How to Add Space to a Galley Kitchen With Glass and Mirrors
How can you use glass and mirrors to make your galley kitchen larger? While you can’t literally enlarge the area with decorative accents, you can use these building materials to give the illusion of added space. If you have a long, narrow corridor-style kitchen, take a look at what you need to know before you decorate with glass or mirrors.
Add Glass to the Upper Row of Cabinets
Glass can open an area and add a sense of brightness. But this doesn’t mean you should go wild with clear surfaces and replace everything with glass. Before you switch out clunky wooden or board cabinet doors with translucent ones, consider:
- The placement. A narrow galley-style kitchen isn’t always easy to move through. Without a wide space to walk through, it’s easy to bump or damage lower cabinet doors. This makes glass an impractical option in lower areas you could accidentally kick, walk into, or hit with another door.
- The type of glass. You can create the illusion of space with light, bright glass doors. But this doesn’t necessarily mean you need to choose a translucent option. Frosted, etched, or textured glass can open the area — without the need to display the food or dishes inside the cabinets.
- The number of cabinets. How many cabinet doors do you want to replace with glass? The more upper doors you place, the more light you’ll let in — and the more space you’ll create.
- The type of door. Do you want to replace the doors with a full pane of glass or a framed option? A wooden, metal, or composite frame can highlight the glass, while a full pane provides the maximum amount of see-through space.
If your home improvement budget won’t allow you to replace every upper cabinet door with glass or you have an extremely long galley kitchen, a few strategic accent doors can provide the illusion of extra space. However, you should talk to an interior designer or custom glass professional about which doors to replace before you invest in this type of project.
Use Mirrors to Reflect the Light
A dark galley kitchen can look or feel cramped. While the added light that glass cabinet doors provide can help, your corridor kitchen may need more. If your kitchen still feels dim and slim, custom cut mirrors can help.
Mirrors aren’t just for bathrooms and bedrooms. Even though you may use mirrors in these spaces in functional ways (such as over the bathroom vanity or in your bedroom closet), the surface can do more than let you see your own reflection. Mirrors can reflect light and other objects or walls in the kitchen. This brightens the area and creates an optical illusion that doubles the space.
Where can you use mirrors in a galley kitchen? To brighten and open the room, place a custom cut mirror:
- Across from the window. Install a mirror directly across from a window when possible. This reflects the natural light during the daytime hours.
- Near a lighting fixture. If your galley-style kitchen doesn’t have a window or there’s nowhere to hang a mirror nearby, place the glass across from an artificial lighting source. This can also add a sense of brightness to the room.
- As a backsplash. A mirror on this long, thin area reflects the light and everything else that’s across from it.
- On cabinets. Create custom mirror doors. Like a backsplash, this strategy also allows you to reflect the opposite wall — visually doubling the space.
Instead of stock mirrors, get the best fit in your smaller corridor kitchen with custom creations. A glass contractor can make mirrors in sizes and shapes you might not find on a store shelf.
Do you need custom glass or mirrors for your kitchen remodel? Contact Central Glass Company for more information.