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Comfortable seating at a table is commonly requested in my kitchen re-design projects. Families desire a space to gather for meals, play games, do homework, and just hang out. All too often, however, the space available is too small to adequately accommodate a table and chairs, and yet that does not stop people from trying to squeeze a table set into this limited space. When this happens, the table barely functions for the family (forget comfort!), the chairs are constantly shifted to allow access and the ill-fitting table becomes a more likely gathering space for clutter than family members.
An excellent solution to this quagmire is banquette seating. Meaning ‘little bench’, the term ‘banquette’ refers specifically to an upholstered bench. When applied to today’s kitchen, seating is elevated to a cozy, inviting space, often more flexible in the number of people it can accommodate than a table set with chairs. A banquette may offer not just the perfect solution, but an attractive and comfortable one. Because a banquette is usually ‘built-in’ to a corner, it requires less physical space than a table and chairs.
Comfortable banquette seating requires careful attention to the details of proportion. The height and depth of the seat, the slope of the back and the finished material will all impact comfort. Use the dimensions and proportion of a comfortable dining room chair as a guideline for creating banquette seating. Often custom designed, they can be created to maximize the available space, which might be straight, L-shaped, curved, or a U-shaped design. The best design is one that offers access (or escape) from either end. This eliminates the ‘trapped’ feeling people often feel when they sit in a booth.
Augment it with a chair or two on the opposing side of the table and you will have a seating area that is comfortable for all. Sometimes a specially-shaped table is required to maximize seating at the banquette. My designs have included tables shaped as stylized triangles, narrow ovals as well as other geometric shapes, which make the most of available seating.
Regardless of the shape of your banquette, choosing the right finish material is paramount to success. Not all banquettes are upholstered as some are built of wood; however, upholstery improves the comfort of the seating. By choosing an attractive, stain resistant fabric, your banquette will likely become the focal point of your kitchen, lending a wonderful elegance and plush contrast to the other hard surfaces.
Our kitchen features a banquette tucked into a window bay that previously held a small table and chairs. With the redesign of our space, the banquette preserved a comfortable seating area for our family while allowing us to expand the working area of the kitchen. Designed to seat four comfortably, we have happily discovered as many as eight people can cozy into the space during larger gatherings of family and friends!
This banquette space is simply inviting and the perfect solution to our ‘not so big’ space!
Rebecca Guillion Lindquist is the president and co-owner of Lindquist & Company, www.lindquistandcompany.com
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