Tiny homes have challenged traditional ideas of what makes a house a house for years. However, in the last 5 years, tiny homes have become fairly common knowledge. Many people have taken to ordering custom tiny homes while others build one themselves. For those seeking to build a tiny home by themselves or with family or friends, Discount Kitchens has some tips. Tiny home kitchen design is tricky, and we want to put our two cents in, as kitchen experts.
1. Use Every Inch of Space
Most people making tiny houses are aware that you need to use every inch of space to your advantage. However, this is especially true in the kitchen area. Kitchens have to be built to store a lot of things: food, appliances, and dishes too.
Don’t Use a Turn Table
One way to use every inch of space is to use corner space carefully. Many people will be tempted to install a turn table/lazy susan in the corner to make access easier. This is a bad move. A circular turn table will waste tons of corner space. Things that you need to access frequently, store elsewhere. Use corner spaces to store things you rarely use.
Infrequent Storage
In order to use up corner space efficiently, you’ll want a cabinet that reaches all the way back into the corner. This is a great place to store bulk foods, infrequent appliances, and other large things. Small things require ease of access, in order to see them and keep them organized. Large things, like the bulk box of mac and cheese you bought at Costco, can be easily stored or removed from a deep corner cabinet.
Obviously, you’ll want to personalize which things you store there. Choose something you don’t eat often. You can even store many smaller things in a cardboard box and slide it back there alongside your prized waffle iron.
2. Don’t Skimp on Counter Space
Many tiny home builders choose to make their tiny home kitchen design compact. They think of very creative ways to fit everything a kitchen needs in the smallest amount of space possible. However, as innovative as some of these designs are, they’re not always life-friendly.
Usefulness > Creativity
A great example of this phenomenon is people giving themselves little to no counter space, but having a panel that covers the sink to create a small prep area. Having a sink cover to expand counter space is a great idea. But, if that’s your only food prep space, you’re going to avoid using your kitchen at all costs. While some humans avoid extra steps more than others, unnecessary steps added to a process are universally avoided. Plus, how are you going to do food prep that involves using the counter and sink at the same time?
Your kitchen is one of the most important spaces in your home. Even in a tiny home, you’ll want to ensure you have adequate kitchen space to work without being miserable. So, take it from us, give yourself at least a cabinet’s width worth of counter space to do food prep on. That sink cover counter space will just be the cherry on top.
Keep reading in Part 2 for tips 3 and 4. We’ve saved the most important for last!