Suffering from cramped cooking quarters? Here are a few tips to make the most of a tight space.

Not all of us are lucky enough to have a big kitchen. But these clever tips can make your cosy cooking nook work like a dream.

Planning tricks

• If you can afford it, custom design cupboards so they store your kitchen gear perfectly, with not a skerrick of wasted space. It might require more intensive planning with your kitchen designer, but it's worth it.
• Make use of all your valuable wall space. Put up a utensil rack, a mini cabinet or a shelf for extra storage. Hanging your utensils or pots on a rack will free up a cupboard or drawer, which you can then use to stow something else!
• Put your microwave oven on its own shelf, or even on top of the fridge, to free up precious benchspace.
• Invest in a pantry with pull-out drawers, so you use every centimetre of storage - even those bits right down the back!
• Remember, drawer fronts can disguise an extra chopping board, an ironing board, a deep drawer for pots and pans, a rack for tea-towels - the possibilities are endless.
• Choose display features that are also functional. Store often-used crockery on open shelves or in an old-fashioned dish rack, and show off glassware in glass-fronted cupboards - you'll keep them dust-free.
• Effectively double the amount you store in a pantry cupboard by using stacking plastic containers. You can also get more storage by fitting narrow metal racks and hooks to the insides of cupboards to hold smaller items.
• Choose compact appliances, which are less than the 600mm standard width, so you can get more cupboard space in your kitchen. Locate them to maximise uninterrupted lengths of benchspace.

Fool your eyes

• Use the floor to make your small kitchen look larger. Polished tongue-and-groove floors visually length a space, tiles laid on the diagonal will make it look wider, and subtle finishes in light colours - pale tiles or vinyl - will expand rather than close in the kitchen.
• Keep finishes on cupboards, benchtops and splashbacks understated, so it doesn't feel like they're 'crowding' the room.

Tip
We all know about the perfect 'kitchen work triangle', that is, having the fridge, sink and cooktop within three steps of each other. But in a small kitchen, sometimes this means your cooktop is right near your fridge - not good for keeping things cold! If you do have to put your fridge and cooktop side by side, make sure there's an insulating panel between them.