Make Your Tiny Kitchen Look Spacious With Open Living Design

Do you live in a small home or apartment with a tiny kitchen that feels cramped and closed-off? An open concept design can make your petite cooking space appear brighter, more modern, and surprisingly spacious. By opening up the wall between your kitchen and adjacent living area, you create visible square footage for a more free-flowing atmosphere. However, it also comes with the need for smart storage solutions. Read on to discover clever tips that camouflage limitations to amplify visual space in your small open concept kitchen.

An open concept kitchen invites natural light through broadened entryways and sightlines. The absence of barriers mingles rooms seamlessly so you can cook, entertain, and relax simultaneously. However, limited floor area demands optimized furniture arrangements and storage hacks.

Choose the Right Floor Plan Layout

When remodeling your open concept kitchen, pay attention to the floorplan blueprint. An L-shaped or galley layout works well by lining up the kitchen cabinetry and appliances along the same wall as the living room. This delineates the cooking zone from the sitting area while eliminates corners that constrain mobility. Meanwhile, the contiguous wall offers abundant stretches for counters and storage nooks without barricading room transitions.

Galley/L-shaped Kitchen

A galley or L-shaped kitchen floorplan positions the sink, oven, fridge, and base cabinets on one shared wall with the living space. This creates a natural visual border while keeping everything in close functional proximity. The extended counter depth accommodates small appliances, shelving, and additional seating. Just be sure to allow ample walkway widths - at least 42 inches - in and out of the kitchen for traffic flow.

Allows For More Storage and Counterspace

Choosing an L-shaped open concept kitchen over a closed-off square one provides noticeably more available base cabinet space. The single stretch of functional wall offers wider counters that can accommodate dish racks, cutting boards, small appliances, and bar stools. The lengthy footprint fits numerous storage cabinets and wide drawers to consolidate all your meal prep gear compliantly out of sight.

Creates Defined Kitchen Area Within Open Concept

A strategically designed L-shaped kitchen floorplan establishes a clear, designated cooking zone without totally separating it from the living room. The adjoined footprint maps out efficient navigation routes between prep, cook, and clean-up stations. This allows multiple household members to simultaneously perform kitchen tasks, socialize, watch TV, or transition to other areas of the home freely - the hallmark perk of an open concept.

Incorporate Multifunctional Furniture

Furniture that moonlights for added versatility is a small open floor plan's best friend. Items with hidden storage offer decorative displays when closed or expand your organizational capacity as needed. This duality suits the communal atmosphere of cooking while lounging or dining freely across a shared expanse. Check out these multi-use furnishing ideas that concentrate function through convertibility.

Fold-down Dining Table/Workspace

Make use of vertical airspace for a stowable table against the wall or tucked beside your open concept kitchen. The fold-down design clears room when guests leave after dinner parties. Lower the surface to reveal a small desk nook for squeezing in work-from-home time without claiming usable square footage.

Kitchen Island Cart with Drop-Leaf Sides

A kitchen island cart on locking wheels gives you movable prep space that travels wherever counter overcrowding demands. Look for one with dropdown leaflet panels that expand the surface for serving buffet spreads or potluck dishes to guests in the dining/living zone. This space-saving alternative to built-in islands stores everything from small appliances to cookbooks.

Ottoman Coffee Table with Storage Inside

An upholstered ottoman coffee table adding extra seating to your small living room looks elegantly demure. But its interior cube frame secretly holds television remotes, blankets, or stash clutter when unexpected company suddenly drops by. This hardworking hybrid anchors your relaxation zone without occupying much area.

Maximize Vertical Storage Space

Implement vertical storage elements that rise to the structural shell of your petite kitchen space. Taking inventory up rather than out saves precious ground area while delivering consolidated organization. Mounted racks, towering shelving, and even the overhead airspace supply cabinet-comparable capacity through ascension.

Tall Shelves and Cabinets Up to Ceiling

Customize the kitchen cabinetry blueprint to incorporate towering heights that make the most of vertical real estate. Stretch pantry cupboards, fridge nook spaces, and base sink cabinets fully from countertops to ceiling. The soaring shelves operate like built-in units with neatly aligned storage for oversize items or bulky small appliances.

Mount Pots and Pans on Wall with Overhead Racks

Take cues from professional restaurant kitchens by installing mounted pot racks across empty walls adjacent to your stovetop. The industrial-style ledges lined with S-hooks allow all sizes of cookware to hang orderly above the workflow. This vertical organization hemisphere clears out lower cabinets for alternate storage.

Floor-to-Ceiling Pantry Unit

For a narrow galley or L-shaped kitchen, install a floor-to-ceiling pantry cupboard in the corner near food preparation and cooking areas. The slender unit houses spices, dry goods, canned items, and backup ingredients. Place caddies, turntables, and pull-out drawers inside to partition categories for access efficiency.

Install Space-Saving Compact Appliances

When remodeling your open concept kitchen, seek out appliance models engineered for condensed dwellings. Compact counter-height ovens, mini fridge units, and portable sinkware take upFractional real estate compared to full-capacity range. Yet their functionality remains sized to serve open floor plan dynamics fluidly.

