Space saving kitchen ideas

Despite the fact ive worked with computers my entire life, i seem to be fairly decent at DIY and my latest project is our kitchen.

We originally had a large cupboard in the corner of it, it houses the hoover, ironing board and also the gas boiler. Now me and this cupboard didn’t see eye to eye – i despised the thing as it was too big, you couldn’t actually use most of the space within it – and it was just shit.

So stage 1 was to plan how i could box the boiler in, create a useful space and maximise the room available without creating something awful like what was there before.

I did lots of research as i’d never done anything kitchen related before in my life – i searched the web for different kitchen cupboard sizes, depths, widths, and decided that to create the best, most efficient cupboard in the space available i would need 2 x 1000mm Miami wall units from Wickes, 4 x metal legs (as i was using a wall unit as a base unit) and some random screws and L brackets.

First, i built one of the Miami wall units as the one at the bottom was to be a complete unit – i attached the legs and hey presto the bottom part was complete. The second half (top bit) was going to be hugely challenging for me as i had to cut the back, top and bottom out of one side of it so i could slide it over the boiler. I dont have a workbench and ended up doing it on the wall outside with a jigsaw and a torch in my mouth – the end result was actually OK though!

I also constructed a dividing piece between the top and bottom cupboards, creating an extra space for more storage. I fitted it all together and temporarily fitted some of the doors (we’ll be having different fronts once we have chosen them for the whole kitchen) and the end result is awesome.

Once we have painted the walls behind it and ripped the floor up we can fix it to the wall – until then its freestanding but very sturdy. As soon as we have it fitted to the wall i am going to add some really unique touches to how it all works based on what we’ve learnt we need over the last 8 years of having our own house.

Its gonna be the swiss army knife of storage cupboards!