What are the types of seating areas I can incorporate into my kitchen cabinetry?

Seating areas can be incorporated into your kitchen design in a variety of different ways. As the floor plans of houses become more and more open, seating areas are becoming more commonly incorporated into the kitchen design. Seating areas in kitchens usually serve as informal dining and gathering areas and help transition from the kitchen to the living room or a more formal dining area.

The most common type of seating that can be incorporated into your kitchen plan is a bar. These areas are often called breakfast bars as they most commonly provide a space for informal family eating, such as breakfast. A bar often sits on the opposing side of an island or a peninsula. Seated at a bar, one can watch the cook at work, and for parents, they can watch their children while they prepare their meal.

Bars also provide an important solution for parties. As we all know, people tend to congregate in the kitchen during gatherings, especially during the aperitif section of a dinner party. Bar seating allows your guests to sit and watch the goings on in the kitchen while being out of the way of the cook. Bar seating that backs into a living area can provide additional seating for other types of entertaining such as sports games and movie nights. An elevated bar provides a stadium seating feel that allows everyone to see the TV.

This brings up an important side note to built-in seating areas: there are multiple heights available for built-in seating. Bar height is probably the most common. The top surface of a bar-height countertop or table is typically between 40-44” and goes with bar-height bar stools. Kitchen height bars can also be incorporated into your kitchen plan and can be beneficial as they eliminate the need to build a half wall. Kitchen height seating areas are the same height as standard kitchen cabinetry bases and must use kitchen height bar stools. Lastly, desk or table height areas can also be incorporated into your kitchen cabinetry. Table height is traditionally between 28-32” high and go with standard height chairs.

Table height areas can serve a variety of functions. It is common, space provided, to incorporate a desk area into the kitchen plan. This can be as simple as a small telephone or bill paying area, but can also be larger to house the family computer for easy monitoring. Table height seating areas are also becoming more frequent additions to islands and peninsulas. This is essentially just the opposite of a bar seating area. The height of the countertop and cabinetry drops down instead of raising up and can provide an interesting and unique dimension to your kitchen plan. Table height areas are also used with or without seating as bake centers, as the lower height is more appropriate for baking activities such as rolling out pastry dough or kneading bread.

The last way kitchen cabinetry can be used to provide seating areas in your kitchen plan is through a built-in booth style table. Not only will the base of your booth seating be able to match or coordinate with your kitchen cabinetry, but by using cabinets to construct, it additional storage space is added. With the variety of legs available through semi-custom or stock cabinetry lines or with the aid of a skilled master craftsman like we have at The Savannah Cabinet Shop it is possible to even construct the table inside the booth area to coordinate.

Before you sit down with your kitchen designer consider the seating options in your past or current kitchen and how they either served or interfered with your needs. Think about what kind of seating would most serve your lifestyle and family needs and communicate these needs to your kitchen designer. Call, email or come by The Savannah Cabinet Shop today and we can begin the process.