A small kitchen can benefit from careful planning as well as good use of color and light, coupled with strong design. For instance, bringing in more light (such as skylights) into your kitchen will make it appear larger and brighter. Strong use of horizontal lines (using kitchen cabinets) can draw the eye outwards to visually lengthen your kitchen. Using light colors in your kitchen color scheme can also make your kitchen appear larger. A good trick is to use a monochromatic color scheme (that is doors, countertops and splash back in a similar color) to increase the apparent space of your kitchen.

If the minimalist style does not suit the rest of the room, then decorating the kitchen using pot racks with only the necessary things like for cooking should be the wisest thing to do. After all, people can choose to eat together in other room than the kitchen, especially if there is a large family. Therefore, eliminating the table and the chairs from the kitchen can save its owners from a lot of thinking and problems, as an important part of the kitchen will not be occupied no more.
As well, with some little investments, people can choose to compartment the room in a solid mono block for each wall. Therefore, if they can find a solution to insert the cooking area and cooking machines on one wall, wall that would support some closets and maybe the cooking table as well ¨C it can be a sliding cooking table-, then the rest of the room will be completely for free. This way, there will be enough room even for a table and some chairs and even for walking through the kitchen.

The need for small kitchen design does not necessarily mean that your little kitchen must be a disappointment. These days everything gets smaller phones, home video discs, MP3 players. It¡¯s not necessarily a bad thing. Look at the less room for you as an opportunity to flex your creative muscles. The small kitchen is definitely creativity needed to make the most of the available space, but it may be more practical and result in you spending less time in the kitchen and more in the parts of the house where, perhaps, you¡¯d be pretty. To make your kitchen really stand out, here are six of the best ideas for maximizing space and efficiency:

Storage space. If you have less room to move, you must be sure that you get the most out of the kitchen¡¯s capacity to keep appliances, pots, pans, utensils and other things that belong there. Nothing is quite as frustrating as limited space for movement and storage. Therefore it is important, no matter what the final design you choose is, to include plenty of storage space for items that are not used. To help with this function you wish to place an island in the middle of the kitchen that can handle both storage and use. If that means a place to chop onions, prepare meals for the oven, or even a place to barbecue, the island can combine functionality leaves you with less space requirements. 

(Article From kitchen-ideas-for.com)