Nook Planner: Will the Table Fit Your Corner?
Measure your two walls and type them in. The planner does the rest, for a corner nook or a bench along one wall.
Free tool
Nook planner
Find the table your corner can take, how long to make the benches, and how many people it seats. All you need is a tape measure.
Bench and table heights
That is for your table. Most guides give 17 to 19 in for a 28 to 30 in table.
How the planner works
Everyone on the bench gets 24 inches if you don’t mind touching elbows, 30 if you do. The bench back sits 18 inches from the table edge on the snug setting and 20 on the comfortable one.
A built-in bench only reaches about halfway around a round table, so the planner gives the bench half the people that table seats in a dining room, and chairs take the open side. It checks the six sizes on a standard seating chart, 30 to 60 inches. Nobody eats well in the inside corner, so we add one extra place’s worth of bench there. That one is our own rule of thumb, not a published figure.
With a rectangular or square table, each bench seats as many people as fit along the side of the table in front of it, at 24 or 30 inches each. The planner checks eight sizes, from 96 by 36 inches down to a 36 inch square.
It turns the table so the long side goes on whichever wall has room for it, and that choice is our own call. Each bench runs from the corner to the end of the table, but it only counts the people who fit along the table’s side, so nobody’s seated in the corner itself. Each wall still needs room for the bench, the table and whatever’s past it, the same as with a round table.
It never seats more people than the highest count any of these guides or store listings gives for that size. They don’t always agree, so the comfortable setting uses a lower count and snug uses the top one. That split is our own call.
Past a chair, the planner leaves 32 inches from the table edge to the wall when nobody walks behind it, 36 if people squeeze by, and 44 if they walk by. A walkway with no chair gets 36. Where a wall faces the table and nobody sits there, we still leave 32 inches so you can slide in and out. That last one is our call.
A table along a wall bench is 30 inches deep. For heights, the seat sits 10 to 12 inches below the tabletop, with at least 8 inches between the seat and whatever hangs under the table.
The drawing is to scale but simplified. Measure at the height the bench will sit, past any baseboard or radiator.
Sources: Dimensions.com, breakfast nook, Dimensions.com, banquette seating, WebstaurantStore seating chart, Fine Homebuilding, NKBA Kitchen Planning Guidelines, Castlery, Dimensions.com, L-shaped nook with a rectangular table, Retreat Home Furniture, IKEA dining tables, Article, Superior Seating, Ashdeco, furniturelink, JJones Design Co. Read August to October 2026.
Want the numbers behind it?
The planner uses the same clearances and seat sizes as my two measuring guides. If you want the reason behind each number, or you are building a bench rather than buying one, start there.