Small Convection Ovens

Convection ovens use a powerful internal fan to circulate air and facilitate faster, more even baking than conventional models. counter variants with 22-inch footprints install beneath standard cabinets, while countertop versions require less than one square foot. Either enables serious cooking sans a spacious rangetop.

Mini Fridge

Slimline mini fridges work anywhere you need an auxiliary cooling compartment for beverages, snacks or fresh goods. Topped models act as impromptu counters beside cabinetry, while under-counter variants occupy one lower cabinet footprint. The single-door reach-in design even frees up surrounding outlets.

Portable Dishwasher

Portable dishwashers with front-access controls wheel conveniently around your open kitchen space. Hook them to the sink when dirty stacks demand sanitizing, then return them against the wall once dishes dry. These compact washers offer standard cycles plus folding racks for odd-shaped cookware items.

Use Clever Storage Nooks and Compartments

Creative shelving and cabinetry modifications invent storage space from overlooked voids around your open floor plan. Think vertically and multitask empty areas with customized built-ins. You can discretely assimilate items for a tidier, less cluttered aesthetic overall.

Built-in Storage Benches Along Walls

Frame built-in bench seating into the kitchen or dining half of your open floorplan using wall stud cavities for storage space. The long narrow hollows conceal linens, serving ware, or cleaning products discreetly. Meanwhile, the surface offers supplemental seating for gatherings.

Hidden Compartments Under Stairs/Floor

If your open space features a staircase, install pull-out drawers into the riser cavities to utilize awkward unreachable space. You can also build custom storage cubbies beneath trap doors camouflaged into the flooring around living room furnishings.

Cabinet Inserts and Dividers

Maximize kitchen cabinet efficiency by lining deep interior spaces with durable organizational inserts. Stackable holders cater to everything from unwieldy baking sheets to spices, while divided turntables neatly array smaller goods for 360 access.

Add Strategic Lighting Elements

A combination of streamlined built-in lighting and accessory portable luminaires keeps your open concept kitchen and living zone fully illuminated. Mix overhead ambient lighting with concentrated task lamps operated separately. This custom choreography brightens both rooms uniformly or solo when used individually.

Pendant Lights Over Kitchen Island

Define the kitchen's perimeter within an open concept by hanging pendant lamps in series over a central island or dining bar countertop. Cylindrical bulkhead lights project focused brightness onto the surface below for meal preparation and presentation visibility.

Recessed Lighting in Kitchen

Work recessed can lights evenly along the ceiling above wall cabinets and countertops to blast broad background brightness across cooking stations. The sunken circular fixtures become virtually flush with the overhead plane to spotlight appliances task zones subtly.

Adjustable Living Room Floor/Table Lamps

Angle the shafts and shades of living room floor and table lamps toward walls or focal points to amplify aesthetic detail illumination. Operate these independent of kitchen lighting to set various room vibes - or flip all switches on to flood the entire open area uniformly.

Utilize Visual Design Tricks

Certain interior design elements like lighter colors, mirrored surfaces, and matching sightlines trick the eye to perceive compact kitchens as expansive. These tactics bounce, reflect, and repeat spatial components for an enhanced sense of brightness and symmetry.

Light, Neutral Wall Colors

Embrace soft off-white, beige, or greige paint colors to swathe kitchen and living room walls contiguously without contrast. The holistic neutral palette makes the architecture appear seamless while refracting light between both rooms for an aired-out aura.

Large Mirror Above Kitchen Sink

Hang an oversized mirror above the kitchen's sink or backsplash to reflect light and imagery from the adjoining living zone outward. The reflective panel bonds the separate areas visually to compound apparent spaciousness inside the compact open footprint.

Open Shelving to Avoid Closed-in Feel

Skip upper kitchen cabinetry doors and display dishes, glassware or decorative items on open shelves instead. The transparency maintains sightlines with the living room to augment illumination and airflow movement between distinct activity pockets.

Wide Walkways Between Rooms

If remodeling floors or walls, ensure at least 42-inch wide pathways connect the kitchen and living room zones without obstacles. The broad openings prevent a cramped appearance while enabling traffic to flow freely from lounge seating to prep stations.

Style With Multipurpose Decor

Finally, incorporate furnishings and signature accents that moonlight as displays, dividers or backsplashes to intensify style within a petite open concept interior. These hardworking details demarcate functional areas without barricading the floor plan's sightlines or mobility.

Plants, Sculptures, Art as Functional Dividers

Stand vertical green statement plants like fiddle leaf figs or bamboo stalks at the edge of the kitchen and living zones as ornamental dividers. Their asymmetrical silhouettes discreetly cordon spaces while allowing views and pathways to permeate through.

Rugs to Define Spaces

Roll out distinctive area rugs underneath living room furniture groupings and the kitchen's dining nook or seating ensemble. The floor coverings congregate each vignette visually to carve out purpose without building walls or interrupting togetherness ambiance.

Window Treatments That Double as Backsplash

Opt for multi-width window valances or Roman shades in moisture-resistant fabrics to mount behind a kitchen sink or stovetop range. When unfurled, the panels cordon cooking nooks discreetly while serving as an attractive textile backsplash alternative.

You can mingle kitchen and living functions with some ingenuity. Prioritize compact and convertible elements to consolidate activities without confinement across the open concept blueprint. The resulting space feels intimate yet contemporary through smart lighting, storage optimization and unified decor.