40 Cute and Cozy Breakfast Nooks and Bars
Just imagine eating scrambled eggs in any of these spaces. Sigh.
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Photo By: Photo by Eric Piasecki; Katie Ridder Rooms, 2011. Used with permission from The Vendome Press.
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Upholster Your Breakfast Banquette
Looking for a bigger statement piece to push your breakfast nook to center stage? Look no further than a brightly colored upholstered bench. Gorgeous pieces like the one pictured above will stand out among the rest of your space and inspire your guests to be bold with their upholstering choices as well.
Choose Color
Blue paisley shades, royal blue cushions and fuchsia pillows automatically make this space feel lively and inviting. Choose color to add dimension to your more neutral spaces.
Use Windows as Anchors
Frame your breakfast nook between large bay windows for a bright, airy atmosphere. You’ll set yourself up for success waking up with your morning cup of Joe in a set up like this one.
Keep Paint Colors Light
Smaller spaces can often times feel dark and crowded. Avoid this pitfall by keeping colors and accents light. The area will develop an airy, open atmosphere that will feel warm, inviting and homey.
Take Trim to the Next Level
When you’re sitting at your breakfast bar in the morning, it’s important to have a pop of color to spur your creativity for the day. Try painting the trim around your windows or the inside of your cabinetry with vibrant colors for a burst of inspiration.
Build Benches for Bigger Crowds
Hosting sleepovers and family gatherings is so much fun, especially when you have room for everyone to sit at the table. Built-in benches like these maximize the space around your table, making room for countless guests to sit, eat and talk together.
Fill Your Kitchen Alcoves
Silly nooks and crannies within your space can often pose a challenge. What in the world am I going to do with that space? Incorporating a breakfast bar into one of these alcoves is the perfect solution. Not only will it fill the awkward space, but it will also be a cozy place for the family to share a special meal.
Leap for Simplicity, But Land on Pillows
A great way to maintain neutrality within your space, while also creating a focal point for your room, is through accent pillows. A neutral breakfast nook complimented by pillows of all shapes, sizes and colors allows for the space to make a statement, but also grow with you as your style changes.
Purchase Colorful Dishware
Commitment to bright colors and big statements can be daunting, so insert colorful pockets throughout your space with bright dishware. It’s fun, whimsical and won’t pressure you to make an expensive commitment that you may not be into in a few months.
Round the Space Out with Furniture
Your entire breakfast nook doesn’t have to be built into the wall. Try building booths along the corner of your space and position a free-standing table, like this round, walnut piece, at the center of the area.
Mix and Match Accents
Paint your space a neutral color and purchase bigger furniture, like your dining table, that fade into your neutral walls. Then, add pops of color with smaller detailing like chairs, lighting pendants, and dishware to make the area pop.
Create Captivating Cushions
Breakfast nooks with built-in seating can either sit as wooden pieces, or can incorporate a bit more cushioning. This nook takes advantage of navy accents with a seamless seating cushion running atop the seating. Play around with cushion patterns and colors to find what works best for your space.
Take Chances with Trim
Your breakfast nook can integrate seamlessly into the rest of your kitchen, but it doesn’t have to. To define the nook as its own space for community and gathering, paint the trim a striking color. It will make a great impact on the room, while also establishing the dining area as its own space.
Get Creative with Seating
Most breakfast nooks have built-in seating or chairs and benches. Mix it up by positioning unique ottomans on one half of the nook. They’re interesting in and of themselves, but also allow for a line of vision to the base of your table, if it’s as cool as the one pictured here.
Win with Wallpaper
Another way to define your breakfast nook as its own space is through the incorporation of wallpaper. Wallpaper can add personality, creativity and a clear thematic aesthetic to any area, so why not try it in your breakfast nook as well.
Design Curtains to Compliment the Space
This modern-retro style breakfast nook has it all: interesting pieces, bright colors and a seamless integration of pattern. Curtains like these draw the eye up and down the wall, as well as across the entirety of the nook, providing any visitor with plenty of beauty to look at.
Coordinate Colors
Color is a fun addition to any space, especially if it is reflected across the room. Experiment with colored cushions to compliment any colorful furniture you may have. This color play will unify the space and put a smile on your face every time you enter the room.
Tuck Stools Away to Maximize Space
Lower bar stools are great for conserving space. When tucked under the bar, the illusion of an open bar area is created, but in a matter of moments you can pull out seating for the whole family.
Match Pillows to Cushions for a Uniform Look
Neutral nooks are best paired with colorful cushions and pillows to make the space feel warmer and more inviting. When your cushions and pillows are coordinated, the area feels even more integrated and put together, establishing that sense of harmony that is vital to any space.
