Here's What It's like Cooking in a Tiny House

Tiny houses are hugely popular right now, for a few reasons: living in a tiny house is cheap, environmentally friendly, and has the potential to be really adorable. I recently took a long weekend trip to a tiny home in Ontario after falling down a deep rabbit-hole of tiny house Instagram accounts and deciding I needed to see one for myself. My biggest concern, naturally, was the kitchen—could a house smaller than my shoebox apartment really have all the kitchen amenities I'd need?

But that's the thing about tiny houses—they're designed so ergonomically, with such attention to detail, that they can almost always fit all of the same tools you'd find in a typical house. At the tiny home I stayed in, the kitchen was…the same as a normal kitchen, save for the oven (this house was solar-powered). I easily sautéed vegetables and boiled water for pasta all weekend, just as I would at home.

To find out more about how tiny house owners set up their kitchens, I talked to David Latimer, owner of tiny house building company New Frontier Tiny Homes. He's a former hospitality employee who came across the tiny house movement and loved the combination of sustainability, design, and, as he put it, "creating a life of experience over the acquisition of 'stuff.'"

When it comes to designing and building one of these houses, Latimer says, ventilation is the most important kitchen detail that needs to be worked out. "You need plenty of circulating air. A hood vent is more than adequate for a house that size, and having windows near the cooktop is ideal," he says.

As far as tools go, multi-functionality is everything. Hanging pots and pans is a common space-saving trick in tiny homes and, in Latimer's designs, he also uses drop-down cabinets from faux-rafters to store spices and other pantry items. Latimer also notes that tiny houses can be entertaining spaces—one of his houses has "a dining set that tucks underneath the kitchen platform—we’ve had 8-10 people dinner parties that don’t feel cramped at all. We made a big hot chicken spread with a ton of different sides—collard greens, beans, potato dishes, a big salad."

Shalina Kell of @hertinyhome on Instagram built her own tiny house over the course of a couple of years, and having all the typical appliances was crucial for her and her teenage daughter. "I actually have a full-sized fridge," she says. "It’s right underneath the staircase. And I put in an 18-inch dishwasher! I was trying to fit everything in to make it feel like a ‘normal’ home, so it didn’t feel like we’re camping or something." She built in tons of counter space, and made sure to include room for a 20-inch four-burner stove.

"I’m dating someone who loves to cook," Kell says, "and he doesn’t have any issue when he cooks in our house. And because the house is so small, the ventilation is actually really good. I have a lot of windows in the house, and a big vent hood that goes right to the outside. "

Building in lots of storage was non-negotiable. "We have drop-down cabinets that come down from the ceiling and pull-out pantries—I actually feel like I went overboard with storage, and it’s almost too much space!" If that doesn't want to make you want to move into your own tiny home asap, we don't know what will.