Tips for creating space in small kitchens by using large tiles and other tricks

The kitchen is the heart of the home; where families gather in the morning and where they eat at night. Unfortunately many a home suffers from a small kitchen, making it difficult for the room to live up to its potential as one of the interior focal points of life and activity. For this reason, DIY-ers, decorators and designers have long tried to discover ways to enhance the space of a small kitchen, making it more suited to its needs and a much more pleasant place to be in general.

Today, there is a whole host of ways that homeowners looking to decorate their kitchen can try to increase the appearance of space in their small interior rooms, ranging from floor laying techniques to colour schemes. Here is a collection of some of the most popular and effective:

• Large tiles are best

Time and time again we’re told that large tiles help to create a sense of space. Granted they minimize the amount of visual joins in the room, allowing for a sense of continuity between wall and floor, but they do have to be installed correctly for this to happen. Make sure you pick a tile that’s not too large or too small, because if you end up with one single grouting line down the centre of your room then things could end up looking a little odd and no bigger at all! Try to opt for a tile size that will give a good coverage of grouting lines, while ensuring these are kept to a suitable minimum. Afterwards, these can be hidden by grouting them in a suitable and similar colour tone.  To see some examples, check out Direct Tile Warehouses Large Floor Tiles

• Laying large tiles the right way

Believe it or not, the way we lay tiles on the floor can have a profound effect on the finished impression of space in a room. Opting for a diagonal pattern tends to be the most effective method for creating room, as it forces the human eye to follow the longest possible patch across the surface. Other methods include actually making use of visual divides in colour, tone or grout (the very ones we tried to avoid in part one) in a horizontally laid pattern across the room’s narrowest part. This can help increase the illusion of length in a room, making it a great choice for longer, narrower kitchens.

• The all-important colour scheme

Choosing the right colour scheme is another of the most important features of decorating a small kitchen for space. The general consensus is that monochrome, light hues, help to reflect light, eliminate visual divisions on both the wall and floor and create an air of cleanliness that’s pleasant throughout. This means whites, off-whites and light shades of other colours, while decorators will have to make sure their chosen scheme works well with their kitchen fixtures as well!

• Clever storage solutions

Being creative with your storage solutions means much more than just getting the newest and most advanced cupboards from IKEA. It also means thinking about how to maximise space by replacing opaque boards with glass, leading peoples’ eyes into the depths of your units and giving them the impression of increased room. It also means making cleaver use of lighting on the fixtures to increase the illumination both above and below the units. This can help turn a simple cupboard or extractor fan into another source of that much-needed light, adding space and airiness to an otherwise dark and tight-knit corner.

• Built in appliances to boot

Today, built in appliances are all the rage. They are used in big kitchens for convenience, but can help create much more space in small kitchens by maximizing floor space and square footage greatly. This means concealing your fridge beneath a fixture, placing your microwave in an alcove, and removing any additional appliances to a different room, if possible (the Europeans even put the washing machine in the bathroom, if you’re feeling continental!).

Ready to enhance the space in your small kitchen? Give us a call or send us an email for a free in home estimate!