PIP & ESTELLA'S REAL SMALL KITCHEN: WRAPPING UP A THREE PART SERIES!
Itsy Bitsy. Small. Smedium
To wrap up Pip & Estella’s Real Small Kitchen Series, we’re all over the map with a narrated photo tour. We’ll see a bit of Brooklyn, San Francisco and great places in between. Not only are these women amazingly talented artists and designers, they’re super at decorating their homes too!
Guest Blogger Mrs. Limestone of Brooklyn Limestone starts things off with her Top 5 Tips for your small kitchen while 5 more of our favorite design bloggers from around the US share tips on how they have made their small kitchen space go a long way.
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Ready to take notes? We are.
Mrs. Limestone:
I have a confession to make – I don’t really consider my kitchen to be small. Maybe I’ve lived in New York for too long?
While its certainly not huge, its far more space than I’m used to so it feels quite luxurious. That said, I do have some rules to live by when planning your own less than sprawling kitchen:
1. Get rid of unnecessary walls. This room used to be a tiny bedroom – by removing the wall and making this a combo dining room/kitchen, it feels 10x as large. Just having some breathing room makes a world of difference.
2. Build up. In a kitchen you have to maximize every inch and that includes vertical space. A big space between the cabinets and ceiling is a complete waste of storage/display area. It does add to the cabinetry price but if you have a space crunch, you’ll be happy to have the extra room.
3. Zero tolerance for clutter! While my counters get plenty of use while we are cooking or entertaining, its not a place to keep things full time. Aside from the mixer (which is far too heavy to move around), everything else has a place behind closed doors. That includes toasters, coffee makers, whatever. Loading your counter with clutter is a sure way of making it look smaller and less useful.
4. You can never have too many lights. If you look carefully, this kitchen has a lot of lighting in a small space and that was 100% intentional. The combination of the different kinds of lighting in here serves a very practical purpose as well as an aesthetic one. A poorly lit room always looks smaller and less inviting.
5. Maximize space outside of the kitchen. Just because its not technically in the kitchen doesn’t mean you can’t use storage in other parts of the house to store things. For example we keep certain canned goods and our larger pots in a closet in the dining room. Its close enough when we needs it and helps keep the cabinets that we use more everyday less cluttered and easier to use.
Next,
Color Expert & New Shop Owner, Erin of SYL dishes on her small kitchen challenges.
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Bigger Than Before
So if you can believe it, this is my largest NYC apartment kitchen yet! It is one wall of my living room (I carried the dark teal walls that I have in my living room through to the kitchen) which I actually don’t mind because when I have people over, I’m right there, able to cook while I entertain.
Do What Works For You
The biggest thing I’ve had to overcome with a small kitchen is that you really need to break all of your preconceived notions of where things ‘belong’ in a kitchen. I keep my spices in the fridge (I actually use the egg rack!), I have a white carnation flower arrangement plopped in a crushed tomato can and I keep corks (I’m trying to collect enough for a cork board) in a large vase. Bailey’s bones and balls sit cutely in an old glass jar and I have a flat dish rack that I throw under the sink when I’m done doing dishes.
DIY Whiz & Textile Designer, Fallon of Sweet Fancy suggests lightening up.
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Our kitchen had natural oak colored cabinetry, nearly the same as color as the wood floor with dark red walls when we moved in. In our opinion it was awful but it had the potential to be great.
Brighten!
This was the very first project we took on when handed our keys. I (by my lonesome) hand painted every inch of the cabinets white. We also painted our red walls a light aqua. Both changes really opened our kitchen up. Removing the fluorescent light box also helped give the ceiling visual height. It was the most trying thing I’ve have ever done but the results were well worth it!
