Around the House: Organizing a Smaller Kitchen:

Mark McNease

Organizing a Tiny Kitchen: Big Storage, Small Footprint

We looked at a house for sale today in a town nearby. Moving is something we’ve talked about for several years, but keep findings reasons not to do. On of the big motivators is simply how small our little house in the woods is. I see pictures of kitchens that look like we could both be in them without having to excuse ourselves for bumping into each other. It’s not tiny, but it’s not spacious. Here are some ways we can maximize the space we have no matter the size.

You don’t need a big kitchen to run out of room in it. A cook in a two-bedroom house and a cook in a four-hundred-square-foot studio hit the same wall eventually—not enough places to put things. The fixes cost less than a dinner out, and none of them require tearing out a single cabinet.

Start with pull-out shelving. A standard base cabinet wastes most of its own depth, since anything stored past the first foot disappears into the dark until you’re on your knees digging for it. Pull-out shelf kits slide into most existing cabinets with a screwdriver and about twenty minutes—no carpentry involved. Homeowners ready for a bigger project can go further with soft-close drawer conversions, but renters don’t need to: most of these kits mount to the shelf itself, not the cabinet frame, so the original woodwork stays untouched and the security deposit stays safe.

Over-door racks solve the opposite problem: too little vertical space, not too little depth. The inside of a pantry door, a cabinet door, even the sliver of wall beside a refrigerator can hold spice racks, cutting boards, foil and wrap, or cleaning supplies that would otherwise compete for shelf space. These hang from the door hinge or slide over the top, so there’s nothing to install and nothing to patch when you move out—ideal for a rental, and just as welcome in a house where the pantry shelves were spoken for years ago.

Pantry systems are where studio apartments and full kitchens actually meet, because neither one usually has enough dedicated pantry space to begin with. A single floor-to-ceiling cabinet, even one as narrow as six inches, can hold pull-out wire baskets for canned goods, dry goods, and bottles that would otherwise clutter the counter. Anyone without a spare cabinet to convert can use a freestanding pantry unit on wheels instead—no wall contact required, and it rolls out of the way when it isn’t needed. Stackable bins and a lazy Susan handle what’s left: the odd-shaped bag of rice, the half-used bottle of oil, the things that never fit anywhere else.

The thread running through all of it is that none of it assumes ownership. A renter moving out next year and a homeowner who isn’t going anywhere are solving the same problem: too little kitchen for what they need to store. The solutions that don’t require drilling, permanent modification, or a contractor turn out to be the better choice for nearly everyone—whether or not they technically have to be.