Not A Traditional Kitchen Table: The Amazon Alternative That Adds Storage And Saves Space

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Those who live in tiny spaces look for a special kind of furniture when they're setting up house. Take your traditional kitchen table. In a big house, it sits in a corner in the kitchen, holding space for you until dinnertime. It serves one function — perhaps two — and is as big as a Buick. Not so in a small abode. Every piece, including the kitchen table, has to make a pitch for its existence, like a salesman at the end of the month. In a small kitchen, the table will ideally pull its weight by serving many functions and being easy to move, to boot. If you want to find that Swiss army knife of a table for your apartment in Lilliput, take a look at the Winsome Suzanne Kitchen Table Set with Stools on Amazon. It boasts more than a handful of functions, not the least of which are space-saving and storage.

At 29.61 inches by 29.13 inches by 32.75 inches, this piece isn't very big — just over 2½ feet at its widest. It certainly doesn't have much of a footprint. Still, despite its size, it's designed to maximize the storage space in small spaces. Let's start with its two built-in drawers and towel rack. The drawers are big enough to hold items like a utensil caddy, hot pads for baking, cookbooks, a set of steak knives, and possibly some placemats. As for the towel holder, it's large enough for a couple of kitchen towels — no need to steal some much-needed drawer space for linens when you have features like that at your disposal.

The storage capacity for this table doesn't end with the two drawers or the drop leaf, however. Below the drawers are two cubbies, which hold two stools. However, unlike the traditional table where the stools would be positioned as separate pieces in front of its edge, this piece is designed so that the table holds the stools inside its "belly," flush with the edge of the table. When you need the chairs, you pull them out of their storage spot and not until then. It's an ideal design when you want to add more vertical storage space in the kitchen without building anything.

The chairs can be stored separately from the table, which not only opens up more storage space under the table but turns the chairs themselves into space-saving storage items. Here's how that might play out. You could hang the chairs on the living room wall as decor that doubles as temporary shelf space. Such a move saves you floor space since the chairs will be sitting on wall hooks, not the floor, leaving the floor free for you to stash other items. And with the chairs removed from the table, you're left with the two cubby areas below the table's drawers. Find two wooden crates that fit within the parameters of the table's interior and insert them into the stools' spot. Doing this creates extra cabinet space, and while you'll most likely use this table/cabinet in the kitchen, you could also roll it into another part of your home if you need to create more storage outside of the kitchen. 

Flip the Winsome Suzanne Kitchen table around, and you'll find a drop leaf. True enough, it's normally used as a table, but if your kitchen counter space is lacking, you could use this feature as an extension for the counter. The Amazon table sits on wheels so it's easy enough to move it so that you could line the open drop leaf up with the counter. During the holidays, when you need a space for plates or a turkey or even a toaster oven to bake garlic bread, you could turn this feature into temporary food and appliance storage. Once the party's over and you no longer need to store the extra items on on your makeshift counter, just fold the drop leaf away.

And speaking of the holidays, such occasions typically require you to move and store items like extra dishes, platters of food, baskets of bread, and other stuff in places where you wouldn't normally. Because the table is on casters, it turns into a cart. To use it during such occasions, you just need to load all of the stuff you need onto the table and move it from the kitchen to the dining area or the back deck. And, since you're likely going to use the piece as a table and not a cart after said shindig commences, it's available for storage of those party-related items until the celebration is over. You'll then move the Amazon table back into its normal spot when the time comes. You certainly couldn't do all that with a traditional table.