How I Created My Own Banquette Dining Nook
Sponsored by
Sunbrella
Our dining room has to be one of the most revamped spaces in our whole house — I must have decorated it at least five times now! But the most recent upgrade is by far my favorite yet. We just added a brand new banquette from Ballard Designs upholstered in Sunbrella fabric.
For some reason, after every mini makeover I gave the dining room, it still never completely satisfied my decor desires. It’s gone from white to blue and back to white again. I’ve even tried changing things up with bookshelves, but it was still missing that certain something. When Sunbrella reached out to see if I wanted to try one of their functional, durable, easy-to-clean fabrics for an indoor project, I was excited to see how it could give a whole new look to the dining room — hopefully one that would finally stick!
Over the summer, I got to know and love Sunbrella after giving some of our patio furniture a fresh new feel. We’ve already been putting some mileage on the reupholstered pieces, so I know this performance fabric is as comfortable as it is resistant to wear (and spills!).
To create the custom banquette, I picked out Sunbrella’s Idol Violet performance fabric to cover a Diedra bench and Corner bench from Ballard Designs. I was really inspired by the colors from a vintage Chinese tassel I bought in Thailand last fall, and knew those were the colors I wanted to work with in this space. The house already has so many greens and yellow, but I’ve yet to give one of my favorite colors, purple, its proper moment in the spotlight! This project provided the perfect opportunity to do just that. To make it more even more bold and moody, I installed a lush tropical wallpaper. I love that there are hummingbirds and cockatoos in the pattern. We actually have a lot of hummingbirds in our backyard so it feels like we’re bringing the outdoor in with this wild wallpaper. It also features shades of purple in the wallpaper which matched perfectly with the banquette. And to top it off, I accented it with more Hmong pillows from Thailand. More is more, darlings! Let me show you what our dining room used to look like when we first moved in.
How sexy is this dining table though? I also finally got a chance to frame some of my own prints from my printmaking days. Vases are vintage Bitossi. We have a huge fig tree in our yard and I had no idea how fast they wilt in like five minutes! Chinese rug is also vintage. I also decided to update the roman shades to a green color. I was really feeling the purples and greens in here! Woven pendant is from here.
When I say this has been the biggest game changer I’m not exaggerating! Because the Sunbrella fabric stain resistant, it makes eating here so much more stress-free (it’s so easy to clean!). But besides that, it also makes the room feel so much more inviting. Not only is it a space for us to entertain small groups, but the fabric on the banquette is so soft and comfortable, I can also work from home here and even the pets are huge fans of how cozy it is. This room is finally complete! And to be honest, I don’t think I could ever go back to just dining tables and chairs. You know what they say, once you go banquette you don’t go back!
