Can a small kitchen be made desirable?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

I have a small kitchen - 3 x 2.5m galley. It's attached to the dining room - which is also 3 x 2.5m, so sort of eat in, but not exactly because it's not one room - it's two with a large opening to pass between (2m wide opening in the 2.5m width).

Originally I was planning to extend, before covid. Now prices have gone so mad I can no longer afford to do so, and so I'm scaling back plans to just re-do current kitchen.

The galley layout is actually really great for one cook. It gets a bit annoying when more people are in there.

The thing is, I can't see that I will ever be able to afford to extend now, and the kitchen is beginning to fall to pieces. But I feel nervous about investing in such a small space. Can a small kitchen ever be desirable? I'm not planning to sell, this is my forever home barring something completely unexpected, I'll prob be here for 20/30 yrs.

Can you make it part of the dining room by removing and partially dividing wall? I would assume that isn't structural, but you would need to be sure.

Also just having an incredible kitchen makes it highly desirable. Cute cosy tiny country kitchens look fab. Extremely modern ikeaesque can also look amazing. The main thing is to give it character or personality.

As it is your forever home I would invest in it. I would research space saving and clever placement of appliances - personally I am in awe of some of the kitchen tech from Japan so that would be my take - but you may have a particular interest/colour/style ?

There are things in my home I would love to change/expand etc but I found investing in them to be more to my liking helped reduce a bit of frustration!

It depends on the style of your house and your personal style, but I am in a similar situation. Victorian flat with some conversion work to create an internal kitchen leading off large, bright living room. Former kitchen now a second bedroom. Very common in my area and quite often the kitchens look dismal, but I'm determined to make it one of the best rooms in the house.

I like the mid century look, which is often combined with Victorian properties (see Modern House), so I'm planning a Plykea refit (Ikea carcasses with Plykea fronts) and finding a carpenter to add some extra details linking the kitchen to the living room - a built-in banquette that connects to the kitchen and some other things that might be difficult to imagine (a high shelf just below the ceiling at the kitchen entrance for plants and maybe books, again to make it a feature and not an apology!)

I found Pinterest small kitchen searches and looking at Plykea examples but imagining some of the details in my space really useful. I plan to make it colourful too, maybe bright Formica doors (again via Plykea)

The partial dividing wall between kitchen and dining room is structural because kitchen is in a 70s tiny extension and the walls on either side of the opening are actually the external wall of the upper storeys iyswim. I have thought about putting in a steel to open it fully, but it would be thousands for such little gain I couldn't justify it.

I guess I'm always seeing pics of big open plan kitchens on sm, and all the posts on here are people planning big kitchens in big extensions and it makes me feel like my tiny kitchen is totally outdated and crappy because of its size. I prob need to stop comparing.

That sounds great @tresleches

Hopefully! I should stress I am known for my love of dining kitchens and it's taken me two years to accept my small kitchen and decide to make the most of it! Now saving for the refit, and tbh the time has been useful for changing my mind about certain things - smaller spaces require more thought so the "battle" can be productive in the end. I especially don't like small kitchen stuffed with things, as if trying to be full size, so I plan some storage of less-used appliances in the hall cupboard and the banquette thing

That's a good idea. I currently have my freezer in the garage and also a pantry cupboard for tins and stock stuff there too.

If you look at the #galleykitchen tag on instagram there are loads of beautiful small kitchens!

eg:

If the opening is 2m and the room is 2.5m wide I would consider that to be functionally equivalent to being one room to be honest! Surely by the time you have the worktops sticking out from the walls, the 25cm you lose on each side of the opening becomes a bit irrelevant?

As long as the kitchen is well designed and convenient to use it won't be offputting to everyone.

If a house has space to burn, then might as well have a giant ‘lifestyle’ kitchen with a space-wasting island (for indulging one’s TV chef pretensions) but a small galley, well planned for efficiency, is a wonderful thing; it’s for food prep not ballroom dancing.

I'll def look at that hashtag.

I agree that the 25cm is not hugely relevant, it's more I guess that the two rooms together are long and thin and there's no practical way to mix the two more - I always think of 'eat in' being more integrated.

Lol - no ballroom dancing in my kitchen that's for sure! I did read that chefs prefer a galley because everything is in east reach.

