Consider Adding a Window Seat to Your Design, Home Architecture and Interiors Images, House Decor
Consider Adding a Window Seat to Your Design
A space-efficient way to boost seating – sleek and contemporary solutions – Architectural Article by Houzz
28 Feb 2018
Adding a Window Seat to Your Home Design
A space-efficient way to boost seating, these handy additions can be a sleek and contemporary solution
Full article first published on Houzz
Sarah Warwick, Houzz Contributor
Think window seat and you might picture country cottage perches created by deep stone walls. Or perhaps it’s a bay window with a seat shaped to follow its contours that springs to mind. Window seats don’t have to have a traditional aesthetic, though. Check out the contemporary credentials of these designs.
Go all round
The home office area of this contemporary extension has a built-in seat that overlooks the garden. The designer hasn’t just taken the traditional storage-below route, but surrounded the window with cupboards to keep the work area clutter-free.
Repeat the look with push-to-open cupboard doors and spotlights above that highlight the feature.
Smart ways to store paperwork and declutter your home office
Get the lowdown
A pair of oriel windows – which protrude like bays but don’t reach the ground – create window seating in this kitchen-diner. It’s an idea well worth throwing into the mix if you’re planning a new downstairs extension.
These windows extend nearly to the ground, so the seating inside the house is low. It’s a tactic you might want to copy if you’d like the perches to be easy for children to reach or suitable for older family members.
Speak to window glazing experts about installing windows like these
Grow in style
The window seat in this extension to an Edwardian house is part of a stepped structure that adds cupboard space as well as neat extra seating. Made from timber, the unit echoes the window frames and the bench seat base. Using wood in a window seat is also a simple way to link it with trees and plants in a garden beyond.
Develop a soft side
A window seat is an explicit invitation to pause and take in the view, introducing a more relaxing element to a hard-working space such as a kitchen. Add an upholstered seat pad and cushions and it’ll soften the room texturally as well.
Note how this seat’s upholstery and cushions link with both the bottle green of the metro-tiled splashback and the foliage of the garden for a space-stretching blurring of inside and out.
Stay in the frame
This contemporary living space is all long, low lines – from the modular sofa to the coffee table and wall-hung TV – and the long, low window seat is the perfect complement. Wood panelling frames the feature and ties it to the TV wall for a pulled-together look, while piles of cushions make it as appealing as the rest of the room’s seating.
Ensure the foam you have cut for your seat pad is dense yet soft enough to be comfortable (it’s worth getting some samples) and that when you make the cover, the opening is on a long edge, making it easier to remove for washing.
Choose contrast
A modern window seat can look as good in an older home as in a new-build or modern extension. In this child’s room, the seat and the storage that’s below and alongside it are contemporary in style, with handleless drawers and a smooth white finish. It keeps the overall effect sleek in a room where a growing collection of possessions is inevitable and extra stash space is never going to be wasted.
If you’re lucky with the size of your window, the only bespoke part of an arrangement like this could be the seating spot itself. To save money, consider an asymmetrical design, so you can make those drawer units fit.
Reduce a footprint
The owners of this extension have plenty of space – and they wanted to keep it that way. So the answer to their requirement for relaxing seating was a bench under the window, which doesn’t eat into the floor area very much.
Opting for a storage base that continues the style of the kitchen cabinetry – as here – makes the design less imposing visually, contributing to the airy feel.
Slot in shelving
Open storage can work as well as closed cupboards in a window seat design. Bookshelves don’t require much depth to fit paperbacks, but, at a right angle to the window, can accommodate a decent number of volumes on shelves whose widths match the depth of the seat.
In this small room, sticking to the same recessive colour for seat, storage and walls gives the illusion of extra space.
Comments on this Consider adding a window seat: home decor tips article are welcome.
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