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When you’re customizing tiny house kitchens, the possibilities are endless. The goal is to build in space-saving features that ultimately provide you with all of the necessities and then some.
Tiny house kitchens tend to be an extension of their owner’s personalities. That’s because virtually all tiny houses are a custom creation. There are plenty of options to purchase preloved homes too, but even then you’re apt to want to make adjustments to suit your needs.
Multi-Functional Design
Economically utilizing the designated space in tiny house kitchens is essential. Much like a multi-purpose knife with a corkscrew, bottle opener, and straightedge, the best furniture and accessories serve more than one purpose.
Tables and chairs
Tiny house designer Ana White is a genius when it comes to thinking up different ways to configure a piece of furniture. For example, her custom multi-functional end tables have a removable top, revealing storage space. Plus, you can flip the top of the table over, and there’s a cushion side. That turns the end table into a chair. They’re on casters, so you can roll them into the dining area with ease. You can also remove the top and use the cushion to sit on your lap, and the surface becomes a desktop or TV tray.
White has a way with tables, too. She has one design in which she installed sliding doors made from barn wood, which hide storage space underneath a window. The doors fold out in three separate sections, with card table like legs that flip down, transforming the doors into tables that function as three separate workstations. Or, you can raise them all for a long dining room table to accommodate dinner guests.
Cupboards and drawers
Some uses for your kitchen drawer cubbies include a slide-out cutting board and a pop-out kitchen table. There are also savvy designs that utilize this space for appliances. How about a slide out dishwasher? Or a hideaway fridge?
And, if there’s a staircase in the house, the space beneath the stairs is fair game for hidden storage. It’s incredible how many drawers, cupboards, and pullouts you’ll find hidden in a tiny house’s staircase. With the right configuration, the stairs can become a pantry for nonperishable food storage or recessed cupboard for dishes.
Odds and ends
A cutting board is a favorite item in tiny house kitchens. It’s not only used for slicing and dicing, but also as a cover for the sink and stove. Solid small kitchen designs should always implement this easy fix to extend counter space.
Other odds and ends include builtin trash cans, hooks, baskets, and anything that follows the theme of form and function.
Secret storage
If you’re thinking about it, there are some surprising places to sneak in storage. In some cases, a raised floor offers camouflage for a repository. In most instances, any table, couch, or chair is fair game to be used as an additional place to put your stuff. Part of the fun of designing tiny house kitchens is sneaking in storage in unexpected places.
Little Touches
In the end, it’s the little things that make tiny house kitchens a place where you want to spend time. With the right setup, it’s more than a kitchen. Tiny house kitchens also function as dining rooms and workstations. And in many cases, you can even transform them into a bedroom.
Picking the right wall coverings, fixtures, backsplashes, and countertops are all the little touches that will give your tiny kitchen the character you crave. Brushed metal, stainless steel, copper, and reclaimed wood are all viable choices for your interior design.
Kitchen tech
Part of the appeal of tiny house living springs from the idea that you can take your home off the grid. To that end, much of the technology used is to attain that standard. We see lots of solar powered and battery operated equipment.
People often utilize a rainwater catch system instead of a standard plumbing setup. Under the kitchen sink, you’ll generally find an intake pipe with a pump and filter to hold sediment so it won’t contaminate the drinking water. The whole thing is powered by a battery that gets its charge from a solar panel. The water pressure may not be as strong, but it’s sufficient to do dishes and shower.
Of course, there are high-tech alternatives as well. Just take a look at the Alexa-powered Mio house for inspiration! It has a combo washer dryer installed in its modern kitchen and window that opens like an awning, with a bar for indoor/outdoor entertainment.
Windows and light
There’s no overstating how vital windows are in tiny house kitchens. They obviously make everything brighter, but they also open up the area. A skylight extends the vertical space, giving the tiny house a little more expanse. Our favorites are windows that open up like awnings or sliding glass doors. Large open windows bring the outside into your design. That extends the tiny house space in a natural way that makes it that much warmer and inviting.
Accents and accessories
Handles and hooks can get in the way, so it’s a good idea to think about not only their location, but also their construction. Most tiny house designs also incorporate some form of self-locking or soft touch mechanisms, so cupboards and cubbies don’t fall open and dump their contents during a move.
How We Reviewed Our Favorites
After thinking about all of the things that make tiny house kitchens efficient, warm, and welcoming, we came up with our top five designs. Each of them stands out in their own way with excellent use of space, eco-mindedness, unique hiding places, great light, and the best finishing touches.
Efficiency and the gourmet kitchen
Tiny house kitchens are set up in all sorts of ways, but this gourmet kitchen by Big Freedom Tiny Homes is a notch above average. Quartz countertops, a river stone backsplash, and glazed maple cabinets are elegant embellishments that add a touch of class. The hardwood floor made from a combination of maple and oak adds to the opulence.
