The Vision
RV kitchens are, more times than not, small and cramped. Not exactly the cozy space where you and your spouse can prepare a gourmet dinner together; rather, you’re most likely going to take turns entering and exiting the kitchen or take turns cooking and washing the dishes.
It may or may not be that bad; depending on the layout of your rig, you may have a galley slide that gives you more room to maneuver or a dinette slide that gives you much-needed floor space.
In either situation, space is at a premium, and you will want to utilize every available nook and cranny.
Stand back and do a visual scan of your space.
Look beyond your existing kitchen cabinets and think out of the box. Is there empty space that isn’t being used or maybe there is empty space that isn’t even visible? Are you using the hall closet for clothes storage just because it’s a hall closet, and that’s what hall closets are used for?
Is your dining room table being used as a catch-all for stray change, tools, and things that would be in a kitchen junk drawer if you had one?
When you look beyond what already exists, you may find your closet becomes a home for pots, pans, and kitchen appliances, and your dining room table becomes a window seat with the perfect food storage solution or an office or scrap-booking space with a view.
Wasted space under the sofa becomes the home for paper plates, bowls, and cups, with the addition of an access drawer that can conveniently match or contrast with any existing decor.
Restructuring – The Appliance Cabinet
When you have visualized your need, you can then begin to restructure your space to accommodate that need. RV kitchen cabinets are narrow and not very deep. This is fine for part-time life in an RV, but the full-time RV lifestyle necessitates better utilization of all free space.
The hall closet easily converts to a shelved space for all your pots, pans, and small kitchen appliances such as crock pots, electric fry-pans, blenders and larger roasting pans, and such.
Simply install the white vinyl coated wire closet shelving at the appropriate heights, and viola! You have the perfect utilization of that space as an appliance cabinet.
Under Sofa Storage Drawer
In many RV design layouts, you have a jack-knife sofa that lifts up and flat for sleeping guests. Under the sofa is much-needed storage space. For example, in our coach, we have an L-Shaped sofa.
It`s under the folding bed is storage space; however, below the ‘L’ portion of the sofa was wasted space.
We easily utilized that wasted space by purchasing a drawer front at a building supply store and extendable drawer slides at a local auction. My husband built the drawer box and assembled the components.
We now have a storage drawer that is home to all our kitchen paper products, such as plates, bowls, cups, and extra spices.
Dining Room Table vs. Window Seat Storage
Whether you have a dining booth or a dining table and chairs in your RV, I’m confident that your table is a collection spot for every homeless item around the campsite.
It may be accumulated pocket change, hats, magazines, or maybe even a screwdriver, hammer, and drill. In that case, you may be like us and have been eating your meals in your living space while watching the nightly news.
With the cost of nearly everything going no place but up, including food, we decided to replace our dining table and two very heavy chairs with an attractive window storage seat with a view out our front palladium windows.
Utilizing this wasted space was achieved by purchasing two close-out kitchen cabinets from a building supply store that match our oak interior cabinets.
Installing them under our windows where our table and chairs used to be. Topped with a sturdy wood plank the length of the cabinets and several attractive chair cushions, we now have the perfect storage option for all our survival food and a spot to read and enjoy a sunrise.
Folding tray tables serve their purpose and are easily stored behind the sofa.
Counter Space Extension
The RV kitchen never has enough counter space. You can cover the sinks with trendy wood spacers and cover the stove with a nice wood burner top, but you’ll find that you still need your sink and you still need your stovetop.
Here is a neat idea that is useful and will also give you much-needed counter space by utilizing air space and not robbing your kitchen of the sink and stovetop.
At the end of your counter, there is probably a walkway through the kitchen to the bedroom or to the living room. Purchase a large chopping block or cutting board from Walmart or a kitchen store.
The one I bought is Acacia wood, endorsed by Paula Dean. Attach the cutting board at the end of your countertop with a piano hinge and a locking arm from a local hardware store.
The cutting board folds down when not in use, then lifts up and snaps into place to add about an 18″ X 22″ extra usable counter or cutting space. Any size cutting board the approximate width of your existing countertop will do.
It will give you much-needed counter space, and a cutting board is a very useful kitchen gadget.
