At Papilio, we consider every aspect of each luxury kitchen we design, build and install. Transformational kitchens need space for cooking, preparation, entertainment, and relaxation. After all, a kitchen should be your favourite room in the house. So we sometimes need to think outside the box regarding kitchen seating. And on occasion, we’ve had to go beyond the classic dining table and chairs formation for dining. A luxury kitchen has many clever and functional seating and dining options. We consider functionality as much as aesthetics and offer the best solutions to ensure the perfect luxury kitchen. Over the years, we have designed snug spaces, banquet seating and bespoke kitchen islands, with and without seating, because we get to know our client’s needs, tastes and wants.
Below, we go beyond the dining table and discuss seating ideas for a luxury kitchen.
Sofas & Snugs
We’ve designed multiple multifunctional spaces in our kitchens over the years. In our Fulham Kitchen project in London, we created a Scandinavian kitchen in a sizeable wrap-around extension with clean, simple lines with hand-laid oak veneers and slatted wall coverings for colour and texture, creating a constant stream of interest. Part of the design included a snug area for sitting, reading or just ‘being’. We designed a beautiful feature wall enhanced by the homeowner’s attractive mid-century furniture and collection of house plants and artworks. The snug became a little escape for the young professional family.
Another example of a dedicated snug for upholstered furniture can be found in our Mid-Century Inspired Kitchen in Somerset. The snug was located by the disused inglenook fireplace at one end of the sizable kitchen. The area housed two upholsters chairs, a coffee table and a large house plant which was an ideal spot for morning coffee and weekend papers. A little haven away from the hustle and bustle of the busy kitchen.
Banquet Seating
Banquets and bench seating have become more popular over the past few years. Many top-rated international restaurants have revived that trend. Not only are they beautiful pieces of furniture in their own right, but banquets are also the multifunctional social heart of your kitchen. They can double up as storage, as well as section off parts of a kitchen in a permanent way. Banquets and benches can also be versatile and placed in an L-shape along a wall, under a large window, or become a new part of the built-in seating arrangement. For example, we designed bespoke banquet-style seating for our Georgian Manor House Kitchen project in rural Somerset. The bespoke handmade kitchen offered our client and their family a space to socialise over breakfast or drinks, making it a feature in their new kitchen.
Kitchen Islands With Seating
We love designing kitchen islands in our luxury kitchens. There are numerous advantages to incorporating a kitchen island as part of a handmade kitchen design. Even if space is limited, a freestanding kitchen island can add extra surface space and cabinetry and take essentials such as sinks and cookers off the walls. In a nutshell, kitchen islands are innovative and functional and offer style and a sense of openness, all of which add to the overall aesthetic of a new luxury kitchen. But a kitchen island can also provide seating for entertaining and eating and is a neat way of removing the need for a dining table and chairs if space is limited. For our Copper Kitchen in Somerset, we designed a handmade kitchen with a kitchen island to provide enough seating for at least four people. Although multifunctional, the kitchen island had the wow factor because we used beautiful solid walnut and oak, Neolith worktops and copper in the design.
