apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I love the second photo - it looks like an intimate table in a supper club...

...but the first photo - while it looks nice - doesn't look really function well since the middle person has to have the one of the other guests on either side get up for them if they need to leave the table for some reason.

I think this works comfortably with two people on the sofa at most.

Aren't sofas usually too low to substitute as dining chairs?

LOVE the idea, although will have to test out sofa heights when purchasing the sofa. I just got a great extendable drop leaf table from Craiglist that I hope to refinish. Wouldn't that be cool for one side with mix-matched chairs on the others?

The second photo looks great, but the top one looks like a nightmare. And the cleaning bill! The sofa is almost never the right height, and it's too squishy, so someone always gets jostled and dumps cranberry sauce all over the Scalamandre.

I have been looking for a banquette for oh so long. I would love the dining room table to be a cozy place for non-meal times.

Seems that the sofa is just too low for a dining table.

Typical sofas are a lot lower than dining chairs to sit at the same table. If you want a custom-made small space solution... build an addition, I guess.

I actually saw a sofa in the dining room, actually it was dining/kitchen combo. It was very cozy.

Don't serve spaghetti.

Fine if the sofa is the right heigth and doesn't have arms.

I've been to restaurants where they used sofas for dining seating. They usually lower the table to accommodate the sofa. But my problem with this is that sofas are meant for lounging and the deeper seats and backward slope of the sofas make for very uncomfortable eating. The second photo isn't really a sofa. It looks like more of a settee, they tend to be higher and built closer to the dimensions of chairs than sofas.

I really don't like the top one. I couldn't handle how long the couch is compared to the table, and not having an even number of chairs would make my OCD kick in.

Nudik, was it actually actual?

I love the idea of having a sofa in your dining room. My best friend has a sofa in her kitchen, and although there's no table, it works very nicely. It makes the kitchen very social and comfortable (its away from the stove/sink/cooking area) and I have even napped on it before while something was baking for 30 minutes. I think most people are weird about it, but it makes their home feel more welcoming.

Food. Gets. On. Sofas.

Hey man, one of the contestants from this last round of Top Design got dinged hard for doing this.

Margaret Russell was not having it. :)

I got longer legs for my loveseat and use it as a banquette. I ordered them online.

Many antique sofas are the same height as chairs - I have one and it works great in a similar arrangement. Get some comfortable upholstered dining chairs with armrests, and your dining room doubles as a living room - no need for a sofa or a coffee table.