Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Adding A Kitchen Banquette Eating Nook

We always love a big kitchen renovation when it comes to Reader Redesigns, but sometimes making over just the corner is enough to get us inspired bigtime. Just check out what Deme and her family did to the breakfast nook of their dated kitchen. Here’s her email:

Hi Young House Lovers! Your blogs is one of the highlights of my day and I wanted to share our  breakfast nook with you. After removing a thick lacquered chair rail and scrapping layers of fruit patterned and 70’s wallpaper, we ended up with some pretty fugly untextured walls.

Deme Before

We started with a dark dungeon of a corner and ended up with something bright, fresh and uber functional for our young family of five!

Deme After

I scored an L-shaped bench on craigslist to give us some additional seating (our previous table could seat four, leaving someone in our family out of luck at mealtime). We said goodbye to the honey finish, giving it a fresh coat of white paint.

Deme Storage Benches Intro

Even though the benches were a pretty standard style, they had storage in the seats, which helped solve the problem of our art/craft supplies that were scattered throughout the house. We lined them with some graphic shelf paper and they now hold all of the kids’ painting/art supplies, homework necessities, and learning activities for our youngest bambinos.

Deme Benches

When it came time to paint the walls, I planned to use stripes to help this corner feel larger. But I also can’t help but be pulled toward the ombre trend, so we went with a subtle ombre stripe treatment for our backdrop.

Deme Artwork

We used a digital scrap booking kit to break up one of our favorite Dr Seuss quotes into four prints (“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”). We framed them with some white lovelies we grabbed on sale at Target… they mark this space as a place to learn, explore, and create!

Deme Flower

Overall we are so happy with the change to this little kitchen corner! It serves so many functions for us and I can’t help but smile whenever I walk into the kitchen… especially since the rest of the kitchen is in that ugly mid-cabinet-painting stage of DIY kitchen reno! ~Deme

Deme Owl

It’s a fun update, right? I’m jealous of the storage benches. And I think the paint treatment on the wall is pretty awesome too. She’s got plenty more details and extra photos of the makeover (including updating their existing table and chairs) on her blog. Thanks for sharing Deme!

Comments

  5. Christy Niebaum says

    First of all, I’m super excited that someone else uses the term “fugly.”

    I really love the benches, the bright throw pillows and my heart soars for those red chairs!

    Reply

  10. Claudia says

    I love the ombre stripes! I think that effect could be very overwhelming on a wall, but the subtle color changes are gorgeous!

    Reply

  11. Cassondra says

    My favourite is the ombre stripe! Also, we’re thinking of adding bench seating to our kitchen dining when we renovate, how do we make sure it’ll be comfortable?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Anyone have tips for Cassondra? I would go for thick foam on the seat with some wipeable outdoor fabric, or if you’re more into wood seating just sit down and make sure it’s comfy :)

      xo
      s

    • Deme @ Fresh Coat Of Paint says

      we added a 2 inch foam to ours and it’s pretty cushy! I wrapped it with an old sheet and gave it a trial run for a few weeks. I wanted to see how dirty it would really get before I settled on a more permanent cover. With 3 kids under five, it definitely gets messy…like cup of milk spilled and soaked into the foam messy. So, if you have little ones or clumsy ones, I would definitely recommend something that is wipeable, water resistant/proof, or even just treated with something like Scotch guard. Ours is also fairly comfortable without the cushion, but we like the added height. As Sherry said, just sitting down on it without a cover should give you an idea of it’s comfy-factor :)

  12. Krissy says

    The gradient stripes are SUCH a neat idea! And I love L-shaped benches. Every time we hit a furniture store, I linger at the benches… Nice work!

    Reply

  15. Michelle Kersey says

    I knew John posted this when…. I got to the bottom and there was no ogling over the Ceramic Owl crayon holder in the last image…

    Reply

  17. Andrea. says

    AWESOME update! I didn’t even notice the stripes until they were mentioned in the write-up — guess I was too busy drooling over those red / coral chairs. They are absolutely perfect in that space!!

    Reply

  18. Ali Miller says

    I have one lone chair similar to these that floats about the house. I am so excited to give it a happy color now! :)

    Reply

  19. Rozanne Paxman says

    What a great redo. It’s actually kind of shocking what a huge difference it has made. I wouldn’t have guessed it is the same house. It makes me want to paint my chairs red!

    Reply

  20. Kara says

    OMG, great job Deme! You did a fantastic job, I am so jealous. Smart choice on the ombre stripes, I think it helps the corner feel “taller”! Did you mix two colors to achieve your stripe colors, or are they each their own paint-ship color?

    Reply

  21. Chelsea says

    I have the same L-shaped bench in my kitchen also purchased off Craigslist and then painted white. I am inspired to add some pillows and paint an accent chair! Great nook!

    Reply

  26. Kate says

    Did they lop off the tops of those chairs? What a good idea! It completely updated them. I don’t know if I would have even thought of that.

    Reply

  29. Kelli from LittleCottageOfMine says

    Sooo cute!

    Side note to express my horror!!! Stupid me was waiting around for an email from FLOR regarding the new date for your visit in NYC which I had previously rsvpd for. I just checked your schedule because I had not heard from them and its already closed! How disappointing! Now I must go ball my eyes out!

    Sooooo saaaddd,
    Kelli

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Fret not! If you RSVPed for the first event you’re still accounted for! They only wanted new people to RSVP, so if you already did before you’re all set and should just show up. They’re expecting you :)

      xo
      s

  36. Kate says

    Great job! I think my favorite part is the re-use; they didn’t go out and buy all new furniture, they just painted the table and chairs and added a Craigslist bench.

    Reply

  38. Jennifer says

    That was so smart to chop off the tops of the chairs to give them a more updated and proportional look. I did not see that coming.

    Reply

  41. Heather says

    Love the walls! Love them so much I almost wish I had seen them last week when I painted my three year old’s big girl room.
    And the fabric on the pillows, especially like the zig zag multicolor fabric!

    Reply

  43. karen little says

    Love this, too! So smart and smart-looking. Wanted to visit her blog but can’t get through, for some reason. :(

    Reply

  46. Andrea B says

    I LOVE the ombre wall! It brings so much design to the space without being in your face. Looks great!
    Have you considered this for your sunroom? I think it would look really neat in there and bring out some of the architecture of the room.

    Reply

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