When I have people over they always tend to gravitate to the kitchen and then get in the way. I do wish I could have an Island with space the other side so people could chat to the cook without intruding into the workspace. Oh well.

I’m looking to buy at the moment and would much rather have a well designed separate galley kitchen than open plan especially if there’s a separate dining room off the kitchen. It means that kitchen mess is out of sight and the dining area can more easily be multi-functional (working from home / crafts etc.)

I agree that it's all about making the space as fabulous as you possibly can - ie, choosing high end (or at least the best you can afford) fixtures and fittings rather than the approach some people employ whereby they think 'small kitchen = cheap crap'. We had a builder like that - he looked at our current cottage and suggested we could get the kitchen units for around £2k (this was five years ago) - implying that was all a cottage warranted. We ignored his advice and spent £20k+ lol - our tap alone was £900!

So, I'd be looking to achieve a bespoke look, whether that be traditional or contemporary style and doing as much online research as possible in order to pin down the look you are hoping for.

At a previous house we had a smallish kitchen (roughly 10' x 10') that had a conservatory leading off it (original external door between the two). We spent around £6k (this was 2008 so prices not relevant to today, obviously) on bespoke in-frame cabinetry from an independent kitchen company and added granite worktops (the height of fashion then!) plus buying fairly expensive Perrin & Rowe taps, solid pewter handles and oak effect porcelain tiled flooring that was a good match for the original oak flooring throughout the ground floor.

I painted the cabinets in a classy duck egg blue and the whole tiny space looked amazing when finished. We were fortunate to have a walk-in cupboard in the conservatory where we had the washing machine so it was out of sight. The kitchen was definitely the room that sold the house a few years later. Our buyers removed the wall between kitchen and conservatory and built a proper extension to the kitchen, which we'd have done had we planned to stay long-term.

I have a tiny kitchen (although I have a utility room and decent sized dining room.) I have the usual base units but for the walls I chose to have open shelves,pan rack, plate rack, etc.. All my plates and pans are on display so I chose ones I don't mind looking at. All my storage is Kilner or Cornishware (as are my plates) and my pans are Le Creuset. They might be quite expensive but far cheaper than any reconstruction. There are so many ideas on Pinterest.

These sound amazing and you're making me feel much more hopeful!

I agree with PP that if possible not having upper closed cabinets really helps smaller spaces, and possibly doing L-shaped units rather than having units on both sides (not really a choice for me as would be comically narrow space in-between). I have a slim dishwasher, the slimmest fridge-freezer possible and I'm moving the washing machine to a cupboard elsewhere in the flat. Even considering ditching the microwave for more open worktop space.. but not sure yet!

I am also planning to move washer and dryer out, and I've already done away with microwave. I've lived happily without for several years now!

Ironically, when I lived in a smaller flat I had a bigger kitchen. Now I have more space elsewhere but a tiny kitchen 🤦‍♀️

small kitchens are much better in my opinion the big ones look a bit uninviting
love my little kitchen

Is there any way you can squeeze a built in seat with storeage beneath into a corner or along a wall? People can sit there and chat to you, they can provide masses of storage for stuff you need but don't want on display (foil, clingfilm and baking parchment are my bugbears) and you can use the seat as a shelf when you don't have visitors, and just shove some nice cushions onto if you do.

We have a small square kitchen next to open plan sitting/dining roons; I prefer it hugely to a big open plan kitchen diner because I can invite people to supper and close the door on the cooking smells and clutter when I serve the food!

Many kitchens (including my own) are effectively a galley but just contained in a bigger room IYSWIM as it's the most practical design, like you say. If you want more inspiration https://www.devolkitchens.co.uk/blog/tips-for-creating-a-small-but-beautiful-kitchen

That link is great - will study it properly when I have more time later on!

I don't have space for a bench inside the kitchen area unfortunately. It is two worktops down each of the long sides with currently a window at the end, which I plan to change to small French doors as it gets very hot in the summer and it would make popping out for herbs so much easier.

I'm feeling much more inspired and have been looking at pics online, thanks to you all

Anitarussellinteriors on Instagram has a lovely small kitchen, the seating, fridge placement was genius.