How to Make Your Kitchen an Eat-In Kitchen

Ready to reinvigorate your kitchen and turn it into a place where you love spending even more time? We’re here to help! You can design a cozy eat-in kitchen that lets you comfortably prep, serve and dine in one space. The eat-in kitchen saves you steps, makes meal setup and cleanup a breeze and even builds family togetherness. Your eat-in kitchen may be as simple as two bar stools set up at your kitchen prep space or as elaborate as a sumptuously upholstered banquette booth – it’s still a great way to show off your style! Take a look through these helpful tips to get some fresh ideas for creating an eat-in kitchen that works with your lifestyle – and that you absolutely love.

Design for Life

One way to get started with your planning is to consider how many people normally eat together in your home. If you have a large kitchen or expect one or two household members to use your eat-in kitchen area, you might not need to be as meticulous with your measurements. In smaller kitchens, you can use your furnishings and arrangements to make your kitchen-based dining nook a favorite spot. Large windows, mirrors and pictures of landscapes and street scenes on the walls are eat-in kitchen decor ideas that can help make any dining area feel expansive.

Use Banquettes in Smaller Spaces

Whether you arrange them in a corner design or a booth-style configuration, versatile banquettes sit flush against the wall and can be built with extra storage space as well. You can add a table with a pedestal base to offer even more leg room to the banquette arrangement. Another option is combining a corner banquette with a simple chair on the opposite side of the eat-in table to accommodate an additional diner. Simply move the chair out of the kitchen to conserve space when you’re not using it.

Perfectly Plush Pillows

In a booth-style eat-in kitchen, one excellent way to incorporate your style is to select colorful patterned or solid pillows to add comfort and style to the space. Do you love watching your favorite TV show while you eat? You might appreciate having a mounted flatscreen within range of the eat-in area to catch up on the news with your morning coffee or watch a favorite show with a late-night cup of tea. Extra pillows in your eat-in kitchen booth make it a snuggly spot that begs you to relax when TV-watching, surfing the Internet or warming up with cocoa after a chilly commute.

The Practical Side

Need some extra storage? Consider building it right in, particularly if you’re interested in installing booths. Drawers or cubbies under booths are great spots to store table linens, dinnerware and other kitchen essentials so they’re always right where you need them. Some booths have lift-up seating with bins underneath to store larger items like serving platters and punch bowls. The ability to store extra equipment gives you even more space in the rest of the kitchen. Other slim eat-in dining sets double as homework or work-at-home spaces in between meals. Their low profiles and airy designs allow you to have partially dedicated work/study space in the happy heart of your home.

Get Creative

Part of the fun of creating an eat-in kitchen is that you can dream up all sorts of eat-in kitchen designs, from the futuristic to the retro. For awesome versatility, create your own style of eat-in area using casters on benches you roll from living areas to the kitchen as you need them. Use several stacking stools or bar chairs along a sturdy counter-height dining shelf. Stack the stools between meals to save floor room. Or, use a triangle-shaped table in a corner for a three-person dining nook. Folding tables are another great solution in petite kitchens. Enjoy more table space when you need it and more floor space when meals are finished!

Go for It!

In smaller kitchens, you can keep things looking light and airy using clear chairs. Low-profile chairs can have the same effect. You can add easy-care cushions and cushion covers to chairs to make them even comfier. Choose cushion fabrics like Sunbrella® for sturdy eat-in kitchen material that stands up to daily life and looks great doing so. One more space-saving eat-in kitchen innovation is the slide-out table, which pulls out as easily as a drawer from a wall cabinet. With a few chairs or benches, you have an instant dine-in kitchen that the whole family will love!