Kitchen Cheat Sheet

March 11, 2026

Kitchen Cheat Sheet

Small kitchens don’t need to feel small. From “anti-kitchens” that disappear behind joinery to movable islands, hidden storage and light-maximising tricks, this cheat sheet rounds up clever ideas for designing a hardworking, personality-filled kitchen – no matter how tight the footprint.

We’ve gone a bit kitchen mad in this issue and for good reason – the kitchen is the heart of the modern home after all – and why should that be any different in a small one? While kitchen work triangle conventions and typical layouts might need to be thrown out the window, there is plenty that can be done within a small footprint to realise your kitchen dreams.

Writing:

Eloïse Lachicorée

Photography:

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Location, location, location

Small footprint kitchens will always come with their challenges but who says you have to play within the rules? Who says your fridge needs to be in the kitchen? Or that your kitchen needs to follow a traditional layout? We say meet your constraints with creativity and forget what you think a kitchen should be and instead work towards the kitchen that’s right for you.

Rather than occupying an entire wall, the kitchen in Renovation D’un Appartement A Jourdain occupies just one side of an entrance hall in an inventive and incredibly efficient use of a space often used for bulk storage. Elegant and thoughtful details such as contrasting flooring (in this case, patterned terracotta tiles) and a pair of pendant lights, clearly demarcate the space, designed by Meraki Architecture to ensure it feels like a charming kitchen rather than just a passage to pass through. Photo: Matthieu Torres.

The unimposing white and light grey kitchen within the Slow Down Apartment designed by Brad Swartz integrates a perfectly-sized dining nook hugged by the large corner windows. The nook is the perfect continuation of the kitchen space and includes built-in seating with internal and integrated storage underneath. Photo: Cathy Schusler.

Seamless joinery is cleverly integrated into the staircase of Studio Seguí, providing space for a small fridge, pantry, and additional storage.The minimalist kitchen designed by Carol Burton also features a terrazzo counter and splash back, a double-burner electric stove and two floating metal shelves. Photo: Gonzalo Viramonte.

Designed by Dax 1, Kloedenstraße’s floating side board may look like an unassuming piece of furniture. Painted the same ‘Inchyra Blue’ shade as the apartment’s walls, this wall-mounted sideboard is in fact the kitchen’s main source of storage with crockery and pantry items tucked away inside. Photo: Never Too Small.

The anti-kitchen

When you’re living in a small home, your kitchen space might also be your living space and perhaps your sleeping space too. So what do you do when you need a kitchen but don’t want it to dominate or look too kitcheny?

Brad Swartz’s kitchen design for Basement Apartment was all about making the kitchen look like a piece of furniture. The kitchen cabinets and work top are raised on slimline legs, which not only helps it to read as an elegant piece of joinery rather than a kitchen, but also allows the floor to be seen beneath to expand the sense of space in the room. Photo: Katherine Lu.

In the diminutive Cairo Apartment designed by Nicholas Agius of Agius all is not what it seems. Hidden behind what appears to be a large white cabinet is a cheerful yellow kitchen, which works its footprint even harder with pantry and other storage features built into the inside of its clever barn-style doors. Photos: Tom Ross.

As the apartment’s owner and namesake doesn’t cook a lot, William Chan’s kitchen design for Alex is compact and highly unconventional. The working parts of the kitchen can be completely concealed. The joinery units that house the kitchen are meticulous in their detailing, from the navy blue tap ware colour matched to the inky blue interiors, to the specially sourced hidden hinges. Photos: Vee Chin.

A pair of discreet pocket doors open and slide into a wall of joinery to reveal the kitchen in Marvila Attic designed by KEMA Studio. The whole setup includes a dishwasher, fridge, induction cooktop and a rangehood. Photos: Alexander Bogorodskiy © KEMA studio Eliza Borkowska.

In Davide Minervini’s Luini Apartment a series of bi-fold pocket doors cleverly hide the kitchen entirely when not in use, so it appears to be just an extension of the living room joinery. Photos: Alessandro Santi.

Designed to be discrete and recessive, the kitchen in Small Grand Apartment blends seamlessly into the living space. The design from Tsai Design’s Jack Chen features a white induction cooktop and (predominantly) white oven that are almost camouflaged within the white bench unit, while a slimline shelf with concealed strip lighting enhances a gallery-like feel and softly illuminates the space. Photo: Never Too Small.

Make it your own

Though it’s often easy and efficient to either work with what you’ve got or buy ‘off the rack’ when it comes to updating your kitchen, breaking with conventions and adding personal touches that make it unique will make it more of a joy to spend time in. This might be as simple as introducing a favourite colour, displaying some treasured teacups or adding a small piece of artwork. You might also have some clever and creative friends or family who can contribute, or you might be clever and creative yourself!

Eleanor Peres from mone studio wanted to create a special feature in her Darley Studio kitchen, so she commissioned a friend to design a series of custom inset titles to scatter around the kitchen in between the green and white Japanese ceramic Kit-Kat tiles. Photo: Ben Murphy.

When designingher own apartment, Kateryna Gonchar embraced her DIY spirit, customising her lovely kitchen island and dining space. Gonchar painted an IKEA bench red andreplaced the benchtop with a Calacatta Viola marble from asecond hand coffee table she hadbought from eBay. The kitchen island also features plenty of storage for pans, dishes and dinnerware. Photos: Never Too Small.

