Small Kitchen Remodels: Making a Compact Kitchen Work

A small kitchen is not a failed large one. Compact kitchens can be the most efficient rooms to cook in, because everything is within reach. They go wrong in predictable ways: a walkway through the work area, counters broken into useless short pieces, oversized appliances and storage you cannot get to. Each of those can be fixed, usually without adding a square foot.

What counts as small

JDI's kitchen cost calculator treats a kitchen under 120 square feet as small. The National Kitchen & Bath Association's planning guidelines draw the line a little higher, treating kitchens under 150 square feet as small for storage planning. Either way, the planning approach is the same: decide what the room must do, and remove whatever does not serve that.

Layout moves that make the biggest difference

Work through these in order. The first two cost little and change the most.

1. Get traffic out of the work area. Many small kitchens have two or three doorways, and the path between them runs straight past the range. Closing one opening, or shifting it to the end of a counter run, can turn a corridor into a kitchen and add a full stretch of cabinets.
2. Consolidate the counter. One continuous prep surface is worth more than the same length in three pieces. The NKBA guideline is a continuous section at least 36 inches wide next to the sink. Moving the range or refrigerator a short distance to join two short counters is often money well spent.
3. Put the refrigerator at the edge. It is the tallest, deepest object in the room. At the end of a run near the entry, it stops blocking sightlines and keeps people who only want a drink out of the cook's way.
4. Check the dishwasher door. In a tight room an open dishwasher can block the only aisle or collide with a cabinet at the corner. The NKBA suggests 21 inches of standing room between the dishwasher and anything at a right angle to it.
5. Choose the layout the room wants. A narrow room is a galley; forcing a U into it wastes two corners. The five standard layouts and the NKBA aisle and landing numbers are in kitchen layouts compared. Those numbers are guidelines, not code, and small kitchens are where designers most often have to trade one against another.

Borrowing space

Before thinking about an addition, look at what adjoins the kitchen. Space is often available within the walls you already have:

• A closet, back hall or mudroom corner that can become a pantry or absorb the refrigerator.
• A formal dining room used a few times a year. Removing or opening the wall between it and the kitchen gives one generous room.
• A breakfast nook that can take cabinets and a counter in place of a table.
• A doorway that can move to free a wall.
• The depth of a wall, where a shallow pantry cabinet can be recessed between studs in a partition that carries no pipes or ducts.

Taking out a wall is the most effective of these and the one with the most consequences. In the City of Vancouver, adding or removing a wall requires a residential building permit, and whether the wall is load-bearing and what runs inside it decide the cost. JDI's published planning range for opening walls or structural work as a kitchen add-on is $6,000-$18,000. Read opening a kitchen wall before you plan around it. A partial opening or a pass-through at counter height often gives most of the benefit for less.

Scaled appliances

Standard American appliances are sized for large kitchens. Smaller formats are widely made, and in a compact room each inch saved becomes drawer or counter space.

A counter-depth refrigerator makes the largest visual difference, because a standard one projects several inches past the cabinets into the room. Be realistic, though. A household that cooks every night for five should think carefully before shrinking the refrigerator and dishwasher. Choose every appliance before cabinets are ordered, since the cabinets are sized around them.

Storage in a small kitchen

Small kitchens do not lack volume so much as access. The fixes:

• Drawers in the base cabinets. Deep drawers hold more usable contents than shelves behind doors, because nothing is lost at the back.
• Cabinets to the ceiling. The top shelf holds what you use twice a year, and the room looks taller without a gap above.
• One tall pantry cabinet with roll-out trays in place of several scattered food cupboards.
• Narrow pull-outs beside the range for oils, spices and trays, using widths too small for a regular cabinet.
• A solved corner, or a layout with no corner at all.
• A built-in trash and recycling pull-out, so bins are not on the floor.
• Clear counters. An appliance garage or a dedicated shelf for the toaster and coffee maker returns work surface.

The NKBA's storage guideline for a small kitchen is 1,400 inches of total shelf and drawer frontage, which gives a designer a target to measure a plan against. Methods are covered in kitchen storage and pantries, and our article on how to maximize space with kitchen remodeling has more examples. An honest edit of what you own helps as much as any cabinet.

Light and sightlines

How large a kitchen feels depends on how far the eye can travel and how evenly the room is lit.

• Light every surface. Under-cabinet lighting removes the dark band at the back of the counter that makes a small kitchen feel cramped. See kitchen lighting.
• Keep tall things at the ends. Refrigerator and pantry cabinets belong at the end of a run, not in the middle where they cut the room in two.
• Use the window. Leave the window wall as open as you can, and consider a larger window if the wall allows it.
• Reduce visual breaks. One countertop material, one flooring running into the next room, a simple door style and panel-ready or matching appliances make the room read as a whole.
• Use reflective, lighter finishes where you want the room to open up.
• Create a view through. A pass-through, a glass door to the yard or an opened wall lets the eye leave the room.

When to expand instead

Reworking the existing room is the better value most of the time. Expansion deserves a serious look when:

• No layout gives you a working aisle and a prep counter at the same time.
• Two people need to cook together and the room cannot hold two work zones.
• The household needs seating in the kitchen and there is nowhere for it.
• There is no adjoining space to borrow, and you intend to stay in the house long enough to use what you build.

A bump-out or addition is a larger kind of project, with foundation, exterior and structural work and a full building permit. Kitchen remodel levels explained compares it with remodeling inside the existing walls.

Planning your small kitchen

Small kitchens reward careful drawing, because an inch matters. JDI Construction provides a 3D design layout so clearances can be checked before cabinets are ordered. For more ideas, see our small kitchen remodel ideas, try the kitchen cost calculator with the small-kitchen setting, or start a conversation on our Vancouver kitchen remodeling page.