As for waffle makers, I prefer the thinner scandinavian-style over the robust belgian-style waffles. I find thick belgian-style waffles to be too bready for my taste. I grew up having waffles every Sunday morning in the winter, and they were made on a scandinavian-style waffle maker, and that still appeals to me. And they're hard to find. So I gave up.
But I was checking out stuff at the local thrift store and came across a tiny Dash waffle maker, that puts out single 3-inch diameter waffles, and took it home.

The tiny Dash is now my favorite waffle maker. It fits in a 3-inch height drawer, and works perfectly (so long as you have the patience to make small waffles individually). I can pre-make a bunch of my own pseudo-Eggo's to freeze for later use, or use it to make potato latkes from blenderized raw onion and leftover mashed potatoes. I have some frozen puffs made from codfish and potatoes that I also plan to try defrosting and waffling. Yeah, I love my little Dash waffle maker.

I tried the Ninja blender, and I really did expect it to do what I needed, in spite of being a little large on the footprint, but I ended up returning it.

I used to make smoothies a couple times a day; always kept ice, bananas, frozen fruit, fruit juice, plain yogurt, ground flaxseed, and ground chia seed to make this. I used a Bella Cuchina personal blender (they call them 'rocket blenders' nowadays), and it did everything I needed it to. It ground the seeds to a fine meal I could freeze and use as needed, it ground ice cubes to make a thick slush. It was great.

But then I moved, and the apartments I rented had very small fridges with tiny freezers and no built-in icemakers, so I fell out of the habit. Now that I'm retired, I'm trying to get back to smoothies, so I tried the Ninja, knowing the blender would need to stay on the counter due to how frequently I make smoothies. And the Ninja Rocket, a smaller footprint model, STILL had too big of a footprint. But the real issue was that the instructions said don't use it to grind seeds. And the Ninja has a 900w engine, versus the Bella Cuchina's 260w. So a discounted-to-$60 Ninja plus buying a $30-40 spice grinder to grind seeds convinced me a $20 Bella Cuchina was a better deal. Plus, it had a smaller footprint.

I can even make soup in my Bella Cuchina. I cut broccoli or cauliflower into tiny florets, microwave them for 6 or 8 minutes, move them to a blender container, add stock/broth, salt & pepper, sometimes fine-ground rosemary (another thing the Bella Cuchina can produce; I don't like eating rosemary needles), and blend it smooth while still steaming from the microwave. Basically, I have a warm soup in less than 15min, start to finish. No fat, and YUM!

By the way, if you set your blender (regardless of brand or size) on a silicone pad (trivet or whatever), it will diminish the noise.