Mumbai, the home to over 13 million individuals and a city of dream homes for the rest, is ever-growing. With no place left for horizontal growth, skyscrapers and towers are being built to solve the ever-increasing need for a home. Which calls for more space saving ideas and the modern organisation tricks.
With the vertical growth of apartments comes the problem of small-sized spaces, be it your living room, kitchen, terraces or rather the complete lack of one. Among all the small spaces, a small kitchen space seems to be a lot more problematic. Kitchen is the soul of a house. It is the most important room of any home because it gives the household a focus and a direction. But for those crazy passion-driven individuals in Mumbai, these tiny spaces don’t really mark as a problem, and they overlook the small spaces and utilise it to their benefit.
Here is a list of a few space-saving kitchen hacks and storage solutions to help you with the problem of a small kitchen. You can use these kitchen hacks and make some extra space for your kitchen appliances and kitchen tools and make your kitchen look classy and decent.
1. Magnetic Strips
For small kitchens with lack of drawers, a magnetic strip can be used to hang knives, small utensils etc. Do away with the bulky, space-consuming knife blocks that look bulky on your counter and hinder movement while cooking. Use magnetic knife strips, which are cheap, efficient, and give a different edge to your kitchen. Place it at a level higher than the counter and thus out of reach of your children. One could also use magnetic strips to stick spices on the fridge and many more such ideas. It’s your own personalised kitchen, design it as if you are the paid designer. Make it your space.
2. Hidden Pantry
A hidden pantry is one of the optimal ideas of utilising space for a small kitchen. When you look at your kitchen and think you’ve done all you could, look again. There is a high possibility that you have around a 6-8 gap between your fridge and wall. Why leave that place out? You can make a pull-out pantry or even a storage place for your herbs or racks of cups and glasses, and the list is endless. Let the creativity flow.
3. Wall Mounted Tables
Probably if you live alone or with your partner and do not have to come home to a more prominent family, a huge dining table in your already small kitchen is a waste of space. Instead, you could mount a foldable table across the wall, lift it when you’re dining and let it fall back once you’re done. Also, use the very modern concept of an island counter for dining cum storage purposes. Not only will this utilise the wall in your kitchen without it looking cramped up, it’s great when you have friends over as you can cook and chat at the same time while they sit around this table.
4. Optimise the wall
If you have an entire wall free and are confused how to utilise it, then you can consider it out into a perfect storage spot. Introduce a pegboard you can attach to the wall and in turn attach hooks, where you can hang essential items like pots, pans, spoons etc. You may also hang some décor items like small plants, any showpiece etc. Bringing in some greenery in your small kitchen will maintain a positive aura and will keep your intake of air pure.
5. Hidden Storage
The space below the sink is often underused and ignored. The space under the sink can be used optimally if we think strategically. A neatly organised rack for keeping your detergents, cleaning equipments, extra kitchen sponges, paper towels, tissues can be set up near the area under the sink. Doing this will help you find all the cleaning equipments all at one place.
With that being said, there are a few tips and tricks to fool the eye into making your kitchen look a lot more spacious than it actually is. If you just cannot breathe in compact spaces, or want your friends to appreciate how well you’ve maximised your area, here are a few tricks to create the illusion of a bigger kitchen.
6. Glass Cabinets
Unless you’re a tornado in your kitchen where you mess up your cabinets just by throwing in the utensils, this trick of using glass doors to your cabinets is a great way to make the kitchen look big. The glass doors give a sneak peek into your cabinets, giving the illusion of depth, and when you place your utensils neatly, it gives a subtle and a classy look to the overall kitchen.
7. Floor Spacing
When the eye gets something to look at from the bottom to the top, it gives an illusion of length, and using the proper floorboard gives the illusion of width. Using furniture in your kitchen that shows off more floors is a great way to start, as it decreases the clutter and increases the view of your tiles. The second step is to get tiles with stripes that flow horizontally or diamond-shaped printed tiles, giving the eye a longer path to follow and creating an illusion of length and depth.
8. Ceiling High Cabinets
When your cabinets reach the ceiling, it gives the impression that it is going beyond the length of your kitchen boundaries. It gives the appearance of longer kitchen walls, removing the cramped space making your kitchen look more spacious than it is. Giving it a decent look.
So next time you go house hunting, and you have to turn down your dream home just because the kitchen doesn’t reach up to your standards, don’t let the opportunity go, as space is an ever-decreasing element in Mumbai and with these tricks, you can make the most of it.
Do post your comments with other ideas to hack the small kitchen spaces and share your kitchen layout ideas too.