How to Unpack into a Small Kitchen

No room causes more unpacking stress than the kitchen. And when your kitchen is the size of a semi-generous walk-in closet, that stress tends to get amplified. Figuring out how to unpack into a small kitchen is no small feat. After all, there’s a lot that has to go in there, ample cabinet space or not.

Regardless of the size of your kitchen, the space needs to be functional and well-organized. That means unpacking smartly, with an eye toward comfort and usability. And while it might not be easy, it certainly is possible. These tips for organizing your kitchen will get you started.

Make a plan

You should always have a general idea of how you want to organize your kitchen before you get started unpacking, and this is especially true when you’re short on space. In a small kitchen, each shelf, cabinet, and square inch of counter space is valuable, so you need to make sure you’re making good use of them. Start with one major category of kitchen items—say, your plates and bowls—and delineate the ideal spot for them. Do the same with your other kitchen essentials, including glassware, small appliances, pots and pans, storage containers, etc. It might be a bit of a puzzle figuring out where everything is going to go, but it’s much easier to tackle placement now than once you’ve started filling the space up with items.

Unpack the essentials first

The things that you use most regularly are the things that you can’t do without, so those are the first items that should find a place in your new kitchen. These tend to include things like plates, dish towels, knives, cutting boards, and anything else that’s often winding up in the sink or dishwasher because of use. If you’re tasked with deciding how to unpack into a small kitchen, chances are you’ve already accepted that you’re going to have to be selective about what items have a home in there. Focus on the things that you utilize most often, and then, if there’s room, you can find a place for less frequently utilized items. And for those things that don’t make the cut? Find another place for them in your home, outside of the kitchen. You’ll always be able to grab them when you finally have a need.

Think vertical

Stacking is the name of the game in a small kitchen. Make as much use of vertical space in your cabinets as you can—stacking your pots, serving dishes, and more as high as you can, as safely as you can. Sure it will take some extra work when you need to grab an item that’s not right at the top of the stack, but at least you’ll have it available. Just be careful with your stacking so that nothing is at risk of tipping over, and never stack heavy items on top of lighter ones.

Be smart about counter space

Just because you don’t have a ton of counter space doesn’t mean you can’t make use of what’s there. While you certainly want to be sure to save yourself enough room for food preparation, you’d be surprised how much you can fit on the counters without taking away from their usability. Look to corners first, which tend to offer a lot of depth without a ton of functionality. Those are good places for small appliances that you don’t have room for in your cabinets, like toasters or stand mixers. For the rest of the space, you’ll likely have a few inches toward the back end of the counters that you can utilize for things like a knife block and a narrow spice rack—both of which take things that otherwise would be using up a lot of space in your drawers and put them on the counter instead. While you don’t want to clutter your counter tops, if you have to unpack into a small kitchen you may as well make as much use of your counter space as you can.

Look beyond the obvious spots

When you’re thinking of where to unpack in the kitchen you’re probably going to focus first on the spaces intended for the storage purposes, i.e. your cabinets, drawers, and shelves. But just because a space isn’t intended for storage doesn’t mean it can be used for it. Use the top of your fridge to store small appliances that don’t get used every day and other larger items that have nowhere else to go. You can then use your oven and broiler to store things like baking sheets and oven-proof baking dishes; just be sure to remove them before turning on the heat to cook (and never store anything in the oven or broiler than isn’t heat proof, just in case you do forget to remove them first). While these certainly aren’t your typical storage spaces, if you’re trying to make do in a small kitchen they provide ample additional space for housing large items.

Add in some extra storage

There are plenty of creative storage solutions for kitchens, both DIY and available for purchase. Don’t let wall space go to waste—hang some shelves or cubbies, or even a bar that can be used to hang dish towels. Invest in a storage cart, which you can find in a range of sizes to fit most spaces. You can also find storage solutions that can be attached to your refrigerator doors, cabinet doors, under cabinet space, and more, providing much-needed added storage to areas that otherwise would have gone to waste. And finally, don’t forget cabinet dividers and in-cabinet wire shelving, which can make your shelf space significantly more productive.

Use in-drawer dividers

One of the trickiest parts of figuring out how to unpack into a small kitchen is fitting everything in a small space without having it end up looking a total mess. This is particularly true for drawers, which can easily become overly cluttered with small items, making it incredibly difficult to find what you’re looking for when you need it. Fortunately, there are lots of super affordable drawer divider options that make it easy to stay organized when storing your flatware, small kitchen gadgets, and the like.

Keep an inventory

You may want to consider keeping a running list of what’s where, particularly if you’re trying to use every inch of space (and if you have a small kitchen, you probably are). This will save you from the frustration of needing to hunt down items, and will also free you up to be a little bit more ruthless in how you fill your cabinets and drawers. Once you’re more familiar with the organization of your kitchen you can get rid of the list, though in general it’s a good thing to keep around.

If you don’t need it, don’t keep it

Packing is the best time to edit down your belongings, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue the process while you’re unpacking. Organizing into a small kitchen will give you a better perspective regarding what your true necessities are, since you’ll be forced to figure out exactly what you use the most and need on hand. Aspirational kitchen items and items you’re simply moving from place to place because that’s what you’ve always done become a lot more difficult to justify holding onto when there’s no place to put them. So be picky about what kitchen-related items you want and need, and donate the rest. Things like plastic storage container lids with no base and old scratched-up water bottles that never get used anymore can be recycled instead.

Re-evaluate as needed

You may realize after a few days or weeks of actually using your kitchen that the way you unpacked doesn’t make a lot of sense or doesn’t work for how you actually use the space. That’s totally okay. Re-evaluate and rearrange as necessary, making changes as needed to make your small kitchen as functional as possible. This may mean finding another space for things that you thought you would use regularly but actually don’t, or swapping the location of certain items. It’s difficult to get it 100 percent right the first time, so if you notice something off about how you unpacked, just make a few changes until you get it exactly how you want it.

Don’t get frustrated about unpacking into your small kitchen—get creative. It may take a bit of extra brainstorming to find the optimal place for all your kitchen items, but eventually everything will end up where it needs to be. As for finding the space to cook that elaborate meal you want to make? That’s a whole different story.