Non standard kitchen ideas please

[LightminTheQueem]

We have a small kitchen, about 8' by 9', with two doors, and a high ceiling. It's currently occupied by some wall cupboards and freestanding ikea bits which leave a lot of unused space and look pretty grotty. We also don't have room in this arrangement for a dishwasher, which we now need.

We've looked at most major fitted kitchen places and the units and plans they come up with just seem like they will be clunky and annoying to live with. Can anyone suggest ways of using the space more imaginatively, or how we could find someone to advise who wouldn't cost £££?

I'd try to find a good local carpenter/joiner. Someone who makes built in cupboards. They might have some good non standard ideas.

It might sound counter intuitive but would you consider lowering the ceiling a little? High ceilings can often make a smallish room feel smaller especially if the ceiling height is bigger than the length/width of the room.

Very high cabinets are another option but frankly if you can't reach them without a ladder they are next to useless

You probably need an independent designer or a place that does made to mesaure. Those are normally the top end of the price bracket unfortunately.

Is there any reason you can't work out your own layout or don't you feel confident?

When we did ours I found this website very helpful in testing layouts and ergonomics, we now have a kitchen with not many cupboards but every one of them earns its place. I look at kitchens now and I can see where the "rules" have been broken, my pet hate is sink and cooker slapped in the middle of cabinet runs with no useable workspace between them.

www.dynamicspace.com/

I don't have wall mounted cupboards as this makes a small room smaller.

I have one hand made oak shelf and ally crockery and glassware and serving dishes are on there. Then I have hooks under for cups etc. Then I have oak work tops with ikea factum white plain plain plain cupboards with snazzy inserts. A range cooker and fired earth tiles on the wall only half way up, then flagstones on the floor.

I bloody love my kitchen!

Go on pinterest and create yourself a kitchen board. If you search small kitchens or square kitchens or flat kitchens etc you'll bring up masses of images. From this you can establish the style you like i.e. Modern, country, minimalist, open storage, shelves, plate racks or all hidden?

What about one wall thats floor to ceiling cupboards with integrated oven, fridge/ freezer, microwave, appliance cupboard, larder and another thats work surface, sink with dishwasher alongside and hob.

If you want to make the space feel a little bigger you can use wall units as base units so 400mm ish deep rather than the usual 600mm ish deep. The appliances run (dishwasher, washing machine, oven, fridge/ freezer) needs to be 600 still.

Could your washing machine go elsewhere like airing cupboard, shed or garage?

Bespoke does make very good use of space and if you use a combination of off the shelf with bespoke interconnections you can keep costs down. I've had some customisation done in my current kitchen and the last and not regretted it.

Look up plinth storage and plinth steps if you're thinking about maximising storage.

Agree with nilbyname about wall cupboards. Open shelf works better and actually uses space v well as you use all of it, (as opposed to part of a cupboard).

Also second plinth drawers.

My aunt's kitchen is tiny, and she got a local joiner to build it all. Real wood too. Brilliant!! he has used all the walls. V shallow shelves for spices, jars of stuff, hooks and rails for hanging utensils and cups, hooks on the back of doors, pots of herbs on windowsill etc. (They also have a dining room so the kitchen is just a work space not eating space though.).

It was designed with her needs in mind and is perfect for the type of cook she is, (very good,)! No wasted space at all, no "standard" cupboards and gaps to fill. And NOT expensive

Our kitchen is 6'x10', so you have my sympathy! I've got to disagree with some of the previous posts... The previous owner here had done the open shelves thing, and I thought it was awful. In a tiny kitchen, there's no room at all for clutter, and open shelves, however organised, to me look like clutter. Plus you get all that sticky dust over everything. And as for no wall units at all... Well, good luck with that! We store a lot of occasional china/glassware etc in a sideboard in the dining room, but we're always pushed for food-storage space.

1. Do consider extra tall wall cupboards, or an extra row of standard ones above, or a row of "bridging units" above. Yes, you'll need a set of steps to use them (we have a compact folding set, always in the kitchen), but the trick is to store your least used stuff there (cake tins, past machine, empty jam jars...)

1. Make the best use of your under stairs space. Our kitchen is behind the stairs, so we have opened an alcove off it which is just the right size for the fridge freezer. That might not be an option for you, but you could get somebody to plumb the washing machine into an under stairs cupboard, freeing up space for the dishwasher.

1. Do consider a 45cm dishwasher.

1. As far as you possibly can, use drawers, not cupboards as base units. We store plates, bowls, pans, colanders, graters, dry ingredients in drawers, which makes the entire depth of the storage useable, especially in a tight space.

1. Don't do floor to ceiling units... You'll need the worktop space more.

1. Don't give worktop space to anything that isn't useful AND beautiful!

1. Any odd alcoves in the kitchen? We have one, shelved out, for a few recipe books, the microwave, blender, coffee machine and toaster, and a wall unit as base unit underneath.

1. Wall units can be chopped down to make shallow cupboards to fit behind doors, beside windows etc, to store spices, sauces and oils, or medicines.

Sorry, that was a bit epic

I think a fitted kitchen would work really well. Assuming the 9-ft walls are the ones without doors, I'd put an integrated f/f in one corner and tall oven housing at the other end of that run. I'd infill with floor cupbosrds and put a hob in the middle. On the opposite wall, I'd put a complete run of floor cupbostds with the sink opposite the fridge giving you a good two metres of work surface. Above I'd put horizontal cupboards which trick the eye into thinking a space is wider than it is.

You can achieve an unusual and bespoke kitchen with good planning and design - using wall units as base units can create extra storage sometimes bu allowing a deeper island and open shelving can keep a smaller room looking and feeling much bigger - as do integrated appliances and light coloured furniture - have a look at my pro page on Houzz if you want more tips !

Wow, thank you everyone. I think that Brownsauce has grasped it really. We don't have room for two runs because one run needs space for the two doors to open at either end, leaving just over a metre of useful space. The outside wall has a big window and glass panelled door taking up almost the whole width, so we can't really put wall units there as it would block the windows. I have done the design myself, but we are so limited with space that there's not much we can do with the pre made units available as they are almost all too wide.

We did consider washing machine under the stairs, I forgot why we abandoned that. I think if we moved the fridge there and knocked through we'd just need space for the door to open which would take up as much space as the fridge does now iyswim, so maybe doesn't gain us anything? Will investigate carpenter options and see if they can suggest anything else.

Plinth storage is also amazing, thank you. Have come up with a new design which has all the bits we need and washing machine under the stairs. Will have to get a quote and convince DH but I reckon it might work!

do you havd a garage? In which case you could put some things in there - washing machine, bakeware that you dont use regularly, etc.
We used to have a flat with a tiny kitchen, and kept loads of stuff under the spare room bed! All my le creuset casserole dishes lived there.
I would try and keep as much worktop space as possible, even if it means forgoing floor to ceiling cupboards. Getting the kitchen handbuilt might be a very good way of making sure that you maximise the space. On the other hand, we've just had our (admittedly much bigger) kitchen replaced and used a fitted kitchen company, the designer was brilliant and suggested arrangements and ideas that I hadn't considered, which made the space much more usable.

There's usually useful ideas on this website.