From renovation ideas to clever space-saving ways to prep your food, these expert tips will ensure your tiny kitchen can be comfortable and spacious too!
Design: The Scientist
1) Customise a removable chopping board that will fit into one of the top drawers of the lower kitchen cabinet. This way, you can slide the drawer out and place the chopping board on it for additional worktop space, without losing drawer storage. – Lawrence Puah, design director of interior design firm Akihaus.
2) Peel potatoes easily by placing boiled potatoes into iced water. After a few minutes, the skin can be peeled without the need for any tools.
3) Buy prep bowls in various sizes that can be stacked, to save storage space.
4) “Clean as you cook; keeping countertops clean and tidy helps you work better in the kitchen.” – Matteo Pertoldi, private chef and founder of Atipico.
5) Fill awkward corners in kitchen cabinets with lazy susans to make full use of the space. They will help you gain access to items easily, when swivelled.
6) Mount a magazine holder to the back of kitchen cabinet doors, where you can store items such as rolls of baking paper, aluminium foil and cling wrap.
7) Make do without a juicer! To easily juice citrus fruit such as lemons and oranges, place them in the microwave for up to 30 seconds; this helps soften thick peels and opens the juice vessels of the fruits, so you get most of the juice out quickly.
8) “Attach magnets onto the refrigerator to support stainless steel containers, where you can store herbs, condiments and cutlery.” – Philippe Limes, country manager of Helpling.
9) “Use stackable containers to store items in the refrigerator or cabinet, to free up vertical space.” – Steve Choo, sales leader of kitchens and dining at Ikea.
10) “Add extendable poles under the sink where you can place hooks to hang rags, glove and brushes used for kitchen cleaning.” – Philippe Limes, country manager of Helpling, an online cleaning platform in Singapore.
11) Invest in an efficient multipurpose cleaning solution, instead of having multiple bottles for various uses.
12) Stick knives into a jar filled with raw spaghetti. It’ll hold the knives up the same way bulky knife holders do!
13) Kitchen shears are useful tools! They double as scissors, bottle and jar-lid openers, as well as nut and shell crackers.
14) Instead of storing bags of lemon in the fridge, which take up space, freeze ice trays of lemon juice and pop the frozen cubes into water before serving.