Small kitchens in Tenerife

Small kitchens in Tenerife are the norm in many flats in Santa Cruz and La Laguna: rooms of just a few square metres, often narrow, with a window onto a light well and only one free wall for the sink. In that space, a badly fitted standard unit can cost you a whole cabinet. That is why made-to-measure building makes more of a difference here than in any other kitchen.

Which layout suits the shape of the room

The layout depends on the floor plan, not on taste. These are the three that work best in small spaces:

L-shaped. Suits kitchens that are almost square, or where one wall has the door or window. It uses the corner for storage and leaves the middle free to move around. There is more detail on our page about L-shaped kitchens.

U-shaped. It gives the most worktop and storage in the fewest metres, but it needs an internal width of roughly 2.2 metres: 60 cm of unit on each side and a metre of walking space. Below that, a U becomes awkward and the base unit doors clash with each other.

Long and narrow. If the kitchen is a corridor, there are two options. Under 1.8 metres wide, the sensible choice is a single run of units along one wall. From about 2.1 metres you can fit a galley kitchen, with at least 90 centimetres between the two runs.

Units up to the ceiling

In a small kitchen, taking the wall units up to the ceiling is the cheapest way to gain storage. Instead of leaving 30 or 40 centimetres empty above the units (where dust and grease build up), you add a row of cupboards for the things you only use a few times a year.

Tall units help too: a single tall housing for the oven and microwave frees up the lower part for drawers, which in a small kitchen are worth more than doors because you can see everything inside. With the high ceilings of the old houses in La Laguna, this approach even allows a third level for seasonal kitchenware.

Tricks that make the kitchen feel bigger

A small kitchen looks more spacious when there are few lines breaking up the view. Flat handleless doors help, as do the same colour on wall and base units, a light continuous worktop and a splashback without joints. White and pale tones work well, as we explain on our white kitchens page, although a mid-tone also looks good if the light is decent.

Lighting under the wall units is essential. In kitchens with a window onto a light well, daylight does not reach the worktop, and without an LED strip you end up working in your own shadow.

What takes up the most space

In a small kitchen, oversized appliances and doors that clash with each other take up the most space. These points are worth checking before the design is signed off:

• A 70 cm wide fridge that forces you to give up the work area next to the hob.
• Hinged doors on the wall units that hit the extractor or your head; lift-up doors avoid the problem.
• Projecting handles in a corridor kitchen, where they catch clothes and shopping bags.
• The sink in the corner, where it is awkward and the corner space is wasted.

If your budget is tight, our affordable kitchens range works with a set choice of finishes, which is another way to keep the price down in a small kitchen too.