How to Mix Benches and Chairs at Your Dining Table Without It Looking Odd

Mixing benches and chairs at the table can look incredible - or like you don't have enough chairs and someone just got what they could find. How does it go from one extreme to another? By getting a few details right in proportion, placement, and visual appeal.

When it's successful, mixed seating is visually interesting, flexible, and can make a dining area feel even more purposeful and designed. When it's not, it's mismatched and appears haphazard, diluting the entire space.

Get The Height Right First

When mixing benches with dining chairs, the first thing that commonly goes wrong is height. For a proper mixed-use experience at the table, the seats of both benches and chairs must be at comparable heights so they can all fit under the table appropriately.

Standard height dining chairs boast a seat height of about 18 inches. Therefore, as a general rule, the benches should be around the same height. If the benches are lower, then the people sitting on the benches appear awkward on one side of the table. However, if the benches are higher, then they're not comfortable.

If your table height is static, make sure the seating height is appropriate for everyone involved. If you're picking everything out together, ensure everything is dimensionally appropriate before considering aesthetic style.

Match The Design Intensity

They don't have to match - as in, style - but they have to be similar in design, weigh,t and formality. For example, a very heavy ornate bench next to dainty contemporary chairs feels confused. A contemporary bench next to traditional carved chairs feels even more confused.

They should feel like they're of the same family - even if they're not. They should boast similar wood tones or ease/ornateness of build or a similar time frame from which they hail. This helps make the pieces cohesive.

It's useful to mix when pieces boast similar design DNA - similar legs, a related finish or similar levels of detail.

Make It Intentional

Making mixed seating not look haphazard but rather intentional comes down to commitment. If your benches match your table's style, then it's intentional.

It's also about nice pieces - for example, Z furnishing has great options - so everything looks curated - not piecemealed from various clearance sections.

It's the details. If your chairs boast cushions, do your cushions then need to go on your bench as well? If your chair has arms, does your non-arm bench get too much contrast?

Think About Where Your Bench Goes

Benches are best situated on one long side of a rectangular table. This is better than placing them on all four sides because that spreads more mixed options than necessary.

Generally speaking, you will see the bench placed against a wall (or window) with chairs along the opposite long side and both ends - this makes sense as chairs are easier to get in and out of when people need to leave mid-meal, while benches work best when everyone sits down at once and everyone has to leave at once.

Some people place benches on both sides - with chairs only at the ends. This works for informal spaces but is less formal because someone accessing the middle side of a bench will require everyone to move to let them out.

Consider Color & Finish Coordinations

Color and finish create connections between disparate items when mixing furniture, making them more cohesive. If a chair is dark wood, then there's an obvious connection with a bench that's similar dark wood - but it doesn't have to be identical.

Upholstery can also be similar with fabrics that pick up on any chair color or other textiles in dining rooms - an upholstery cushion that is neutral somewhere else in the room makes sense.

Mixed metal finishes - black frames with a natural wood bench - work well if the combination occurs somewhere else in another table piece - the dining table's legs may be black and wood on top.

Balance The Visual Weight

A long bench comes with its own visual weight. In order to offset that on another long side, there needs to be enough presence - so many chairs that match (in terms of number of seats) on one side are better than just a few on another.

A good way to avoid this is leaving one side heavily filled while leaving another side less populated; no one will know why, but it will feel off-kilter.

Adding chairs to both ends of the table helps anchor this value. These details add up.

Ask Practical Questions

There are practical pros and cons to mixed seating beyond mere aesthetics. Benches are great for fitting more people in less space, thus they're beneficial for extra-large gatherings - but they're easier during daily meals where people come and go as people want, instead of everyone sitting at once and everyone getting up at once (as around a fixed table).

Kids also love them - they can scoop in together easily. Spills come off easier on cushion-covered benches than on individual chairs. But elderly people may want chairs with arms instead because they make standing and maneuvering easier.

Benches without backs can easily be shoved into tables instead for smaller dining spaces, but they're not comfortable compared to backed seats when it comes to prolonged seating arrangements.

Try Before You Buy

If possible, test out your setup before committing fully! Some stores allow returns - instead of starting from scratch if everything doesn't mesh together - buying the bench first might be best until you can swap out an entire system.

It's difficult to visualize mixed seating. What looks great in magazine photos might not do well in your scale and selections. Best to try out first before making mistakes.

Making It Work

Successfully integrating mixed seating options comes down to purposeful selection with proportion, aesthetic harmony, color association, and practical function all factored into making sure it works.

They don't all have to match perfectly - they just have to correspond well enough to make it purposeful rather than haphazard when those details aren't considered. When they are considered, then mixed seating options are interesting and personalized compared to matched sets, and nothing looked random.