14 Masterful Small Kitchen Layout Ideas to Guide Your Renovation
If you think about it, some of the smallest kitchens put out the most delicious food — in iconic spaces, no less. Remember: Julia Child’s kitchen was only 20×14 feet, and she shot a TV show in there (at 6’3”!). You do not need a few hundred more square feet to create the kitchen of your dreams. With a smart kitchen design and solid organizing ideas, you can fit everything you need plus most of the things you want in your space — even if it feels cramped.
To show you how to maximize the space where you cook, entertain, and hang out, interior designers are sharing real layouts of the tightest kitchens they’ve worked on. These blueprints pack in amenities that you may believe can only fit in a mansion. You’ll be surprised by what they managed to fit!
“Small kitchens are a challenge, but in some ways they’re a fun challenge,” says interior designer Sarah Robertson, of Westchester, New York-based Studio Dearborn. “It’s getting the most out of every inch of space, because, honestly, you’re having to cook the same size meals in there as in a big kitchen.”
These enviable kitchen layout ideas feature double ovens, wine fridges, neat banquettes, dining bars, dedicated pantries, and even walk-in prep kitchens — and yours can, too. Read on to find the best small kitchen designs for practically every kitchen style, from a contemporary apartment to suburban homes. They prove that it’s not how much space you have; it’s how you use it.
14 Best Small Kitchen Layout Ideas
A tiny kitchen can look expansive and function every bit as smoothly as a much larger one. These small kitchen layouts show you just how they manage to do so.
Each of these small kitchens are unique, but one thing they share is scant upper cabinetry. “A lack of upper cabinets gives you room to breathe,” explains Sally Ross, principal designer and founder of New Jersey-based Sally Ross Designs. “Open shelves are also a lot less expensive.” That’s a good lesson to keep in mind, no matter how big your kitchen is.
1. Island Kitchen Layout with Walk-In Pantry
This European-inspired kitchen measures only 11’x15’— a long, narrow space that easily feels tight. Instead, it becomes airy while managing to house a large island with dining and cleanup zones and plenty of storage for a family of four, including a very serious cook. Robertson placed the range on a wall that serves as a divider, carving out space for a bright prep kitchen with a sink.
2. U-Shaped Kitchen Layout with Bar and Banquette
An apartment kitchen with a banquette and a dining bar — see, you can have it all! “We crammed a lot into this one,” Robertson says of this White Plains, New York, home with interiors designed by ND Interiors.
It also has a wine cellar (cleverly tucked into the bar opposite the counter stools), a built-in espresso machine, and a six-burner range. Display cabinets in the dining area hold all the dinnerware. “They’re also a fun little way for us to divide where the kitchen ended and where the seating areas started,” she says.
3. G-Shaped Kitchen Layout
Expanding a client’s kitchen in Larchmont, New York, wasn’t an option, so Robertson reorganized the existing 11’x12′ space. Its owner cooks a lot, so Robertson put storage for pots and pans under a new range top — and incorporated double ovens via an appliance block, alongside the refrigerator and a tall pantry cabinet. It wasn’t big enough for an island, but it has plenty of countertop prep space and a peninsula for casual dining.
4. Parallel Kitchen Layout with Pantry
This plan, adapted from a New York City apartment kitchen by Robertson, houses the kind of statement range you might expect to see — only in a much bigger house.
She topped a 30-inch range with a custom range hood, making it a focal point but allowing for more lower cabinets. The other challenge in this kitchen was the structural and mechanical elements of the building that could not be moved. Robertson’s solution? Cover them with paneling and blend them into cabinetry along the wall.
5. Classic U-Shaped Kitchen Layout
A sink with a view is an essential luxury that Robertson says everyone deserves. If you don’t have a window, then a peek into another room is a good substitute. This plan, based on a real 10.5’x11.5′ kitchen, has a sink looking out onto the kitchen table and family room beyond.
The U shape allowed designers to create a pretty vignette for the range and cooking area, Robertson adds. She also massed the tall cabinets — holding the refrigeration, oven, and pantries. “It’s a common practice to create what feels like a cohesive wall,” she explains. “It makes one seamless wall of tall cabinets, so they look less hefty. You have less of that skyscraper situation.”
6. Mini U-Shaped Kitchen Layout
This truly tiny plan is based on a real kitchen that holds stairs in the middle of it — a structural element that would have cost a lot to change. So Robertson worked with the existing shape. She moved a refrigerator and microwave to create a pantry wall of tall cabinetry and added a miniature island for workspace and storage. “It is an exceptionally hardworking little kitchen,” she says.
7. L-Shaped Kitchen Layout with Alcove Fridge
You could say that this plan, based on a small kitchen in Cardiff, Wales by deVOL, is simply perfect. An unfitted, open kitchen island offers extra prep space — and the open shelf that spans an entire corner incorporates both decorative and practical storage.
“This one really shows how the lack of upper cabinets gives you visual space,” Ross explains. “I love how it’s just two walls and the open table.”
In this particular plan, the designer placed the fridge into a custom cabinet space in the dining room, away from the kitchen. A design-friendly freestanding fridge, like a Smeg, is an attractive option if you plan to do the same in your own apartment.
