If you live in New York City, chances are you see your kitchen as a closet with a mini fridge, hot plate, and Easy-Bake Oven and consider picking up your take-out in person (instead of ordering Uber Eats) “home cooking.” Well, that’s about to change! We may not be able to gift the culinary skills to make you the next Food Network star, but we can help you make your tiny kitchen Instagram-meal worthy with these five tips.
1. Use Every Surface
Start looking at the potential of every available surface in your home. Where you saw cabinets’ sides and the inside of their doors, now see a place to hang measuring cups and install pot lid holders or extra shelves. Where once the side of the fridge was nothing more than home to your b-team magnets, now see a magnetized spice rack. The underside of cabinets were previously ignored, now they’re the ideal place to affix jars via their lids and keep them out of the way but within reach. Your countertop no longer ends at the sink because your over-the-sink cutting board can extend it by over 12 inches.
2. Turn Walls into Pegboards
Pegboards are an incredibly versatile and affordable solution to space issues. These boards are easy to install and the pegs can be arranged in any configuration you need to hold pots and pans, cups and mugs, utensils, and more. A little splash of paint can add some beauty to this simple hack.
3. Hang Pots and Pans from the Ceiling
Pots and pans are among the most cumbersome items in your kitchen and tend to hog all the storage for themselves. Give your shelves and cabinets a break and hang them from the ceiling instead. Want something more unique than a standard rack? There are a ton of fun things to affix it to your ceiling and hang them from, like recycled ladders, screen doors, and bike wheels.
4. Russian Nesting Doll Your Shelves
What’s better than shelves? Shelves inside shelves! Unless you have so many plates, bowls, and glasses that they reach the top of the shelves, use this excess space to add a secondary shelf. If you want the freedom to mix up your kitchen’s layout every now and again, use shelves that don’t need to be installed, and instead opt for ones that sit over your existing dishes.
5. Install a Fold-Down Table
Like its space-saving cousin the Murphy bed, a fold-down table is a great way to maximize your kitchen’s space. Now you don’t have to choose between less space and eating every meal on the couch! Create even more space by investing in folding chairs that can be collapsed when not in use. The best part? The table pulls double duty as extra countertop space when you’re feeling ambitious and use more than three ingredients in a meal.
So, you’ve followed these hacks and the ones in our itty-bitty bathroom, secret storage, and tiny apartment blogs, but you still don’t have enough room? Contact the experts at Gotham Mini Storage, the premier Manhattan mini storage provider, for an affordable, secure solution to your space-savings needs.