Small Kitchen Ideas: Planning a Compact Kitchen Properly

A small kitchen isn’t just a big kitchen with less of everything — it needs different decisions. Try to shrink a standard kitchen and you end up with an awkward, crowded room. Plan a small kitchen from first principles and you get a space that feels bigger than it is and works better than most large kitchens. Here are the small kitchen ideas our designers use on projects under 10 sqm.

Pick the layout the room actually wants

The three layouts that work in small kitchens, in order of preference:

• Galley (two facing runs) — the most efficient layout ever designed. Nothing beats two walls of cabinets with 1,000–1,200 mm between them. See our separate guide on galley kitchen ideas.
• L-shape — good when only two walls are usable. Leaves a corner to solve (magic corner, carousel, or blind base unit).
• Single run — only choice in very narrow rooms. Usually gets the sink centred and wall of tall units at one end.

U-shapes and islands rarely work in genuinely small kitchens. If you’re being shown a U-shape in a sub-10 sqm room, your designer is pushing against the geometry.

Go tall, not wide

In a small kitchen, floor space is the scarce resource. Vertical space is free. Full-height wall cabinets (720–900 mm tall) give you roughly 20% more storage than standard 575 mm wall units with no extra footprint. Tall larder units replace base + wall + overhead in one run, and leave you more open wall for worktop elsewhere.

Handleless, or near-handleless

Handles are 30–40 mm of projection into the room every time you walk past. In a narrow kitchen, that matters. Our Pollino True Handleless range is true handleless — a continuous rail at finger height — and our Bowden and Sensia ranges both offer recessed or minimal handle options. Any of them makes a small kitchen feel calmer.

Light colours, matt finish, one material

Three rules stacked:

1. Light colours reflect light — non-negotiable in a small north-facing kitchen.
2. matt finish finishes hide fingerprints and grease better than gloss in a compact space where hands are always close to cabinet doors.
3. Use one cabinet colour and let the worktop or splashback do the accent. Two strong colours fight each other in a small room.

Drawers, not cupboards, below worktop

Base cupboards waste their back third — you can’t reach it without kneeling. Deep pan drawers (one deep, or two medium) fit more and give access to all of it. In a small kitchen where every cabinet has to earn its space, switch base cupboards to drawers everywhere except the sink run.

Integrated appliances, smaller than standard

Small kitchens don’t need the 60 cm versions of everything. A 45 cm dishwasher is enough for two people. A single oven with combination microwave above it takes less wall than a double oven tower. An integrated under-counter fridge with separate freezer drawer in the utility (if you have one) keeps the kitchen runs clean.

Splashback tricks that open the room up

• Full-height splashback — worktop to wall cabinets in one material (porcelain, glass, quartz). No grout lines, no horizontal visual breaks.
• Mirrored splashback — the oldest trick in small-kitchen design, and it still works.
• Light-coloured large-format tile — fewer grout lines = visually larger room.

Lighting: layered, not single-source

One pendant in the ceiling makes a small kitchen feel like a corridor. We specify four layers: under-cabinet task lighting, overhead ambient, accent in glass cabinets, and (where possible) low-level plinth lighting. The plinth lighting is the one that actually makes the kitchen feel to float — worth the extra cost every time.

Which Deelux ranges suit small kitchens

• Bowden — modern gloss, built for compact kitchens, from £7,500.
• Pollino — modern matt, warm colour palette, great in a small kitchen that needs to feel softer.
• Pollino True Handleless — true handleless, ideal when the room is narrow and handles would project too far.

See a small kitchen in person

Several of our showroom kitchens are deliberately set up at small-kitchen scale so you can feel the proportions. Drop into the Chester showroom, Nantwich showroom or Warrington showroom showroom with a floor plan and we’ll sketch the options on the spot. Every quote comes with free 3D visuals of your actual room.

Related: modern kitchens, matt finish, Why Deelux.