it may be possible to even remove a part of the wall. It goes without saying that this will make the kitchen feel more expansive.
Carve out storage space
Shelves flush with the walls and recessed into space between the studs add storage without consuming valuable floor or air space in a small kitchen. These recessed shelves – trimmed and finished to match the woodwork – blend with the architecture. If you don’t have space within your kitchen, instead look for a spot near your kitchen, such as a breakfast nook or passageway, to implement recessed shelves.
Stripes
The style rule of horizontal stripes also applies to interior design. Horizontal stripes will make both a person and a room appear to be wider. Use striped flooring that goes from side-to-side instead of flowing the length of the room.
A height advantage
Install cabinets to the ceiling. Start with a taller cabinet and then line the others progressively shorter. In the open space above the shorter cabinets you can display items like collectibles, baskets or teapots.
Store seldom-used items such as holiday dishes or serving pieces on the top shelves of the taller cabinets. The point is to force the eye to go up and down with taller items. The room will immediately feel taller as a result.
Streamline your kitchen
Just as you go through your clothes closets once or twice a year and give away or sell items you no longer need, try doing the same in your kitchen. Because a cluttered kitchen feels smaller, simply reorganizing and tossing the things you don’t use will make your kitchen feel larger.
Install storage trays
You can do this on the back of false drawer fronts at the sink and cook top, with specially-made narrow trays available at hardware stores and home centers. It helps eliminate clutter around the stove and sink.
Open shelving
Cap off the end of some cabinets with open shelves. With the shelves facing the opposite direction like the eating area or breakfast nook, it provides a convenient way to store books and other conversation-starting items. Having the shelf raised a few inches higher than the counter it is connected to will help hide any clutter that would be visible while eating.
Replace cabinet doors with glass
Making a small kitchen look larger is a matter of fooling the eye and tricking the brain into thinking the space is bigger. One way to do that is to remove some cabinet doors or replace the solid fronts with glass. This pulls the eye past the cabinet frames into the depths of the cabinets, so the walls feel farther away. This trick is most effective if you can keep what’s in the cabinets orderly and color-coordinated. Clutter tends to make a room feel crowded.
Over-the-door shelf
An over-the-door shelf is a great way to display items in an unconventional way. Placing a ledge above the door frame (with the proper support on the ends) will provide yet another space to display your accents and wares. The height of the display will also draw the eye upward and make the room feel taller in the process.
Moveable island
Having the ability to store extra items and prepare them on the same surface is one thing. However, having the ability to move that out of the way when necessary is a completely different story.
Open up walls
If your kitchen has an adjoining dining room, consider opening the wall between them. This could be a do-it-yourself project if the wall is not load-bearing.
Interior Designer, Ashish Modi, Bangalore recommends: Ten Ideas to update your kitchen on a budget
Updating your kitchen can bring a high return on your decorating investment. Even though we spend less time than ever in the kitchen, we still want it to look good – usually from afar! Here are a few simple and inexpensive ways to give your kitchen a fresh look:
- Strip and paint: If you have are lucky enough to have solid wood cabinets, strip the paint or old finish. Then add a couple of drops of yellow or green oil pigment (available at your local craft store) to your favourite stain and apply to the cabinets. The stain color will have more depth with this small addition.
- Apply molding: Apply molding from your local home improvement store to your cabinet tops for a classic and updated look.
- Backsplash: Adding bead board as a backsplash can be an inexpensive update. But be sure to use a quality paint that can be easily washed!
- Towel rack: Mount a wrought iron curtain rod to the wall about 6 – 8 inches under your cabinets. Use the rod to hand towels, cooking utensils or pots. You can hang the pots or utensils from large s-hooks which hook over the rod.
- Adding color: Add color to white cabinets by painting small frames red or your favorite accent color. Mount them to the front of the cabinet. You can add pictures to the frames if you wish or leave them as just a graphic element.
- Blackboard: Have kids? How about using blackboard paint for the backsplash area above the countertops? You can write notes to the kids, grocery lists and art masterpieces on the area.
- Using tile: If you don’t want to tile your entire backsplash, mount terracotta tile or pavers in a strip, rectangle or square pattern. Check your local home improvement store for broken lots or discontinued patterns that cost much less than a current or unopened box of tile.
- Decoupage: Remember decoupage? You can decoupage your cabinet fronts in a variety of woven or canvas pattern papers. You can even find papers that look like leather. Scrapbooking papers are especially popular now and come in wonderful patterns.
- Grass inserts: Glue inexpensive rectangles cut from woven grass placemats from the dollar store to your cabinet doors. Frame with thin strips of molding to simulate grass inserts.
- Put a cork in it: Cork squares can also be used as dramatic interest to the front of cabinet doors. And the cork is useful for leaving messages!
As you can see, a dramatic makeover in your kitchen needn’t cost the moon. All it takes is just a few inexpensive touches!
