Tiny kitchen must haves

[Brandaris]

What would you put in a really small kitchen to make the most of the space?

I loved the dream kitchen thread but so much of that was about kitchens with plenty of space. We have a house in a fantastic location and with an amazing garden, but a teeny one-person sized kitchen. We are knocking through to the living room and luckily have a cupboard that’s being repurposed as a pantry but it’s still going to be a very very small kitchen with only space for a couple of cupboards.

So no space for big fridges or larder cupboards or long expanses of worktops but what would you make sure you added to the design?

I’m hoping for pan drawers so no more scrabbling at the back of cupboards, and a shelf for the microwave so we free up some much needed worktop space.

Do you have somewhere for a utility room/ space? My ILs have a teeny kitchen but they also have a large cupboard which they turned into a utility space - washing machine and a dishwasher. They also store their crockery in the dining room, which actually works pretty well.
So their kitchen is the oven, hob and cooking equipment plus food.

Hooks on the back of the door, over the hob, anywhere you can squeeze them in. Shallow shelves if no room for wall units. Integrated bin to keep floor space clear. Baskets on top of wall units to use the dead space by the ceiling. Shelves inside units to make use of all space right up to the top. The Ikea site has great ideas even if you don't plan on buying from them.

Have you considered using portable induction hobs instead of a permanent hob (then just have a built in oven without a hob below the worktop)? They free up the worktops and hang on the wall when not in use. We had two as a temporary measure when doing up a kitchen. Due to a delay, we ended up with this for 3 years and it worked perfectly well. They're very efficient too. We had these from Ikea:

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-hob-white-40331630/

Oh yes, I forgot to mention we are lucky enough to have a sort of utility (ex coal shed!) that has washer and dryer, chest freezer and currently our fridge but I’m desperate to have an under counter fridge in the kitchen because trekking in and out every time we want a bit of milk is really annoying.

Pirateweasel that’s loads of good ideas thank you! I’m worried an integrated bin would be a waste of a cupboard, but it was one of my original must haves... until I counted how many cupboards we will have!

Also stackable equipment (storage, pots and pans etc.) like:

www.josephjoseph.com/collections/nest-space-saving-kitchenware/products/nest-9-plus-bowl-set?variant=31897398640712

www.josephjoseph.com/collections/nest-space-saving-kitchenware/products/nest-lock-leakproof-container-multi-size-set?variant=31897398116424

www.argos.co.uk/product/4811738?clickSR=slp:term:ingenio:1:6:1

We have a small kitchen and keep the everyday things in there, some crockery and glasses are kept in the dining room sideboard, we keep most foodstuffs in the pantry cupboard under the stairs, also in there are baking tins and some not much used kitchen gadgets. We keep some things in a cupboard in the spare bedroom upstairs like excess tins and packets as I often buy extra when things are on offer, also upstairs is anything that is only bought out very rarely, we are lucky to have spare space upstairs though. We also bought some hanging racks from Amazon and some large baskets to put on top of the kitchen cupboards to use that space. Our cooker is the Stoves 55cm mini range which sits up the corner.

A slimline dishwasher!

I now have a range cooker (yes a stupid choice for a kitchen this small!) but those portable induction hobs look very clever! I wish I’d had one of those in the previous house!

Those Josef Josef stacking bowls are going on my birthday list, I’ll be glad to chuck out the menagerie of mis matching bowls currently cluttering up my cupboards.

I second a slimline dishwasher. We were really unsure about losing cupboard space but a small kitchen looks very messy very quickly, so its nice to be able to keep the counter clear from dirty dishes by putting them straight in the dishwasher.