Are you living with a rental kitchen that has very little counter space, few cupboards, and non-existent pantry? Read on to see how we’re dealing with these issues in our latest rental!

Don’t settle for a space that doesn’t work for you!

As you know if you read my post about Okinawa, we are a military family who moves every three years. We have bought and remodeled homes to make them work for us, and we have been at the mercy of foreign countries, thankful for what we were given. Even though we are back in the states, with prices as they are here in SoCal, it feels as if we are still in the latter! Thank you, USNH for providing homes for us in places where we couldn’t make it on our own.

As grateful as we are for the bunkers we are sometimes offered, for a family that prepares 90+% of our meals from scratch at home, these rental kitchens do not cut it.

We have been given a BEAUTIFUL home this time. Everything is new and fresh and soo cute compared to what we just came from! But it is a modern home to the max. It has three bedrooms, two of which are masters! They all have huge closets, and there are 4 bathrooms. It’s all a dream… except for when it comes to the kitchen. As the movers brought box after box into the kitchen, one man looked at me and said,

“Mam, I think you have a lot to get rid of. All of this will not fit in your new kitchen!”

That man didn’t know who he was dealing with! Yes, we have a lot, but we use it all. This is a full-time operation here, and everything we have serves a purpose. My stuff is not the problem— it’s the TINY modern kitchen! For so long, I had dreamed of what our future might be when we came back to the states. I envisioned having chickens and a cow, a lush garden, and a kitchen that could stand up to my workload. But here we are in this cutesy little neighborhood with intense HOA restrictions, a cement pad for a backyard and a kitchen incapable of meeting my demands. I cried a few times. But it gives me all the more fodder for being able to share how we are preparing for our future homestead while in frustrating circumstances.

I’m going to start by saying that beauty is a genuine necessity for me. I was answering a questionnaire that helps people come up with their core values or mission statements, and it became OBVIOUS that beauty is a high priority in my life. But I’m not into the rental kitchen makeovers where you buy temporary wallpaper and cover all the cupboards, etc… We’re going for function here. Make it beautiful by showcasing the beautiful things you have! Remember, we want to buy cows and fences and barns someday soon! We’re not wasting money on things that will hold no value for our future.

How To Fix a Useless Rental Kitchen

1) Shop your house for extra furniture.

This turquoise cabinet has been by all of our front doors for the last 16 years, holding binoculars, backpacks, spare change, etc… But when we saw that there was no cupboard space for things like our food processor and blender, we had to look around. All the outing gear found a new home in our coat closet, and we gained some extra cabinet space!

2) Look for storage solutions that are beautiful as well as functional.

These beautiful baskets are traditional rice baskets that we bought in Okinawa. I had been looking for something to hold our bulk oatmeal and wheat berries and couldn’t contain my joy when I found these beauties! They hold as much as a five gallon bucket, but are so much cuter to have out! I try to do that as much as possible. If I need a new spray bottle, I look for one that would be cute sitting out on a shelf. I’m not a decoration person, but I love to see my beautiful things that serve a purpose.

3) Use bookshelves and jars for an attractive exposed pantry.

This goes along the lines of shopping your house. I’m a homeschool mom, and the larger shelf was filled with all kinds of books and curriculum (and yes, plants!). It was hard finding a new place for all of that, but I did not have a choice! I had already been using the smaller one as an exposed pantry for all of my bulk items (the ones I don’t blow through fast enough to be worth keeping all 50lbs close!). Our jars are all mismatched, but I like that better than the super curated look of matching ones. Plus, the food all requires such different sizes. So don’t be afraid of it looking sloppy—if they’re all glass, it will still look great. We had to use these shelves for extra dishes, as well, so I’m embracing the eclectic look! (I keep a little ground rye and mixed flours in the ceramic crocks—not everything has to be in see-through jars!)

4) Find non-negotiables for counter space and remove everything else.