Pay Attention to Detail
The details of any breakfast nook can make or break the space. Glass cabinets and big windows allow the space to feel light and open, even when your cabinets or furniture are a bit darker.
Pair Rustic with Modern
It’s hard to pick a personality for your space, especially when you love influences from all different styles of design. Pair your favorites together for the best of both worlds, similar to this rustic-meets-modern space. Integrating a rustic table with sleeker benches creates an individual unity within the space, while also drawing inspiration from each different aesthetic.
Apply Acrylics
When designing smaller spaces, it’s all about illusion. Incorporating clear acrylic furniture into your space will provide necessary seating, without unnecessary visual obstructions. Another plus to these pieces is that they’re modern and will give your space a super hip feel.
Feel Funky
You shouldn’t be afraid to insert bits of your personality into your space and to take chances with design. At the end of the day, if you don’t like something, you aren’t stuck with it forever. Funky chairs, distressed fabrics and neat artwork are just a few ways to bring out bits of you within your space.
Build Everything into the Island
With larger kitchens that center around an island, be sure to take advantage of every inch. Place stools along one side of the counter, open shelves on another, pantry drawers on another, all to ensure you’re making the most of that ample amount of space.
Create Detail Through Interesting Pieces
Bold accents aren’t exclusively for accent pillows or banquette seating. Tables, chairs and bookshelves are also great vehicles for implementing some character into your space. The scalloped detailing on this round wooden table adds a simple, yet sleek design that only works to elevate the space.
Design Sleek Silhouettes
If ultra-modern is your style, go all in. Sleek lines, clear whites and simple furniture will help to create a unique space that screams futuristic smart home. Add a modern breakfast bar into the mix by sneaking colorful acrylic stools under the side of the island.
Soften Your Spaces
Breakfast banquettes that are made from strictly from wood can sometimes feel cold or uncomfortable. Soften up the space with throw pillows or cushioning that compliments the area, while also adding a bit of personality into the mix.
Mix and Match Fabrics
When incorporating an upholstered built-in as seating for your breakfast nook, placing patterned pillows is a must. Mixing and matching fabrics will add whimsy and quirk into your space, creating an even more inviting breakfast scene.
Style with Shiplap
Use shiplap to create a dynamic experience in your breakfast nook. Complimented by the window panes, the linear design of shiplap, specifically in this space, draws the eye across the alcove, from light fixture to fixture.
Give Your Space Bohemian Flair
Insert some Bohemian flair into your space through natural elements like these grass-woven pendant lights. They’ll give you a beachy retreat sort of feel that will permeate happiness and joy throughout your kitchen.
Maximize Seating
The chic built-in banquette pictured above is great for optimizing seating in this breakfast nook, but the design goes one step further to incorporate chairs around the table as well, maximizing every inch of seating space possible.
Manipulate Metallics
Metallics are really fun materials to work with because they add a bit of flair and pizzazz to any space. Mix and match silvers and golds through accent pieces or chairs, like this breakfast nook pictured here. They will jazz up your nook and make it fit for the royalty that you are.
Say Something Through Lighting
Light fixtures can define the personality of your space. Looking for a more elegant look? Try a glittery chandelier. Want something a bit more modern? Check out these globe pendants hanging over this breakfast nook.
Paint Walls to Make a Statement
Create contrast, while simultaneously tricking your eyes into seeing more light than the space actually has, by painting dramatic stripes across your space. It may seem like a bold move, and it is, but statement walls are all the rage nowadays.
Evade Mess Via Vinyl
Life gets messy, especially when you have kids, so opt for a banquette upholstered with vinyl for an easy-to-clean solution. This teal and brown striped banquette also packs a pop of color and an old school vintage feel.
Consider Cabinets
Built-in banquettes are the perfect vessel for additional storage spaces. Hollow bench seating can be filled with extra dishware, cleaning products and more, then concealed with unified cabinet doors. They’ll blend right in and give you some much valued storage.
Make the Most of Your Breakfast Bar
For kitchens that lack nooks or alcoves for more defined breakfast areas, breakfast bars at the island are a great alternative. Set the places and ready the seating because this area will be a hot commodity in your household.
Employ Backless Stools to Maximize Space
Tucking stools under an island breakfast bar is a great way to increase seating without compromising space or fluidity within your space. In this sleek, white kitchen, the stools blend into the base of the island and maintain a direct visual to the back of the room.
Trade Island Stools for a Bench
If you’re looking for a cozier option for the island-meets-breakfast-bar experience, then try a bench out for size. This atypical bar seating arrangement allows for all of your little ones to squish together as they enjoy their pancake breakfast.
Keep Lines Clean
The best way to make a space feel clean and organized is via the lines that run throughout the space. Wainscoting and the vertical stripped detail on the banquette cushions manifest this principle, creating a sleek little nook.
