TOP Tiny House Kitchen Design Ideas for ANY Small Kitchen!

Want to design a tiny house? Well kitchen planning is one of the most important considerations. Today we're sharing top small space design ideas from tiny homes around the country and the most incredible tiny house kitchen that we toured last year. Whether you plan on building one yourself or working with a pro builder you don't want to miss these recommendations. First things first, you need to decide how much of your overall square footage you want to dedicate for your tiny house kitchen. This will depend on how much you plan to cook, what appliances are must-haves, and if you want any counter space to double as dining space. We allocated about a third of our tiny house footprint to our kitchen. And for an extra tiny tiny house that's a lot of space. This is 17 and a half feet inside. We cooked two meals in here a day for years. We've realized that it was absolutely the perfect amount for us. But even if you're not much of a home cook do not skip on kitchen planning. It's the hardest working room in any size home but in a tiny home it requires extreme efficiency to fit in all the necessities and to create a comfortable cooking space. I think choosing an ergonomic kitchen layout shape can make all the difference. Personally I prefer L-shaped and U-shaped kitchen layouts because of the easy pivot distance between everything I need while cooking. That's part of a kitchen design concept called the kitchen work triangle. Everything is literally right here. I can get stuff out of the refrigerator, use the counter, my beautiful huge sink that I love to pieces and I'm one step away. I'm not wasting any energy moving all over the kitchen because everything's within arm's reach. The best tiny home kitchens utilize every single nook and cranny. Yes it cannot be said enough every inch is an opportunity for storage. So when laying out your kitchen consider all of the available space. My favorite feature in the kitchen is the toe kick storage drawers. There's one here and there's one here which is where I have cookie sheets, cupcake tins, wrapping paper, anything you can find for storage in a tiny house is helpful to tuck things away. With just two spare inches you can create storage for pans, cutting boards, and even brooms. With that said you can create all kinds of creative opportunities for storage like in Derek's tiny home where he utilized the backside of his upper staircase for dishware storage. Yeah and he also utilized the side of his fridge with this magnetic organizer and it offered a ton of storage space for like spices and kitchen utensils. Simply put you need to identify leftover spaces and think outside of the box about how you can utilize them. And behind our bathroom door is the other part of our pantry. I love this because this is such a great small space solution. This is a non-structural wall so we were able to recess these shelves inside of it without causing any problems. So we made the shelves the perfect height for jars. You know it's so nice to be able to just see what you have. And maximizing your vertical space is a great way to utilize every inch of your tiny house kitchen. This can be as simple as adding more shelving or hanging your pots and pans from the ceiling. In Hannah and Scott's 160 square foot tiny home they took it a step further by creating this easily accessible storage in their kitchen ceiling. When they're closed you wouldn't even know they're there. In Beau and Peggy's palatial 12 foot wide 400 square foot tiny home they maximize every last bit of vertical space. They added plant shelves to their beautiful window wall with hooks for storage underneath. Like we always say you can never have too many hooks in a tiny house. So simple, so functional, and so budget-friendly. Something that I'm used to in my former house was a lot a lot of counter space. So I had my appliances kind of lined up. And living tiny when you have a giant air fryer or you have your rice cooker and you have all these things that you're used to having on your counter space you're again forced to become mindful of what do I need on the day-to-day basis. What needs to be in my immediate reach and then what can go up and store. So I'm really thankful that this was a pre-existing shelf on top of the microwave so we're able to put the rice cooker and the ninja up there and the steamer and things like that. And nothing creates ease of use in a tiny house like pullout storage. Drawer slides and other slidey systems help make the most of deep spaces, tall and narrow spaces, and awkward corner cabinets. Under here there is a drawer it's almost like a Lazy Susan but it's like stacked. So you open the door pull the first drawer out and like slide it to one side and it magically appears a whole set of your dishes and stuff on two other stacked shelves. So you can actually put a lot of stuff in that space all the way back in that corner and that's killer. When you can pull out a storage compartment it makes it much much easier to access like the full space especially the things stored in the very back. There's nothing more frustrating than having to put your entire body into a cabinet to reach what you need. Yeah totally. Yeah if there's one thing we've learned from living tiny it's that if any ordinary task causes too much inconvenience you'll resent it and use it less. Absolutely. So then what's the point of having this space? The easy solution? Add slides to everything you can. Yeah any slidey things or any wheels if you can do it do it. However they're not cheap. They could cost you a few thousand dollars to like fully deck out your tiny house but there are a few hacks like our pantry drawers. Behind this curtain we have a series of these metal wire drawers that we use for a pantry. You could fit tons of stuff in here. Christian actually found these on the curb in New York City when he was living there. Someone was just throwing these away perfectly good. And I created a simple guide out of wood on both sides so I could slide the basket in and out with ease. Multifunctional features can make a huge difference in a tiny house but as a wise man once said keep it simple stupid. She's talking to me that's what this or that just requires one to two simple steps to access or you'll never use it. A workstation kitchen sink is a great simple way to make the most of the space while cooking and doing dishes. And if your tiny home is open or wide enough a movable kitchen island can be ideal for adding function and flexibility. 