Some Tiny Houses Have Bigger Kitchens

Our kitchen is SMALL. When people complain about having a small kitchen, they have no idea how small ours actually is. While it is not tiny house small,  it’s very small for something that is not a tiny house! We can fit a maximum of 4 people in our kitchen, and that would be just standing there, no movement allowed. There is barely enough room for two people to cook, so K kicks me out most of the time. Fine with me!

This is basically it. To the left of the fridge is where the kitchen ends.

We don’t even have a full-size fridge or oven, but I am not complaining about that.

We are low on counter space and low on usable space, so we had to start getting creative. As you can see in the above picture, our cutting board acts as extra counter space. Sometimes I will put it on top of the sink if I need more space to work on that side of the kitchen.

From the very beginning, we knew the pots and pans were going to take up too much room in one of our precious 3 drawers, so a pot rack and “S” hooks keep them contained over the stove and out of the way.

 

Additional copper pots from my Grandmother have been added since this photo was taken.

The microwave was taking up too much valuable real estate on our countertop, which caused us to have to move anything on the counter in front of it to open it. Our solution was to raise it up. We then had space to store bread and goodies on top of and below the microwave. I ended up using an extending shelf made for organizing your cabinet. It fit with the kitchen and we could always end up using it later.

We have space above and below the microwave now!

While we really only have 3 cabinets, one is dedicated to dishes/glasses. So only 2 are left for storing dry goods. That is plenty of space, but these cabinets are very tall. I am not a short person, but I have to use a fold-out step stool to reach the top shelves. We had to organize so that the things we used the most were on the bottom and easiest to get at. Things used less often, like popping corn, were relegated to the top.

A shoe box and Tupperware worked just fine for this.

In the case of the cabinet over our fridge, it impossible to reach anything in the back. Things kept getting lost in there, so basically now we have way too much salt. To alleviate this, we used a system of categorized boxes that we could pull out when we needed. I wasn’t going to pay money for a plastic box, so I used a shoe box and the bottom part of a large piece of Tupperware. One box has all our oils/liquids, while the other has pasta and grains. There is a third box in one of our precious drawers that holds all our baking needs together.

I can only reach things that are at the very front of the cabinet over the fridge.

Last, but not least, underneath the sink can always get a little unruly. To keep together cleaning essentials, we used a plastic bucket that had been a part of a wedding guest gift. At first, I did not know what to do with the bucket, but we put it to good use. Works for us!

FYI that is my compost sitting in the container on the right.

Overall, we have a tiny kitchen, and I am okay with that. It keeps things contained and controlled. It is pretty easy to clean, I just have to spin around in a circle. It also keeps us from collecting/buying unnecessary items because we have absolutely nowhere to put them!