What are the worst or tiniest kitchen facilities you've ever had?

[Nigellainminiature]

And how did you manage?

I will be sharing a kitchen in my new house, it's the smallest space I've ever seen! There's no counter top space for chopping and preparing food. An oven, a fridge and a rickety tiny table covered by a microwave. Barely any storage.

I enjoy cooking (though I'm a complete beginner) and need to eat proper food for health reasons as I take a lot of medication. I don't want to just eat cereal and toast.

Would a slow cooker in my room be weird?

What's the smallest space or most awful kitchen you've had to cook in? How did you make it work?

Firstly I’d ask is that the right place for you? If there’s a lack of storage how are you going to keep your food fresh?

Slow cookers are great for batch cooking for one person, butnif you have no fridge/freezer space it’s not worth it.

Not going to help you here much but i once rented a flat that had a huge living room, big bedroom, big landing and ok bathroom. Kitchen? You couldn't get more than 1 person in there, couple of cupboards, small fridge with box freezer, 4 electric hob rings..... no oven, no microwave and i couldn't afford one.... it was grim. Lots of pasta

Yes it's the right place for me as good in all other respects and I'm committed to my lease now...

I have fridge freezer space to store (sharing decent size fridge freezer with one other person so that's ok) just not loads of cupboard space to build up a good store like I'm used to.

Buy a kitchen trolley/butcher block if there's room/leave it in the hall? I also have an over the door cupboard shelving gismo from Lakeland as my flatmate has filled loads of our cupboards and it's fab. How does your flat mate manage? That kitchen would make me cry!

I have a tiny kitchen now - no room for a kettle so I have a stove top one! It can be done but it is a PITA.

DP and I shared a bedsit many years ago where the shared kitchen was so rank that we ended up buying a double boiling ring and kept it on a shelf in our room. Our favourite meal was boil-in-the-bag cod in sauce with (frozen) steamed veggies. Looking back it probably was against the lease (fire hazard, lack of ventilation).

Could you get the landlord to wall-mount the microwave so at least you'd have the table for food prep?

Thanks all for suggestions!

An over the door shelf thing is a brilliant idea, I'm going to get on that straight away.
Will also ask about getting microwave put on the wall - maybe they could put up a shelf? - though I'd say they might ignore my request.

I think my new flat mate doesn't cook much at all! But I've seen pots and pans washed up so definitely manages to do a bit.

Wilko do an over the door shelf thing that’s ace www.wilko.com/smart-storage/wilko-over-door-rack/invt/0437087

I think a slow cooker for your bedroom is a good idea. Set yourself up in there with a counter top (ie a table) and a slow cooker, possibly a grill (George foreman type or we have a great breville one). I also like my rice cooker. An instant pot would be perfect if your budget would stretch!

Not the same, but on holiday abroad our "kitchen" was a two burner ring and a kettle next to a tiny sink. Luckily we were AI.

Lived in a shared house with two hobs, no oven, tiny fridge, no cupboards or worktops at all in the kitchen.

So....

• buy storage for your room, a chest of drawers is ideal.
• keep pans and colander in bottom drawer, packets and tins, spices etc in middle drawer, veg, chopping board and knife in top drawer. Put a slow cooker on the top (using a heat resistant mat for safety).
• wash all veg when you first buy it, keep it in Tupperware in top drawer, and do any chopping and prep on the top of the drawers.
• use a lot of pulses and tinned beans, you can make all kinds of stuff in the slow cooker.

I think I used to read a blog by somebody who cooked in an absolutely tiny kitchen, will try and find it.

Why don't you get a cupboard/sideboard for your room and keep tins and dry food in there along with s slow cooker and spices etc-chopping space can be made in the kitchen by putting a large chopping board over the sink, not ideal but if you live cooking you'll need plenty of room to chop up veg

Yes! These are brilliant ideas!

I know it can be done and made to work, it's a matter of being creative with the space. When you've had a big kitchen all to yourself it's about shifting expectations about what a kitchen should be like and figuring out ways to make it work

I think I could probably fit another storage unit like a small chest of drawers in my room so that should do the trick, for keeping some dried goods.