10 feet wide allows me to have a kitchen island. You do not see very many tiny homes with kitchen islands. So here she is. This is not something the builder made for me. I had found it on Home Depot and knew that the dimensions would fit and that I could put it together myself. The purpose of the island is threefold. It provides me with extra counter space. It provides me with extra storage. This whole side of the kitchen island has two cabinets and three drawers. Lots of storage. Then you have this portion that folds up and stays propped up underneath so that you can have extra dining or entertaining or workspace. It's also on wheels. I can move it around to create more space or less space as needed. So it fits my needs. I love it. When it comes to multi-functional appliances like a convection oven microwave or a toaster oven combo make sure you read the reviews. Yes because it might be good at one or two of those things and not so great at the others. Cleaning a tiny home doesn't take long but it sure can get messy and cluttered quickly. That is why it's essential for everything in your tiny house to have a home. You know a place for everything and everything in its place. But beyond just a well-organized kitchen think about how you want to make it pretty. You'll be spending a lot of time in there especially if you like to cook and you'll most likely be able to see it from most of your tiny house. A beautiful tiny kitchen is somewhat subjective. What feels cluttered to one person won't to another. But with that said openness always feels good. Lots of natural light really helps with this. Also minimizing the use of upper cabinets goes a long way especially in extra tiny kitchens. But if you really want cabinets think about having glass or wired front doors. Just that will make your kitchen feel less closed in. For an ultra clean tidy and open feel hiding some of your countertop appliances can really help. Like in Stacy's kitchen pantry where she stores some of her appliances full-time because she has an outlet installed inside. And the light colors in her kitchen make it feel open and airy. Alternatively bold color tiles vibrant cabinets and wood accents can make a tiny kitchen feel warm and inviting. Personally I am always a fan of whimsical decorative touches as you can see in our tiny kitchen. This last year we saw a lot of retro style appliances and they always add a touch of whimsy and are just so darn cute. So if you want to add some pizazz to your appliances there are a few DIY hacks like vinyl wrapping your fridge to make it a different color or pattern or covering your vent hood with wood panels. One 10-foot wide tiny home that we filmed last year that beautifully captures everything we talked about today is Kathleen and Byron's gorgeous not so tiny kitchen. As far as space allocation within the home we allocated about eight feet to the living room 12 feet for the kitchen and then eight and eight for the bathroom and bedroom. So you know that we prioritize the kitchen and that's for a lot of reasons. We enjoy cooking we like to bake and distribute things to our neighbors and have people over for company so a big kitchen was really helpful to us. As you can see we chose an enormous sink part of the reason for that was so that we wouldn't have any trouble doing dishes. We did not allocate any space at all to a dishwasher so it's the two of us and this way we can stand here side by side and one can wash and rinse and the other can dry no problem. This stove is a Furion. The reason our builder helped us choose it is because of the fact that it's rated for RVs. We have been able to cook a small roast in there and I do quite a bit of baking and that's not really been a problem. A magnetized knife rack is really handy for holding things close by. The hood vent has been incredible. We use it all the time especially when frying something like bacon and it smells up the whole house. You just don't really want your towels smelling like bacon the next day so this is incredibly valuable. It is a direct vent to the outside. I also just wanted to mention that there were some little bits of space that our builder made accessible to us. They could have just closed that in and it would have looked tidy but then I wouldn't have had any place to put platters so that's been really handy. In the same kind of way this space again seems small but we put cutting boards in there and then on the bottom side this similar kind of space holds all of our cookie sheets and things like that. On this side of the kitchen we have a space here where we were able to store all of our cleaning supplies such as a mop and a broom and a vacuum cleaner. The refrigerator that we found that I really took a lot of delight in is by Unique and it's called Classic Retro. We were able to choose it in this lovely shade of green. This cupboard was really what sold me on Minimalist from the beginning because it's their utility cupboard. Now what you see is we've added some shelves on the top and so that has given us a place for bigger appliances but down in the bottom is where all the utilities are like our hot water heater, water filter, there's even a sensor that will shut off the water system as a whole if there's any flooding that is detected by the sensors in the floor. Next to the utility closet is a pullout pantry and so this holds an amazing amount of food stuffs. Grateful for that. This little space here was a surprise to us. It was not something that we had intended to have. I had envisioned wider drawers in this space but the fact that we have it gives us a place to put our step stool which we find is really handy for reaching things up in the upper cabinets especially in our bedroom. So we're very grateful that we ended up with this odd little space right here. There are additional drawers here for storing dishes and whatnot and this is the most important thing for our dog Mabel. It's her treat jar. She will literally sit right here and stare at it until we oblige. So as you're designing your tiny home just remember it doesn't have to be fancy to be effective. Some of the best solutions are super simple. To make a truly great tiny kitchen it must be efficiently laid out ultra space maximized and your style. Also don't neglect the practical things like where you're going to put your trash can or the broom closet. We'd love to know your tiny kitchen design ideas. So why don't you let us know in the comments below. Thank you for watching our video and for stopping by Tiny House Expedition, I'm Alexis and I'm Christian. Don't forget to like comment and subscribe and for more tiny home tours and stories click the videos below and join us on Instagram for bonus content including face-to-face conversations with us. We hope to see you there. All right thanks guys have a good one.