Cooking in a small kitchen shouldn't take this much choreography — but right now, it does:
The counter is already spoken for.
Toaster, kettle, knife block, the blender you use twice a month. What's left is a strip beside the stove, and that's where the olive oil, salt, pepper and three spice jars end up — in a huddle you have to move every time you need to chop something.
Your spices live in a cabinet you can't reach mid-cook.
Pan's hot, hands are full, and the cumin is behind the rice at the back of the second shelf. So you skip it. Half your spice rack is stuff you bought once and haven't touched since, because reaching for it costs more than it's worth.
Paper towels take a whole corner hostage.
A roll is four inches of the most valuable surface in your home, standing upright, permanently in the way. Push it back and it falls behind the counter. Leave it out and you're wiping around it.
Every fix needs a drill you're not allowed to use.
Wall shelves, rails, under-cabinet racks — they all end with holes in someone else's wall. Adhesive hooks peel off in a steamy kitchen and take the paint with them. So you don't fix it. You just live around it.
It isn't that your kitchen is too small.
It's that the biggest empty surface in it — the entire side of your fridge — is holding nothing but a takeout menu.