I Love Vegan BTS: The Teeny Tiny Kitchen in 552 ft²

It’s that time of year again, it’s the Vegan Month Of Food! We’re going to talk about vegan food, as much as possible, all month-long!

To start we’re going behind the scenes to show you the I Love Vegan HQ kitchen. I Love Vegan HQ is a compact little place of just 552 ft² where we live, cook, and photograph.

We chose this house because it’s newer, small/low-maintenance, affordable, and had nearly all the amenities we were looking for (plus a bunch of bonuses we weren’t expecting!) We love our little house! It’s our first home of our own and it feels so good to have a space that’s ours. We're pretty frugal when it comes to everyday living. Essentially all of our furnishings are secondhand and we don’t shy away from quick and dirty fixes like bungee cords, zip-ties, and duct tape to corral our belongings. This makes for a super affordable but kinda funky looking place where we do our business.

(Random info: Until about a month ago we were under the impression that our house was 504 ft². It’s not, it's 552 ft², and I’m having difficulty adjusting to the extra 48 ft² we didn’t know about. Our house is like 10% larger than we thought! It still feels very 500 ft²ish)

We’re starting to toy with doing of a little affordable kitchen makeover. Maybe in a few months these photos will be the “before” in a future kitchen post! I’m not too worried about the “look” of our kitchen because I’m still trying to learn the best way to handle the functionality. Food photography makes it easy to hide my lovable but not particularly Instagram-worthy kitchen, but in the future I’d love to take real-time kitchen shots that don’t highlight my current kitchen. I’ve been toying around with the idea of setting up a faux kitchen set before bothering with any kind of makeover. It seems like a fun challenge no matter what I decide to do with this space!

I’ve slowly been making little changes and switching around cupboards to find out what works best for me. Things are improving! But if you have any tips for wrangling your kitchen cupboards, send them my way, please! (Fridge tips welcome too!) Once I’ve got that figured out I’ll share more of a “what’s in my cupboard/what’s in my fridge” post.

Since taking these photos I’ve already switched some things around. The pantry shelf has about half of the stuff removed and the kitchen cart has a new home outside of the kitchen.

What I Love:

• It’s small and easy to clean up quickly
• The itty bitty semi “built-in” countertop dishwasher
• Lots of light/windows
• Gas stove/oven
• Reverse osmosis system (the local water is very hard)
• Lots of cupboards/drawers/storage
• No unwanted critters (unlike our last rental…)
• It’s ours! We can change whatever we like!

What I Love Less:

• It’s small and easy to mess up every single surface quickly
• The small rinse sink/no full-sized dishwasher
• The look: countertops, wallpaper, and “wood” cupboards
• Small messes invade the entire house. A messy kitchen = messy house.

What It’s Like To Cook Our Kitchen

• Everything you need is close by: lots of equipment and seasonings are hanging up or within reach
• The sink is splashy because I always forget to switch the dishwasher adapter for the aerator after I wash dishes
• There’s usually music or audiobooks on (Harry Potter narrated by Stephen Frey is my go-to, I’ve always got one of those books on the go)
• Lots of chatting between William and I/Lacey and I (she’s pretty vocal!)
• William and Lacey are always nearby
  • William’s “office” is literally right beside the kitchen so he’s usually available for googling stuff, setting timers, jotting down ideas or adding notes to a recipe
  • When Lacey isn’t lounging in bed or on her “leather” chair, she’s typically following RIGHT behind you. We often refer to our house as a slide puzzle and Lacey really exacerbates the feeling. She’s not particularly good at backing up and follows you from one end of the house to the other so you feel like you’re always waiting for her to turn around, move, back up, etc. She’s cute though.
• Usually well-lit and full of light during the day

Well that wraps up this little behind-the-scenes look into our tiny kitchen. Hopefully I’ll get organized enough to show you some fridge and cupboard photos next! Do you have a small kitchen? I'd love to hear some tips and ideas from small kitchen people!

Bonus: here's Lacey before and after I said "Ready!?" in an excited dog-mom voice: