We moved into a rental house a few weeks ago and the house is quite small and everything is “efficiently spaced”.

With little counter space, we had to get creative about storage for small kitchen appliances like the blender, stand mixer, food processor and others. We basically have a large house’s worth of kitchen items to fit into a small kitchen.

We had a shelving unit we got at rummage sale for $5 a few years ago that we almost got rid of but I realized it could be used to put our appliances on. A microwave came with our rental but took up a chunk of our counter space so I moved it to the top of our shelving unit and put smaller stuff there so we could use the counter.

As you can see, the washer and dryer are also in the kitchen. We’re going to get a butcher block that lays over the top of both that we can flip up to do laundry and then lay flat when we need more counter space.

I’m a coffee lover. I drink coffee practically every morning. Becca had too much coffee once and now rarely drinks it. But when we moved in, we first realized we didn’t have a coffeemaker, as ours broke beforehand, and second that we wouldn’t have the space for a traditional drip coffeemaker.

I did some research and decided a Chemex pour over would work. Smaller, doesn’t need to sit on the counter, and a perk is that the coffee is delicious! I use an electric kettle that we received for our wedding.

Becca and I have also accumulated a lot of mugs over the 5 years together. They took up a ton of cabinet space. My father in law made me a wooden mug rack and Becca just had to add hooks. It helped us get a little more cabinet space for other things.

Washing and drying dishes was a little difficult with not a lot of space but I figured out a system that works. I put our drying rack in the right sink. Leaving more room on the counter.

Even a small rental house can feel like home! How do you organize your kitchen? Tell us in the comments!!!