A new IKEA study has confirmed what many of us have suspected while staring into cluttered cabinets: our kitchens just aren’t working for us. The good news? You don’t need a full renovation to turn things around.
According to the IKEA Cooking & Eating Report 2026, one of the largest studies of its kind, surveying over 31,000 people across 31 countries, fewer than one in three of us are actually happy with our kitchens.
And the number one culprit? Space. Or, more precisely, the lack of it.
The study found that a quarter of people (25%) cite a lack of storage as their biggest kitchen frustration. Another 25% point to not having enough surface space to actually prepare food, and 24% feel their kitchen is simply too small.
It’s Not About the Money
Here’s what’s particularly interesting: kitchen frustration doesn’t really care how much you earn. The share of people reporting no frustration with their kitchen is remarkably similar across income levels — 34% among higher earners, 31% in the middle, and 30% at lower incomes. In other words, a bigger pay packet doesn’t automatically mean a bigger, better kitchen.
Space, it turns out, is a near-universal headache. Whether you’re in a studio flat or a semi-detached, the same gripes keep surfacing: nowhere to store the slow cooker, not enough room to roll out pastry, and a constant low-level battle with clutter.
While these frustrations overlap, a net share of 46% of people selected at least one of these aspects, meaning nearly half can be described as generally frustrated with having “too little space.”
This feeling is especially common among Asians (53%), people living in cities (50%), households with children (51%), and Gen Z/Millennials (both 51%).
As Nanette Weisdal, Range Manager for Kitchen & Appliances at Inter IKEA Group, put it: “We know that every centimetre matters.”
The Dutch, for what it’s worth, seem to have cracked it — 43% report having no concerns about their kitchen at all. Whatever they’re doing over there with their kitchens, it might be worth taking note.
Why It Matters More Than You Think
A cramped, cluttered kitchen isn’t just an inconvenience — it changes your whole relationship with cooking. When there’s nowhere to chop or nowhere to rest a hot pan, cooking stops feeling like something you want to do and starts feeling like something you just have to get through.
The report frames it neatly: “Space isn’t luxury. It’s the difference between loving to cook and just making it work.”
And when cooking feels like a chore, it shows. The same study found that lack of time is one of the biggest barriers to cooking at home — but a chaotic kitchen makes even the time you do have feel wasted.
So What Can You Actually Do About It?
The good news is you don’t need to rip out your kitchen, though that is a delicious thought. Some targeted, budget-friendly changes, inspired by the IKEA product range, can make a surprisingly big difference to how your kitchen feels and functions. Here are the areas to focus on.
1. Reclaim Your Walls and Doors
If your counters and cupboards are at capacity, it’s time to look up — and sideways. Walls and the insides of cabinet doors are some of the most underused real estate in any kitchen.
A pegboard or a wall-mounted rail system (IKEA’s SKÅDIS pegboard and KUNGSFORS suspension rail are both great here) lets you hang utensils, spice jars, paper towel holders, and even small shelves — all without touching a single drawer or worktop. It keeps things visible, accessible, and off the counter.
Inside cabinet doors are equally useful. Adhesive hooks or slim over-door organisers can hold chopping boards, cleaning supplies, or foil and cling film rolls — things that always seem to end up rattling around in the wrong place.
2. Go Vertical Inside Your Cupboards
Here’s a classic kitchen mistake: storing things in a single layer inside a cabinet when you could be doubling or tripling your usable space. Shelf risers, stackable organiser units, and pull-out drawer inserts transform a deep, chaotic cupboard into something you can actually find things in.
IKEA’s VARIERA shelf insert, for example, sits inside an existing cupboard and creates a second tier for plates, mugs, or cans. Their RATIONELL pull-out organisers work beautifully in base cabinets, bringing everything to the front so nothing gets lost at the back.
Plates stored upright rather than stacked? That’s a space hack that also saves your wrists.
3. Give Every Appliance a Home (and Be Ruthless)
One of the biggest surface-space killers is the cluster of appliances that live permanently on the counter. The coffee machine, the kettle, the toaster, the air fryer, the stand mixer that gets used twice a year… it adds up fast.
The trick is to be honest about frequency of use. If something comes out every single day, it can stay on the counter. If it comes out once a week or less, it earns a spot in a cupboard. If it comes out once a year, it might need to go entirely.
For appliances that do stay out, grouping them on a RÅSKOG trolley or a dedicated corner of the counter keeps the chaos contained and the rest of your workspace clear. A trolley has the bonus of being moveable — wheel it out when you need it, tuck it away when you don’t.
4. Solve the Undersink Situation
The space under the kitchen sink is almost always a disaster zone — it’s awkward, it’s deep, and things just get shoved in there and forgotten. But with the right organisers, it can become genuinely useful storage.
Bins like the HÅLLBAR and UTRUSTA pull-out organizer fit neatly here, stacking caddy units, and simple tension rods to hang spray bottles all help make the most of this otherwise wasted space.
5. Think About Your Prep Flow
Sometimes the problem isn’t the amount of storage — it’s the logic of how things are arranged. A kitchen that flows well is one where the things you reach for most are closest to where you use them: oils and spices near the hob, knives and boards near the prep area, plates and glasses near the dishwasher.
Even a small reorganisation of what lives where can make your kitchen feel significantly more spacious, simply because you’re not constantly crossing the room to get what you need.
If you have a kitchen island or a small table nearby, consider it an extension of your workspace. An extra chopping board, a large tray to corral oils and condiments, or even just clearing the clutter from that surface can give you the prep space you’ve been missing without changing a single cabinet.
6. Make the Most of Your Fridge Space Too
Fridge organisation might not seem like a kitchen hack, but it directly affects how much prep you can do at once. Transparent storage containers, lazy Susans for condiment jars, and labelled bins for different categories of food all make cooking faster and less frustrating — and reduce the amount of forgotten food that gets wasted (a separate concern, given that the same IKEA study found that 55% of Germans eat expired food to cut down on waste).
Change it until it works for you
Your kitchen frustration is completely valid — and you’re far from alone in feeling it. But a full renovation isn’t the only answer. Often, it’s the small, thoughtful changes that make the biggest difference: a wall rail here, a shelf insert there, a ruthless clear-out of the things that have been quietly taking up space for years.
The goal is a kitchen that actually supports the way you cook, not one you have to work around. Because cooking should feel good — and with a bit of clever organising, it genuinely can.
Source: IKEA Cooking & Eating Report 2026, conducted by YouGov across 31,339 participants in 31 markets.