Prioritize Your Kitchen Space
Before decorating or redesigning, consider how you use your kitchen. Is it a gathering space for your household? Is it where you eat your meals? Are you an ardent home chef? Answering these questions will help you prioritize your kitchen needs. Maybe your family eats meals in the dining room, and you don’t need a big kitchen table or large chairs. Tucking backless bar stools under a high table or countertop saves both floor and wall space. Use the extra room to install standalone shelving or floating shelves that keep the things you use every day close at hand. If baking is your passion, use wall storage for mixing bowls, baking utensils, and one or two of your most-used appliances. Is mixology more your thing? Stock shelves with drinkware, and create an elevated display for your favorite bottles of wine. Remember to keep accessories on display shelves clean and organized to keep the kitchen looking fresh and tidy.
If You Haven’t Used it in a Year...
Take a long, hard look at your pantry, countertops, cupboards and table, and take the same approach you would when cleaning out your closet. If you haven’t used it in a year, throw it away, or if there is no expiry date, donate it. Replace kitchen gadgets you don’t use with multipurpose appliances, creating less clutter and more open space. Consider donating any miscellaneous drinking glasses and dishes as well—matching sets look neat stacked together in small spaces.
Sort Your Stuff and Get Organized
Keep similar accessories together. Drawer organizers and magnetic knife strips organize silverware and cutlery sets. Choose flatware sets with thin, lightweight handles, and look for nesting forks and spoons for easy storage. Group dinnerware you use every day together in easy-to-reach cabinets. Trying to find the best place for pieces you love, but don’t use often? Display formal plates, bowls, decanters, glassware and other special-use pieces in a glass display cabinet in the living or dining room. Follow the same philosophy when it comes to food—sort by type and give each group a home. Separate dry goods and spices, and keep them organized on a shelf or lazy susan. Store dry goods in style with matching jar or canister sets that stack easily and help you make the most of your pantry or countertop.
Let Everything do Double (or Triple) Duty
Look for versatile kitchen accessories and learn how to get the most out of them. Nesting bowls that come with lids or colanders stack easily and can store, clean and serve food. Thin out your collection of cutting boards and mats, and replace with just a couple of reversible styles that can handle both meat and vegetables. Equip your small kitchen with stylish, multifunctional decor to make the most of your space. For example, a couple of small planters in the windowsill both enliven your kitchen and allow you to grow your own fresh herbs for cooking. You may not normally consider kitchen linens decorative, but coordinating a patterned apron hanging from a wall hook with matching dish towels creates a colorful kitchen theme.
Think Vertical
Limited square footage is all the inspiration you need to get creative with your vertical space—think things that stack. Instead of a low, long wine rack along the counter, lean a tall wine bar against a wall to stock glassware, bottles, bar tools and more. Free up space in your pantry with a standing spice rack. Decorative spice rack styles also make a statement on a floating shelf or the kitchen table. Create more counter and cabinet space with collapsible kitchen tools. Look for those with handles to hang over the sink. Do you have high ceilings? Organize cookware sets with hanging or wall-mounted pot racks. Don’t forget to decorate over-head, too—hanging planters welcome fresh botanicals into your space. Suspend one or two close to the kitchen sink to make for easy watering. Don’t forget to keep a stool close by to help you utilize high shelves and cabinets.
Build a Kitchen You’ll Want to Spend Time in
Whether you use your kitchen to eat, cook, relax or just chat and snack with family, your priority should be to create a space in which you want to spend time. Sunlight can bring positive energy and much-needed Vitamin D into your home. Sheer curtain panels allow natural light to stream through your windows, invigorating your cozy kitchen. Reflect that natural light and create the illusion of added space by hanging a decorative mirror or two on the wall. A mirror over the kitchen table or to the side of the breakfast nook feels restaurant-ready. Remember to keep your mirrors and windows clean and shiny: nothing makes a space seem smaller than dust. Amplify the area by downsizing on furniture. Ditch oversized chairs in favor of benches or stools that easily slide under the table when not in use.
Don’t Overlook Your Fridge
Rethink the way you store food inside and outside of your refrigerator. First, make sure everything you store in your fridge should actually be there. Certain fruits and vegetables don’t need refrigeration and are often misplaced. A good rule of thumb: if it wasn’t refrigerated when you bought it, it doesn’t need refrigeration at home. Keep citruses, apples and pears in a fruit basket or decorative bowl on your table or kitchen island. Things like potatoes and peppers are best kept in paper bags, and they can be stored in a cool, dry place like the pantry. Organize fridge shelves and drawers with plastic bins designed to hold oddly-shaped bottles, as well as foods such as cheeses and berries. Devote a drawer or section of a shelf to leftovers, and use stackable storage containers. When you’re out of room in your designated leftovers area, you’ll know it’s time to eat up or clear it out. Don’t forget to keep the outside of your fridge spick and span, too. Keep photographs, drawings and reminders up for no more than a week. Then, reassess. Frame your favorite pieces, and save the rest for a scrapbook. If you keep invitations and schedules magnetized to the fridge, consider instead adding a bulletin board to a corner of your kitchen to collect reminders and to-do lists.
When decorating or redesigning, think outside of the box. Get creative with small kitchen ideas that will help you get the most out of your space and make it truly yours. Share your decorating ideas with us using #CrateStyle.
