An interior designer critiqued my tiny kitchen. Her tips showed me easy ways to make it look bigger and be more functional.

• I asked an interior designer how to make the tiny kitchen in my rental home look and feel bigger.
• She suggested we invest in larger storage solutions and vertical space to help open up the area.

My husband and I love our rental home in Washington, but it's smaller than our last place, so we're still figuring out how to make the most of our space functionally and aesthetically.

One of the big issues is our tiny kitchen. Since our home doesn't have a dining room, we created a dinette in the kitchen, which still cuts down on space. We're also having a tough time making the kitchen feel like it fits with the rest of the house because it sits directly next to the living room.

To learn how to best utilize and design my kitchen space, I consulted Reya Duenas, an interior designer, a creative director, and the CEO of Reya Duenas Design.

After sharing photos and a video tour of my space, Duenas shared advice on how to make my kitchen feel more spacious and more cohesive with the rest of my home.

She said I could maximize my counter space by doing a major declutter

As a passionate home chef, I love to cook. But since moving to our new home, I've lacked the counter space to prep and cook comfortably.

To start, Duenas suggested, we should declutter our countertops. She said we should remove as many items from the counters as possible, including the butter dish and small oil canisters.

If our oil canisters absolutely had to live on the countertops, she suggested we put them in a cute tray or basket so that similar items were grouped. This makes them look more intentional and, as a result, more stylish.

She also recommended we remove the coffee-related appliances next to the sink to free up more space. Duenas suggested using our cart as a coffee station or buying a new one to house all these appliances.

Vertical space can be used to open up the room

In addition to decluttering, she said making use of our room's vertical space could make it feel bigger.

Although Duenas said we had a nice table in the dinette, she suggested replacing it with something extendable. This would allow more guests to sit and dine if needed, and the table could be made smaller when not in use.

She also suggested going with a table that's counter or bar height to give the illusion of a bigger space.

A sideboard could be the solution to our storage problems

Due to the lack of cabinet space in the kitchen, my husband and I have resorted to storing many of our kitchen appliances and accessories in random closets throughout the house. This includes our microwave, air fryer, bread machine, toaster, and many other coffee-related appliances.

This also adds to the inconvenience of cooking at home because it's such a hassle to search for and pull these items out from the back of our closets.

As a solution, Duenas suggested replacing the small shelving unit in the corner with something larger such as a sideboard cabinet to provide more storage space.

This area could even house the coffee station to free up more counter space.

I can make the kitchen more cohesive with the rest of the space by committing to one style

Our kitchen is next to the living room, but the two spaces are stylistically different; the kitchen/dining area has a rustic and industrial vibe, whereas the living room has more of a mid-century modern look.

At our last place, there was more of a natural separation between the spaces, so cohesion wasn't as important. But in this house, I feel stuck figuring out how to deal with the transition between the two spaces.

To fix this problem, Duenas suggested picking a stylistic focus for each area. For starters, she said the current bar cart and the other shelving unit next to the dining room table were too industrial for the space.

She said we should stop trying to marry the two styles and pick one.

To also help with the transition between the rooms, Duenas suggested swapping the recliner out for a smaller chair. The chair we now is too big and blocks the natural flow between the spaces.

Color-coordinated accents are a must

While looking at our kitchen's design, Duenas said there was a high contrast between the large black appliances and the white countertops.

She said swapping appliances would be ideal for solving this problem — though it may not be feasible because we are renting. Instead, she suggested, we should incorporate more black elements into the space to create balance.

"Try adding some black elements in artwork, a runner, or frames to bring in smaller black accents and bring balance to the space," Duenas said.

Overall, I learned larger storage pieces are key to utilizing the space and clearing countertop clutter

Duenas' tips gave me some great ideas for making my kitchen more usable. My biggest takeaway from the critique was that I should invest in larger storage solutions.

Currently, we have smaller pieces that look cute but don't provide much storage. If we invest in larger pieces, as Duenas suggested, we can conveniently keep more kitchen appliances and accessories in the actual kitchen.