How to Make a Small Kitchen Comfortable and Beautiful: 6 Life Hacks

Even on the smallest area, you can design your dream kitchen—what matters is to thoughtfully plan every detail. We've selected furniture, appliances, and accessories that will help you achieve this.

Choose visually light furniture

Kitchen cabinets with light glossy fronts, chairs on thin legs, tables with glass countertops, and tall bar stools. Perfect for furniture made from transparent plastic or light wood.

Even if your kitchen is very small, that’s not a reason to completely give up the dining area: folding chairs and transforming tables can solve this issue.

Design: Vladimir Berezin

Inessa Teranova: "Instead of a full dining set, choose transforming solutions".

The dining table can be folded and will turn into an unobtrusive wooden square—matching the wall décor.

You might like:

Folding chair

Chico Chrome stool

Transforming table

Dining table "Lil"

Make household appliances the main accent

Designer household appliances, in addition to their primary function, will also serve a decorative purpose. This approach can help you create an interesting interior even with minimal decoration. Choose appliances with a minimalist design and bold monochromatic color.

Design: Sweet Home Design

You might like:

Qilive kettle

Hansa refrigerator

Qilive toaster

Sharp refrigerator

Plan additional storage

If there aren’t enough kitchen cabinets, additional shelves and railings will help organize spice storage, dishes, and household chemicals. You can also place small appliances like a toaster on special shelves to save extra space.

These accessories can also act as decoration—e.g., railings in brass or copper look great.

Don’t forget about organizing internal spaces in drawers and cabinets: convenient and organized storage of cutlery, lids, and food trays helps avoid clutter.

Design: "Common Area" bureau

Viktoriya Zolina: "Do away with upper cabinets. Or dilute them with open shelves—this trick looks great in small spaces. With open storage systems, your kitchen will look much more spacious, lighter, and cozier".

You might like:

Wall shelf

Tray for cutlery

Rail system pipe

Spice shelf

Provide several lighting scenarios

Firstly, they allow you to adjust the proportions of the room and make it visually more interesting. Secondly, it's just convenient.

Place one pendant light in the center of the kitchen or above the dining area, put spotlights over the work surface, and place a decorative lamp on the table to set the mood. By the way, you can use candles in beautiful candleholders instead of that lamp—they instantly add warmth and shine to the room.

Design: Daria El'nikova

You might like:

Escada spot

Escada chandelier

Escada pendant

Escada chandelier

Use the windowsill

Continuation of the countertop, a bar table with a view of the city or a cabinet for dishes under the window—perfect for small kitchens. Just remember to ensure air circulation from the radiator—install louvered doors or make a gap in the windowsill or baseboard.

Design: Quadrum

You might like:

Bar stool

Porcelain candleholder

Guan Diamond vase-bottle

Bar stool

Do away with curtains

Instead of bulky drapes or long curtains, use blinds, Roman or roller curtains. First, voluminous arrangements don’t take up precious space, second, they always leave access to the windowsill area, and third, dense fabric of roller curtains or smooth blinds don’t accumulate kitchen dust like, for example, voile or organza. Also, they’re much easier to keep clean.

Design: Julia Veselova

You might like:

"Pine" roller curtain

"Enchanted Night" Flamingo roller curtain

"New York" roller curtain

"Enchanted Night" Geometric roller curtain

On the cover: Natalia Shirokorad's design project