How to love small space family kitchen

In this blog I share tips on how to love your small space family kitchen. Read along as I share how I made our small kitchen more functional but also keep it as minimal as possible.

Assess your kitchen

When I looked at my kitchen I realized that there are things that live in my kitchen but don’t belong there. For me it was cleaning products but it also could be general household items that can find a new home. But also look if there are things you regularly use in our kitchen that are not present in the space.

Look for items that you didn’t use for a longer time and also write down if there is something missing you actually really need.

I also looked on how much space different items took. My pans for example were taking a big chunk of space so I decided that I needed to have less of them.

How to declutter

In order to declutter I went through every kitchen drawer and my kitchen counter and asked myself the following questions:

Is this item in the right space?
Did I use it in the last two months?
Do I have two of those items?

For a small space family kitchen I had too many pans, garlic presses and oven dishes. I got rid of two bowls I didn’t use regularly and reordered my bowls and pans in order to fit better.

If you find items you don’t use very often but still don’t want to get rid of you can choose to put them into a storage space outside your kitchen. I did this with my big soup pan and our table top grill.

Optimize your small space family kitchen

Sometimes I feel like minimalism is about living with as little stuff as possible rather than having the easiest life possible. If you have a small space family kitchen it will definitely help to declutter as much as possible. A few months ago I realized that all my cabinets were difficult to close and you needed to have a specific system to put away most of my things in order to fit them. I have enough counter space but very little cabinets to put away things which made my kitchen looked cluttered.

Before I took a step on decluttering my space I looked into optimizing every inch of the kitchen I had. Those are five things you can do to optimize your kitchen and get more counter space:

DIY an extra shelf as an open pantry
Use hooks on empty walls to hang up pans
Use little wooden crates to stock items
Put your wooden spoons and ladle into a utensil holder
Use fruit racks to stock fruit, veggies and eggs
Buy items that are easy to stock (glasses, cups and food containers)

open pantry in small space family kitchen

Small space family kitchen essentials

We all need pans and plates in our kitchen. But there is also for almost anything you want to cook an appliance. When it comes to appliances there are 5 essentials I would not want to miss in my small space family kitchen.

Food processor
Oven
4-burner cooktop
Dish washer
Pressure cooker

In my small space family kitchen there is no room foor this appliances:

Toaster
Instant pot
Microwave
Rice cooker
Coffee machine
Slow cooker
Sandwich maker and many more.

Even though I would love to use those appliances from time to time I simply don’t have room foor any of them. And mostly I can use an oven or pressure cooker to cook a meal I would use one of them for.

Loving your small space family kitchen

Living in a small space comes with challenges. But personally I love it. I got inspired as my in-laws moved. They had two houses for a month in order to move everything and as the old appartement got emptier the chicken got lighter and honestly easier to cook! I went home and decided that I rather have a little less appliances than a mess.

Ever since my kitchen is still a small space, but serves my family even better. I can find everything quicker. Cleaning is easier. And whenever I have people over to help me in my kitchen then don’t need a technical manual before they can empty my dishwasher.

My last tip to love your small space family kitchen is to make it beautiful. Pretty items can be stored in an open pantry. Choose kitchen appliances in matching colors. Even the lighting of a space can make your kitchen look cosy or fresh and joyful. Take the time to look at the small things to really fall in love with your small space family kitchen!