Tiny kitchen in a tiny studio flat. I had free standing cooker (hob and oven), then the counter was three “spaces” wide if you know what I mean? One was the washing machine with the draining board for the sink over it, then the sink with some storage space underneath, then the fridge sat on the only actual counter space, with a cupboard underneath it. No wall cupboards.

I had to use a chopping board on top of the hob so got into the habit of only using the back burners. Only bought food I would use soon rather than having tins of soup etc as back up.

London, 2003-2005. My smallest kitchen was basically a small cupboard. It consisted of a 2 ring burner, workspace was space for a kettle and a chopping board that fit over the sink. There were no cupboards just two shelves and there was a small fridge in the bathroom. I made a lot of pan fried veg and rice, bought veg daily from the ‘4 for a pahnd’ guys. Herbs sat on the shelves. With the pans and the plates, knives and forks were in a wooden box in the also tiny sitting room. My most amazing meal produced from that kitchen was pan fried duck breast with bok choi and fragrant rice for 3 people! You don’t need a lot of room.

Look for camping cooking equipment, you can get stuff like fold up colanders, pans where you can take the handles off, and save lots of storage space that way.

Lived for a few years with just a baby belling. If you had the oven bit on then the rings wouldn’t get hot enough to boil, if you had one ring on at frying temp the other would be not much more than hand hot.

Turns out you can cook pizza in a frying pan, and toastie makers can do lots more than make toasties.

I ate a lot of couscous as you can just pour boiling water over it and let sit. Some noodles you can do the same and are much nicer than instant noodles, mixed in with varied stir fry veg or soups can be healthy and tasty.

I don’t have much luck with my slow cooker as everything seems to taste the same, but that might be me. If I was you I’d just see how I got on for a month then see what I couldn’t live with/ without.

XH and I lived in a converted attic for 3 years. Kitchen window (velux) was stuck open the whole time, one very elderly cooker, the kind with spiral rings and the grill never worked. Sink with no hot water (shower was the only source of hot water in the flat) and a trolley thing with a chopping board on it. Fridge freezer had to be in the living room as it didn’t fit in the kitchen! Bare floorboards which broke when my shitty washing machine flooded and ended up in downstair’s kitchen!

This was before DS1 was born I should say. It was grim.

I had a studio several years ago which had my bed, the kitchen which consisted of kettle and toaster and the toilet and shower behind a curtain so all in one small room! I used to just buy a duck and hoisin wrap from Tesco every single day and an orange juice or something. I was very slim. Very depressed too.

What's your under bed space like? I keep big storage tubs under mine and have one for jars, tins etc that I don't have room for in the kitchen but haven't opened yet/very rarely use. I had more cupboard space in my last flat and had a shelf for all of that but not now.

Tiered fruit bowl will let you stack up and leave more surface space free, too.

I agree with ColonelCakes that the Wilko door cupboard is good, I have loads of great wilko fixtures! I only got my Lakeland one because Wilko was sold out when I wanted one and I needed it in a hurry. I can put a pic on if you want.

Also, if you have the spare cash or live near a good TK Maxx, Joseph Joseph do great stackables. I have a Nest 8 by them which is currently in storage because my flatmate can't have nice things, the outside bowl is quite big but the innards are all accounted for in a neat stack so free up other space. And JJ chopping board sets are 😍!

We also have a metal bar in our kitchen with loads of s-hooks on it with pans etc on. Would that or something similar be possible? Also have appliances like whisks and spiralisers on top of cupboards and use the top of fridge for storage- we have a little collapsible step up. Both love to cook so we do use these. Can you fit anything under the table to store stuff? (I'm a storage freak).

*we keep appliances boxed so they stack well/don't get icky on top of cupboards.

Lack of storage space in a kitchen is wise. Stops other bastards “borrowing” it.
Get yourself set up in your room.

I meant shared kitchen