The Property Brothers' Tips To Make A Small Kitchen Feel Larger

The kitchen is the heart of every household. It's where you start your day with breakfast and a cup of coffee or tea, where you gather with friends and family while dinner is in the oven, and where you go to find a satisfying snack throughout the day. But when you have a small kitchen, these everyday routines can start to feel a bit cramped and cluttered. The good news? It doesn't have to feel that way!

Having a small kitchen shouldn't stop you from creating a functional space that works for you and your family. There are many clever and efficient ways to make the most of a small kitchen, like arranging your counter space more adeptly and incorporating smart storage solutions. However, the Property Brothers (a.k.a. Drew and Jonathan Scott) are spilling two of their best ideas for making your kitchen feel larger. While there are dozens of small kitchen ideas to make your space seem bigger, the Property Brothers swear by these two tips: brightening up your kitchen's color palette and panel-ready appliances. If there's one thing that almost always makes a kitchen feel smaller than it already is, it's dark cabinets. Drew reveals that many homeowners love and often prefer an all-white kitchen because it's lighter and brighter, which ultimately helps make the space feel bigger.

To bring the same effect to your space, consider painting your kitchen cabinets a brighter or more neutral color to help make it feel more spacious and airier. While white will always be a classic and timeless color for your kitchen cabinets, don't be afraid to use other bold, HGTV star-approved kitchen cabinet colors like shades of pink, blue, or green. This can sound like a daunting DIY project, but you can actually paint your kitchen cabinets in just one day with all the right cabinet painting tools and an oil-based paint.

The design duo also recommends incorporating panel-ready appliances to your small kitchen for a more seamless and less cluttered look. Panel-ready appliances (mostly dishwashers and refrigerators) come nearly identical to your typical stainless-steel models, just with an added custom panel that matches the rest of your kitchen cabinet fronts so that they blend in. During a "Celebrity IOU" episode (Season 8, episode "Zach Braff Masters a Custom Remodel") Jonathan explains, "Everything's integrated — it just makes it look clean, the aesthetic is minimal, which is nice."

While the benefits include having a more seamless and minimalistic design, they do come with a higher price tag. So, you'll want to weigh the pros and cons before deciding if panel-ready appliances might be a good option for your kitchen. Another similar alternative is to hide all your kitchen appliances with TikTok's brilliant cabinet hack by simply concealing them inside a cabinet to achieve the same seamless look.