Breakfast Dining Areas & Banquettes

They can be so cozily intimate for gathering a small group in the kitchen. If you are planning to renovate or build, maybe you’ll incorporate one for the kitchen design. Love a banquette? We recently built one at our snowbird home. They’re comfy and an opportunity to add softness with upholstery and pillows. I am ever dreaming of ways to make our kitchens live smarter and cozier. Let’s peek at favorites to PIN and breakfast dining areas inspo.

Breakfast Dining Areas & Banquettes

Thinking About a Banquette?

Our breakfast nook at the Georgian is situated within a three-story turret. Directly above this space is this exact configuration as a sitting room in our bedroom. Below it is an unfinished turret space in a fully exposed lower level.

I replaced the round dining table above with the harvest table we commissioned nearly 30 years ago:

And here’s the DIY banquette in our snowbird place I referenced earlier:

Breakfast dining areas are so much more appealing to me than formal dining areas!

So many intimate conversations and memories are made within these spaces.

Need Ideas for a Breakfast Nook?

If you’re an intermediate DIYer or have the budget for a custom design, wouldn’t this curvy example be incredible?

A banquette can even save the day. Can you imagine having this narrow space to work with for a dining room? Look what happens when a luxuriously brilliant bench plays a starring role in a Paris home:

As you can already see, “breakfast nook” is not the best descriptive term for this type of dining. Plenty of nooks and dining areas exist beyond kitchens for meals beyond breakfast. I love this idea of creating a dining area and anchoring with an expanse of mirror:

Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent have a similar configuration:

Space-Saving Banquettes and Nooks

Here’s another innovative way to design a dining nook where decorative tile frames the banquette:

Wow! You can even create more architectural interest with framed art:

Isn’t that stunning? And notice how much seating is possible in that relatively small corner!

Will a Banquette Need to Be a Built-in?

There are plenty of situations where it makes more sense to design or buy a freestanding piece of furniture for seating within a nook. Windows and existing architecture that is better left untouched are factors that may pair better with non-built-ins:

A lot of folks have strong opinions about benches and settees pulled up to dining tables, but I think they’re swell when they’re comfy.

One bonus is being able to more easily test the seating to be sure it is optimally comfortable.

Even a properly scaled sofa can become a banquette:

The color story in this next inspiration moment is unique:

And here’s an entirely different mood with its cheery red:

Sometimes the simplest designs can have maximum impact and transform a corner:

Isn’t that animal print on the antique chairs amazing? I’m crazy about the combination!

Cozy Restaurant Style Breakfast Nooks

Architect Jeffrey Dungan creates these magical nooks…

Notice the sculptural lines here:

Don’t they feel akin to having your own private restaurant?

Classic Built-in Bench Seating for Nooks

When your banquette is also a window seat…

There is so much room for customization with upholstery, prints, patterns, and pillows. I thought this was a beautiful combination of two different prints for the backrest and cushion:

The designer’s way with blue inspired this mood board:

And even if you’re a renter, a bench may be all you require for the beginnings of a cozy place for tea:

Storage underneath a banquette is a bonus:

Whenever I post an image of a cozy breakfast nook, I’ll hear from followers who say it looks too cramped.

Too many folks miss the point that photos don’t tell the story and also how these spaces are designed to be intimate.

Ideas for Designing a Nook That Fits You

The most important tip to create a pleasing nook like those represented here?

Know thyself!

Consider how the nook will be used by you and yours (breakfast? homework? all meals?)…

and from there determine how much seating is needed.

Collect oodles of ideas to communicate your desires with a designer or contractor.

If you’re a DIYer like me, maybe create a mockup to see how a bench will look and feel in the space. (I plan to audition an existing bench in my space before I commission anything to be built.)

I hope this gallery inspires you with fresh takes on this timeless idea.

There’s something so utterly nostalgic and romantic about informal places to linger with deliciousness on Saturdays or Sundays.

And such endless lovely ways to bring your own unique aesthetic to the design.

Peace to you right where you are.

-michele

I independently selected products in this post—if you buy from one of my links, I may earn a commission.

Thanks for leaving me a tip HERE and shopping HERE to keep free interiors inspiration, lifestyle, and real life renovation flowing.

Hello Lovely is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.