Aside from a little island, we initially just had 3 tiny counters to work with. Obvious counter priorities are the stand mixer and our wheat grinder. They are heavy to move, used regularly, and attractive enough to feel okay having them out all the time! With the lack of drawers, we needed to have our large utensils in a crock on the counter. No cupboards even tall enough to hold our cooking oil jars meant they needed to be on the counters as well. And then, my beloved Charlie has a thing about toast. He lets me do whatever I want with the kitchen as long as his toaster is out! Ha ha. I’m happy to oblige. That meant that everything else needed to find a new home. The lesser used items went out to the garage, some went in the cabinet we brought in, and my insta pot is under the kitchen sink. Get creative and don’t be afraid to do things in an unconventional way!

5) Look for ways to utilize vertical space.

With everything being exposed and it being such a small space, I really wanted to have my island wide open with a fresh bouquet of flowers. It’s clean and adds an airiness to a cluttered space. But where were my knives going to go!? There wasn’t even a wall available enough to mount a magnet to that wouldn’t entail something like knocking over the olive oil…or was there? Of course Charlie found a way! He attached a magnet to a piece of wood, which he attached to two pieces of sheet metal on the ends. He unscrewed the refrigerator handle, slipped that sheet metal under it, then put the handle back on and attached it in the back as well. Wa la la! Solid as could be! I couldn’t believe he had come up with a way to make it work!!

6) Bring in an island or expand an existing one.

Our kitchen came with an island, but it was soo small. The room had the space to add a larger counter, so we found a wooden ikea desktop on Craigslist and it was perfect! Charlie was able to add a few extra pieces of wood underneath to attach it damage-free to the existing counter. This simple ingenuity made for a super solid counter. It also gave us a place to store our trash and recycling and our produce cart without them being in the way!

Charlie added this sweet little bonus for my griddle! I love not having to store it on top of the fridge anymore! I l’m enjoying having the paper towels off the counter, too. Never had a paper towel holder before!

7) Find gaps or unused space and fill it.

Our first time using our oven, we had a small kitchen fire! I didn’t realize that the drawer at the bottom where I normally stored baking sheets (and silicone liners!) was actually our broiler. Even if you’re just baking up top, that broiler is blazing away down there. Those mats caught fire, and we learned that we had the new problem of finding a home for the baking sheets! We had a large gap between the refrigerator and a cupboard, so Charlie got to work. We bought a cutting board that was larger than that counter, and he filled the space on the bottom with a new vertical little cabinet. It’s simple and imperfect, but you’d have to be looking closely to even realize it’s not part of the cabinetry. Again, so thankful to have a place for those pans!!

8) Think outside the kitchen.

The drawers in our kitchen are so small, that our basic silverware holder doesn’t even fit in them! Our dining room is close to the kitchen, so finding those guys a home in our buffet table was an easy solution. It’s still hard having the silverware outside of arms’ reach when cooking! I bet you don’t even realize how many times you dip into that drawer when you’re cooking! I grabbed a little vase to put a few spoons and tools that I found myself reaching for time and again next to the stove. We keep all of our kitchen towels and tablecloths in the other drawers.

It makes setting the table a breeze! So much so, that we put up shelves to free up more cabinet space in the kitchen. We moved our dishes over to those shelves, so everything we need dish-wise for eating is right there.

Out in the garage, we have several bins on shelves that are full of our bulk food. We buy beans and grains in 25-50lb bags. We keep an extra of certain items that we never want to run out of on hand in the garage. Also, empty mason jars. In Okinawa, we didn’t have a garage, nor would anything have lasted in that humidity! We had friends that kept food in shoe totes under beds. Think outside the box!

There are a million ways to transform a dud of a rental kitchen! I’m here to encourage you to not put off doing more because of lack of function. You might have to get really creative, but the solutions are there and you can have a “from scratch” kitchen regardless of what it was the day you moved in!

Leave a comment if any of these solutions inspired you to make your rental kitchen alittle more user friendly!