Antony Authié’s blue 3D-printed spiky cabinet handle design takes centre stage in his kitchen design for Cartoon Space, bringing playfulness, tactility (and a definite talking point!) to the stainless steel kitchen cabinets. Handles were designed and printed by Authié inhis studio. Photo: Never Too Small.

Architect and furniture dealer Jacobo Valentí of Casavells Estudio designed and built aone-of-a-kind kitchen for himself. It features IKEA kitchen cabinets that have been customised with dark timber door fronts and a colourful original mid-century cabinet (designed by Charlotte Perriand) as a striking overhead unit for his glassware, dishes and pantry items. Photo: Jacobo Valentí.

A windowadjacent to his Paris Duplex Extension kitchen prompted Olivier Menard of Archibien to embrace the opportunity to lower the cabinet seven further beneath this window to create a bench seat. Incidentally, this is where Menard’s young daughter loves to climb up to watch or take part in preparing meals. Photo: ©Archibien.

Architect, filmmaker and photographer Matthieu Torres’s home Jourdain, is full of inspiration and his DIY-designed-and-built kitchen is no exception. Its charming bespoke features include the original and beautiful old cracked sink, a rather sculptural (or in Matthieu’s words: ‘a funny’) extractor hood and adorable cabinet handles he and his partner asked a ceramicist friend to make for them. Photo: Never Too Small.

Finding space

For most of us, our kitchens are social places. A hub in our home where we congregate with friends and family, cook and prepare food for ourselves and our loved ones, and perhaps where we dine too. Less glamorously, it may well be where you do your laundry, so this is a workhorse of a space and a space that needs to be flexible. So how do you meet such diverse demands of a single space within a constrained footprint?

Architects Takeosi Odaki and Mayo Takato of TOASt Inc designed what they call a ‘moveable wagon’ in Somosomo House. Positioned at the end of the kitchen and finished in the same material as the other kitchen units, the wagon seamlessly blends with the main kitchen when pushed against the wall. When moved away, this versatile piece transforms into a functional kitchen island, complete with double-sided storage for added practicality. Photos: Nam Tran.

The extremely storage-efficient kitchen in Nicholas Gurney’s 5S apartment design makes clever use of limited storage space. Featuring deep, narrow overhead storage and a stainless steel shelf that extends above the splashback, the design alsoincludes a roll-out dining table and additional work surface that fits snuggly over the kitchen’s main cabinets when not in use. Photo: Terence Chin.

In Appartement Ruede Nantes designed by PS Studio, a section of the single-wall kitchen is mounted on small wheels and canbe detached to reveala cleverly camouflaged concealed door that provides access to the ensuite bathroom forguests. To maximise functionality, the kitchen also features a bookshelf that discreetly tucks the fridge in behind it. Photo: Jean Baptiste Thiriet.

The apartment’s original compact single-wall kitchen in Billinghurst has been transformed into a practical and social space with the addition of a narrow white and pink breakfast bar. The MoobArq team also built a clever and generous storage space for spices in the back of the breakfast bar. Photo: MoobArq.

In the corridor of Rue de Bagnolet designed by QSA, the green MDF kitchen cabinets and white laminate worktop continue outside the expected footprint of the kitchen and along the curve of its internal wall, providing additional storage for dinnerware, cookware and pantry items. Photo: Never Too Small.

The suspended shelf that hangs above the kitchen island in Alicja Szmal-Baehr’s Projekt Własny is not only for plants but also elegantly house stask lighting for the island. Photo: Kinga Mądro Photography.

Bring in the light

By nature, kitchens are spaces that require effective task-based lighting to make cooking and cleaning easy, but this doesn’t mean downlights are the only option. And while good task lighting is essential, it doesn’t mean that natural, ambient and accent lighting can’t play a role too.

In Project Jordaan designed by MI Studio, gold-trimmed wall lights provide both task and ambient lighting, while under-cabinet illumination gives the kitchen a striking floating effect. Photo: Wouter van der Sar.

A combination of natural light filling the apartment and an abundance of mirrors make for a light-filled, open kitchen, living and dining space with a softer ambient reflection in Dforn Projects’ Ryokan Project. Photo: Pablo Veiga Photography.

St Kilda Micro Sanctuary’s multi-functional reflective copper pod offer sample kitchen storage along with vibrant coloured interiors. Tsai Design select edits mirrored finish to maximise the natural light from the kitchen’s large windows, and to illuminate and add interest to the space. Photos: Never Too Small.

A trio of pendant lights add drama and definition to the kitchen island in Sola House designed by gon architects. The pendants also offer a shift in mood from the ceiling mounted track lighting in the kitchen, which is also the apartment’s dining zone. Photo: Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero).

La Suite Dolce Vita designed by Space Factory features a single-wall kitchen with arched mirrors across its length, reflecting the surrounding light and enlarging the space. Architect Ophélie Doria explains “We wanted to maximise light circulation so that either side of the apartment can receive light throughout the day.” Photos: Armand Carrel.

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Writing:

Eloïse Lachicorée

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