8. Airy Galley Kitchen Layout
Moody and romantic, this 40-square-foot deVOL kitchen in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood serves as inspiration for what is essentially a galley kitchen layout. It just doesn’t feel like one, as there’s such a nice, big window, and there are no boxy upper cabinets making it feel cramped.
Set against rich dark green walls, the model kitchen for this layout has a bright white ceiling that helps make the space feel taller. Paneled appliances add to the color-drenched effect; you can try the same in your take on a well-configured gallery kitchen.
9. Corner Kitchen Layout
For this take on a corner kitchen, undercounter appliances are key — they make this small, punchy kitchen by deVOL in London’s Bermondsey neighborhood streamlined and efficient. You may not need a 36″ refrigerator; a 24″ model or an undercounter one might serve you just fine. A 24″ dishwasher is standard, but smaller 18″ models are available as well.
10. Unfitted Kitchen Layout
This layout plan is directly inspired by this 10’x10′ space, where a New Jersey couple was forced to downsize majorly after leaving a larger home. Ross’s design solution was to avoid cabinets at all costs and take an “unfitted” kitchen approach.
The sink and dishwasher are integrated into a freestanding unit, and the range has open shelves on either side for cookware storage. Add an open worktable, and you have everything you need. “I went over one day, and the husband was making chutney from the tomatoes in the garden,” Ross shares. “He told me, ‘I never cooked this much in my life.’ This worked so much better than their former big, giant space.”
11. L-Shaped Kitchen Layout with Work Table Feature
This plan is based on Ross’ own kitchen, which is held around an antique worktable rather than a traditional island. Instead of upper cabinetry, Ross instituted open shelving and two glass-fronted cabinets.
To the right of this layout is a stack of drawers: silverware on top, plastic wrap and other supplies in the middle, and a spiffy dishwasher drawer on the bottom. A 24″ fridge is in a niche to the right of the back door.
12. Corner Range Kitchen Layout
Coming in at only 190 square feet, this plan is designed after a Long Island home by designer John Starckof Showcase Kitchens. It fits a 30″ rangetop in a corner of the room with storage underneath, beneath double ovens.
Starck crafted a dining peninsula that cleverly hides double trash cans on the cleanup side, by a window-front sink. In this design, a refrigerator is fitted into an adjacent mudroom entryway, which makes space for an under-counter wine cooler center closer to the kitchen table.
13. U-Shaped Kitchen Layout with Island
Based on a cozy kitchen in a Tudor home designed by Starck, this kitchen layout brings attention to its island. A TV over the wine center adds a modern touch. The small central island has a microwave drawer and a warming drawer built in.
14. Open Concept, “L” Kitchen Layout
This plan, based on a joint effort between Starck and designer Marc J. Hampton in a New York City loft apartment, originally used a mosaic tile wall to divide kitchen from dining space. In this case, upper cabinetry is used. But note that it’s in a European-style full overlay design; it’s visually unobtrusive and reflects light in a way that makes the space feel even more open and bright.
5 Most Common Small Kitchen Layout Issues
Common assumptions about the way cabinetry and appliances should be in kitchens can make small spaces feel suffocating. Before designing your small kitchen renovation, think about these common layout problems that design pros see the most.
Not Enough Clearance
In designer speak, “clearance” means the space you have to move in between any two features or objects; for instance, between a countertop and the island. You need a minimum of 36” of clearance in a kitchen, ideally 48” at best. Otherwise, you risk traffic jams, collisions, and a general, unpleasant feeling of being cramped.
Heavy Upper Cabinetry
Upper cabinetry is a designer’s anathema for a small kitchen. You might think you need it to have enough storage space, but the opposite is usually true. Skipping upper cabinetry (and recessed lighting, too!) always makes a space feel lighter and brighter. If your lower cabinets aren’t enough for storage, freestanding units are a good alternative option to upper cabinets; Ross recommends IKEA’s solid wood HEMNES series for supplemental storage.
Wasted Airspace
Cabinets with open space at the top break one of Robinson’s cardinal rules of kitchen storage: No airspace! Build pullouts and dividers that pack lots of utility into the floor plan and budget. If you’re designing from scratch, drawers are more efficient and hardworking than open lower cabinets because they don’t have vertical space to waste.
Scattered Storage
Modern kitchens are organized by zones — a prep zone, cooking zone, cleanup zone, cat feeding zone, baking zone, homework zone, and so on. If your kitchen is small, you should stick to the first three.
To make each of those zones efficient, store the tools for each task in its zone. In other words, don’t put your chef’s knives in the drawer with your flatware by the sink and dishwasher (aka in the cleanup zone) if your prep space is on the opposite side of the kitchen by the refrigerator and range. An integrated knife block can be added to an existing drawer.
Oversized Appliances
“Think European” when it comes to appliances, Ross advises. Your fridge, stove, and dishwasher take up a lot of real estate; if you’re not going to fill them up or use them often, don’t waste space on them.
You can get smaller versions that do the same job and allocate the extra square footage to something else. “There are some really great small-scale appliances that don’t look diminutive but are just well designed,” she says, noting that Liebherr, Fisher & Paykel and Smeg are small space-friendly.
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