A calm, high-storage small kitchen at $1,500

The kitchen we started from

A one-wall apartment kitchen, roughly eight feet of run, pale grey slab cabinets, a laminate counter with a toaster, a kettle, a knife block, a fruit bowl and a drying rack permanently in place, and one narrow pantry cabinet with a single fixed shelf.

What the redesign is for

Reclaim the counter by giving every object a place, and let the resulting emptiness do the decorating.

What changed, and why it works

1. 01The pantry cabinet gets a real interior

   A single fixed shelf wastes most of a tall cabinet. Adjustable risers, a pull-out basket at the bottom and decanted containers for the things you buy in bags turn one shelf into four usable zones. This is where the counter clutter goes.

2. 02Drawer dividers, so drawers stop being one drawer

   A divided drawer holds roughly twice what an undivided one does, because nothing has to be piled to be reachable.

3. 03A single open shelf, styled sparsely

   One smoked-oak shelf with four objects on it. In Japandi the empty space between objects is the composition — a full shelf is a different style and a busier room.

4. 04Under-cabinet task light

   A one-wall kitchen is usually lit by a single ceiling fixture behind you, which means you work in your own shadow. A warm strip under the uppers fixes the practical problem and makes the counter surface look better at the same time.

What stayed exactly as it was

• The cabinet fronts

  Pale grey slab doors stay. They are already quiet, and in a room this small the doors are not the problem — what is piled on the counter in front of them is.

• The counter

  Laminate stays, and it is about to be visible for the first time in years. A surface nobody has properly seen usually looks better than the one people remember.

• The layout

  Eight feet is eight feet, and nothing here pretends otherwise. The plan buys back counter space rather than square footage, because that is the only kind available.