Then there’s the kitchen nook, finished with the same quartz as the countertops and two bar stools, all placed in front of a five foot by three foot window. Beautiful!
A three-burner propane stove and oven, with an overhead three-speed exhaust fan, is the perfect little setup to cook a gourmet meal. A stainless steel refrigerator freezer combo rounds it off. In addition to the ample cabinet space, there’s some fantastic use of the space created by the staircase. The kitchen sink sits on the opposite side of the room from the stove and, next to the sink, the back of the staircase that leads to the loft transforms into a handy recessed cupboard for plates, glasses, and bowls.
Solar powered kitchen
Humble Hand Craft prides themselves on green construction and sustainable business practices. They use salvaged materials for their builds and repurpose those finds to fit their needs. Still, everything they make is a work of fine craftsmanship.
Their eco-minded tiny house kitchen is an excellent example of the quality of their work. A deep, hammered copper sink is a gorgeous combination with cabinets made from reclaimed redwood. They purchased the sink from an artist in Mexico, so they support other artists as well. And, the reclaimed redwood looks stunning with the copper accent.
An induction cooker that runs off of solar power sits on a live edged pine countertop in the corner of the tiny kitchen. Outside, there’s a one-kilowatt solar panel that powers everything. The battery with all of its hardware is tucked neatly into a hidden compartment outside on the back of the house. The panel generates enough solar thermal heating to maintain hot water for one person. Also, there is also an on-demand water heater just in case.
Surprising use of hidden storage
The Alpha offers a unique tiny house kitchen with all the amenities of a much larger space. This tiny space boasts an 11 cubic foot stainless steel refrigerator freezer combo. It also has a 30-inch built-in induction four-burner cooktop and a Cuisinart convection toaster. A 30-inch Whirlpool stainless steel wall-mounted hood tops off the cooking area.
There’s lots of storage in this amazing little kitchen, including a pullout dishwasher and drop down cabinets. But the most surprising use of a hidden space is located in the steps up to the elevated kitchen. As we mentioned earlier, any time there’s an elevated floor, there’s room for more storage. In this case, there are two pull out storage benches that function as dining room seating. In between them lies the pullout dining room table, which also offers a tremendous amount of space to store your belongings. The table has numerous configurations in addition to an eight-person capacity for eating. It can be nested or stand-alone, and it can drop down to become a bed, with a bench functioning as a side table.
Peacock gold countertops and custom cabinetry, combined with all of the stainless steel appliances and a barn wood ceiling for accent make this a sleek and modern setup. Add that to all the ingenious use of hidden storage, and you have a fantastic tiny kitchen that would make the owners of a big kitchen envious.
Light-filled luxury
Bluesky did a fabulous job of bringing lots of light into the Blue Heron’s kitchen, with a nice sized window that opens over the sink. A five-burner gas stove top is the star of the appliances, sitting atop a combination convection oven and microwave. You’ll find storage beneath the cooking area. There’s a built-in trashcan that slides out from a small cupboard between the stove and the sink, making for easy cleanup.
On the other side of the sink is five feet of counter space. If that isn’t enough, when you turn around you’ll find a kitchen island in the center of the room.
A gorgeous picture window fills the wall space on the far side of the kitchen. And a cushioned bench, with storage, fits neatly in front of the window, making for a warm, light reading nook. That’s not the best part though. The kitchen island transforms into a dining room table when you release the latches. You pull the island toward you, and it slides smoothly down, stopping in front of the bench. Brilliant! Now you have a light-filled dining room.
The finishing touches
The Lucky Penny is barely over a hundred square feet, and this little Vardo-style Romanian gypsy wagon takes advantage of every square inch. There’s a skylight that runs all the way from the door entry to the back of the room. That gives this small magical space the feel of a much bigger area. The rounded main window and doorframe echo the Vardo style. According to the designer, Lena from Niche Consulting, emerging from the confined area at the entryway into the main room with the skylight gives you the sense that you’re walking into a much bigger space.
The kitchen takes up one side of the room, and the mini refrigerator does triple duty as an end table. Then, it acts as a support for the pull out bed, as well as keeping food cold. It’s painted copper for camouflage and also because copper is the accent of choice; hence the name, the Lucky Penny. Lena’s design incorporates a hammered copper sink, which has a lovely patina, and other copper accents — such as the storage canisters displayed on the counter.
There’s plenty of storage space with cubbies along the skylight and an exquisite Japanese tansu storage chest that is also a staircase, so reaching those cabinets on the ceiling isn’t a problem.
Tiny House Kitchens and Their Big Personalities
Tiny house kitchens are versatile out of necessity. It’s refreshing to realize that need calls for a creative mind as well. There are people from all walks of life joining in and building their dream homes on a small scale. From gourmet to eco-friendly setups, tiny house kitchens have it all and then some. What an original way to express your personality!
