A small well set up kitchen with a clear worktop and an open shelf

How to Set Up a Small Kitchen

A small kitchen is not really a storage problem. It is a decisions problem. Fewer things, each with a home, and a worktop you can actually cook on. Here is the order we would do it in.

1. Buy the short list, not the big set

Kitchen sets are sold by the piece count, which is exactly the wrong way to buy for a small kitchen. Most cooking is done with about eight things.

  • One good frying pan and one saucepan with a lid
  • A large chopping board
  • One sharp knife, plus a small one
  • A wooden spoon, a spatula and tongs
  • A colander and one mixing bowl
  • A baking tray

Everything past that list is worth buying only when you find yourself missing it twice.

A small set of kitchen essentials laid out on a wooden worktop
Eight things cover most cooking. The rest is worth buying only when you miss it twice.

2. Store things where you use them

Pans by the hob. Board and knives by the main chopping space. Mugs and tea above the kettle. Sounds obvious, and almost no kitchen is set up this way, because things get put away wherever there was a gap on moving day.

Spend twenty minutes moving cupboards around to match how you actually cook. It is the cheapest upgrade in this whole article.

3. Keep the worktop for cooking

In a small kitchen the worktop is the only place you can work, so it cannot also be a storage shelf. Two appliances out at most, grouped in one corner, and the rest of the run kept clear.

If you want the longer version of this, we wrote one: The Case for a Clear Worktop.

4. Use the wall

Walls are the free storage in a small kitchen. A hanging rail takes utensils off the worktop, a magnetic strip replaces a knife block, and a narrow shelf holds oils and spices without eating into your cupboards.

A kitchen wall with a hanging utensil rail and a narrow spice shelf above a clear worktop
A rail, a strip and a narrow shelf. Everything hung is one less thing on the worktop.

5. Sort the cupboard you cannot see into

Every kitchen has one deep cupboard where things go to be forgotten. Put a couple of open baskets in it and pull them out like drawers. You get the back of the cupboard back, which in a small kitchen is a real amount of space.

6. Do the last two minutes

Wash up or load the machine, clear the worktop, wipe it down. In a small kitchen this matters more than anywhere else, because there is no spare surface to absorb yesterday.

Setting up from scratch? Our kitchen collection is built around exactly this list.

Back to blog