Tiny House- Think Outside the Oven!

Now that we owned our 448 square foot beach cottage, we needed to plan where everything should go. In such a small space, we had to measure every inch and use all of them with purpose. The house was essentially a rectangle with a bedroom at one end taking up about a third of the total space, a narrow half bathroom in the middle, and the kitchen/den combo in the other two-thirds. Which permanent appliances were needed and where??

Most important to us was the heart of any home- the kitchen! I used many websites, magazines and tv shows as resources, but my favorite that I still follow is the web site “Apartment Therapy“. It has interviews and pictures of people living in actual tiny spaces, and what lessons they have learned. Love it!

Here are a few of my kitchen rules for anyone designing a tiny space:

In a tiny space with very little “stuff”, always buy high end items for maximum impact. Our L-shaped kitchen counter is high quality marble, which is nice since we use it several times a day. Easy to clean, sturdy and beautiful to look at.
Small living spaces can get visually cluttered and thus stressful easily, so white paint is used everywhere to appear clean and serene. Our subway tile backsplash is the only color in the whole house other than white or natural light wood- a lovely marine blue that stands out and anchors the kitchen.
You do not need a built in stove or oven- we had 2 ovens in our old house and a four burner stove! They take up valuable counterspace, so we use a fantastic Cuisinart air fryer/toaster oven and portable conduction cooktop from Duxto p . They store easily in the custom cabinets (yes, we measured them and had the cabinet maker adjust appropriately)
Only 3 kitchen appliances are permanent- dishwasher, microwave and fridge. Another tiny house rule is that everything should have more than one use. We put the airfryer or stovetop under the microwave and use its built in fan to vent.
Cabinets are a priority since storage space is limited, so custom cabinets were worth it even though more $$$. Use turntables, storage bins, or tiered racks from the Container Store or Walmart/Target in every cabinet!
Steal ideas from websites and magazines and TV shows. I saw a kitchen with open wood shelves over the sink in Real Simple, and copied it exactly in ours.