When we moved from our Delaware home that had quite the spacious kitchen (SPOILER ALERT: Delaware is home again!), to our Hawai’i condo’s tiny kitchen, we knew we had to increase the footprint as much as possible. That meant cutting back walls and creating the illusion the space was larger. The design process was quite the journey and I’m excited to share some tips for maximizing a tiny kitchen’s functionality and style.

KITCHEN BEFORE | WIDEN SMALL ENTRY

Walking into the kitchen, hanging a right from the foyer hallway, felt tight. Really tight. Seeing as roughly 98 percent of our walls were concrete, we hit the blessing jackpot when we realized the kitchen entry walls were drywall. It allowed us to push those walls back on each side to create a more spacious entry.

DESIGN TIP: First impressions are everything — if you have an opportunity to gain entry space in your kitchen renovation, go for it.

Something else you can’t see from the above image is the great ocean view. The wall where we note ‘cut back wall’ was taking up some great real estate, impeding on that beautiful view. Again we hit the drywall jackpot and were able to remove about 9” of wall (before we hit concrete), which gave us more blue water views as we prepped our meals on the new peninsula.

KITCHEN BEFORE | REMOVE UPPER CABINETS

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SMALL U-SHAPED KITCHEN BEFORE | ADD FLOATING SHELVES

Now to address the overall cluttered feeling I had looking at all the cabinetry, limited counter space and oversized refrigerator (for this tiny, u-shaped kitchen).

Every kitchen renovation is not created equal. Sure, we all want great storage and pretty finishes, but what is your real life kitchen experience like. Are you in there every day cooking up a meal? More of a microwave pro? Do you prefer storage you don’t need to (or cannot) reach for?

DESIGN TIP: It’s important to press pause on all the Pinterest image saving and get honest with yourself about how you will be using your space. Once you have your ideal kitchen flow for your life planned out, Pin away!

We absolutely did not want many upper cabinets this round, instead preferring to utilize floating shelves where our classic, white, dinnerware collection from Williams Sonoma could shine along with fun decor, pretty greenery and/or art that could be mixed up with my mood.

DESIGN TIP: Open shelving (or glass-front cabinets that go to the ceiling) creates the illusion of more space. Running consistent backsplash tile from counter to ceiling also makes the ceiling height appear taller.

Maximizing the floorplan to include a lower cabinet, corner lazy susan for our pots and pans, a 9” wide cabinet to store our baking sheets and cutting boards, and filling the peninsula with seven drawers of varying sizes to store our drinkware, additional dinnerware, bakeware, silverware, tupperware, and house a built-in style microwave was also ideal for our needs.

BEFORE | CONCEAL ELECTRIC PANEL

SMALL KITCHEN BEFORE | HIDE ELECTRICAL PANEL

Our biggest challenge in this tiny kitchen was the eye-sore of an electrical panel placed in the most, well, uncool location. We did not want to move the panel for a variety of reasons and placing a piece of art over it just wasn’t going to cut it.

When re-working the plan (see below), I designed a tall cabinet to conceal the panel while allowing easy access to it (our finish carpenters cut the back of the cabinet to align with the panel’s size), and also to provide more storage for things like our toaster, Vitamix, coffee maker when not in use, and our Le Creuset dutch oven.

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ELEVATION DRAWING | FLOATING SHELVES | TALL CABINET

KITCHEN MATERIALS | MIXING FINISHES

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Remember when I said to get honest with yourself before you go Pinterest crazy? I practice what I preach and as much as I wanted to go bold with a fun, patterned, backsplash tile because it was Hawai’i, I had to have a heart-to-heart with myself. I’m a moody, neutral, textural lover forever. I swear I get itchy even knowing I have too much color or pattern in an outfit. Luckily, my husband loves those cosy, forever fall, hues as much as I do and was completely on-board with the selections.

FLOORET FLOORING

The first selection we made was our flooring because it was being run throughout the condo. We went with Flooret’s Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring in Sutton. The Flooret product aligned with our aesthetic goals, allowed us to just lay the flooring without a sound underlayment (it met our condo’s requirements as-is) and it’s waterproof — a major plus in Hawai’i! For more information about the Flooret product, check out my video where I dive further into the details and our plans!

DESIGN TIP: Pick whatever material/finish you’re most passionate about first and build on it as you design and select your other materials.

KEMPER SHAKER CABINETS

Once the flooring was selected, we could move on to the cabinet style and color. I love a classic shaker cabinet and while I wanted to maximize the illusion of a larger space, going white just didn’t give me the warmth we wanted. We instead opted for a color within the Kemper line called Dove — a perfect blend of creamy beige and gray. We also opted to utilize the same cabinet color on our floating shelves to keep it classic.

SOAPSTONE COUNTERS

I may have stretched the truth when I said the first selection we made was the flooring… I have always wanted Soapstone kitchen counters in my own home. I questioned using it in our Hawai’i condo a lot. Not because the stone isn’t amazing in every way (and practical), but again because it didn’t meet the stereotypical ‘beach house’ material check list. Well, I quickly got over that and stayed true to us!

What was even better? Because we chose to be true to us, nobody else on the island wanted the fabulous slab we picked up at Daltile. Win-win for us. The folks over at Todd Branson Stoneworks fabricated and installed it for us and let me tell you — great people and great craftsmanship. Check out this fun and detailed video about the process so you’re as educated as it gets when you embark on your kitchen counter endeavor!

HAND-CRAFTED 3x12 WHITE SUBWAY TILE

With the light warmth of the dove cabinets, going bright with pure white subway tile brought in another classic, bistro-inspired element. To create another illusion of length around the two focal walls, we went with a longer, 3x12, hand-crafted tile laid in a brick pattern.

BRASS HARDWARE

I’ve also been itching to use brass hardware in my own projects (and matte black plumbing fixtures — which I used for our kitchen faucet). I sourced many, many options before deciding on these Ridgon drawer pulls from Rejuvenation. They were the perfect balance of modern-traditional and the details aligned with the Hudson Valley flushmount ceiling lights I had my eyes on.

OUR U-SHAPED KITCHEN REVEAL

We cherished our time spent in our little Hawaiian-Parisian kitchen! It may have been small, but it was filled with functional finishes and beautiful touches unique to our lives. What will our next Delaware kitchen look like? Stay tuned and enjoy this pretty in the interim!

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