Benches are more useful inside the house than you may think. They provide extra seating for guests and a touch of uniqueness to a simpler space.

Not only can you find benches in all sizes, shapes, and colors, but you can also find plenty for a fairly inexpensive price (or even thrifted). Check out all these fun, inspiring ways to use wooden benches around your home.

20 Benches to Add Functionality and Style to Your Home

1. Add a Bench to the Front Door Entry

Using a cute, quaint, and adorable little wooden bench at your front door entry is a great welcoming piece. It’s warm and stylish at the same time. Add some fresh flowers or greenery to really bring the doorway to life. A front porch bench also acts as a great place for the delivery people to leave mail or packages when you’re not home.

2. Foyer Bench

Another way to welcome your guests, find a place for a comfy, little bench inside your foyer. It adds a little personality. It’s a great place to sit down and take your shoes off, so it’s functional too! You can even use underneath the bench as a place to store shoes and keep them out of sight. A foyer can be one of the hardest parts of the house to decorate since its only real function is to greet guests into the home. A bench can make your foyer feel cozier and inviting, especially if you have a more modern and “cold” interior design.

3. Bay Window Bench

Create a little reading nook or a cozy place to sip your coffee and watch the kids play outside in the morning. Nestle a cushioned storage bench underneath your bay window and make sure you add a lot of pillows and blankets to keep it comfy! A window spot is a perfect place for a bench since the natural light is great for reading. Include storage for a place to store your books, magazines, and other reading accessories to keep the bench from looking cluttered.

4. A Bench at the Foot of the Bed

Another great place to sit down and put on your shoes, pack up your bags for vacation or add a little charm to your bedroom is at the foot of the bed. Find something with a bit more style and fashion for the bedroom but make sure it fits your vision for the room too. A bench at the foot of your bed can serve as a great landing pad to leave your purse or wallet too if you don’t want to clutter up your nightstand.

5. Dining Room Table Bench

This is my favorite way to use a bench! Place a funky bench on the side of your dining room table instead of chairs. It adds some fun, personality, and surprise to a usually uniform area. Benches are better for an informal dining room since they force dinner guests to sit side by side in closer proximity than dining room chairs would.

6. An Office Bench

Have a meeting at home? Or have a friend over for some coffee? Place a quirky bench in front or next to your desk so you can chat and get some work done too! Benches can offer comfortable seating for your office without taking up a ton of space. If you don’t have guests, a bench can also act as an additional surface for you to stack and organize files and papers on.

7. Living Room Bench

Everyone needs extra seating, especially when the whole family is over. But why not do something fun!? Adding a bench to the area sprucing things up in a lighter way than adding an extra couch or loveseat. Benches are also easy to move around if you need to transfer seating from one room to another.

8. Nursery Bookshelf Bench

It’s possible to build your own bench out of upcycled materials to save money and use your crafting skills. One of the best foundations for a bench is a sturdy bookshelf. You can use a bookshelf tipped over on its side as the frame for a darling nursery bench that provides plenty of storage for books, changing station supplies, or any of the other small items that might clutter an infant’s bedroom. A nursery bench is also a great place for guests to sit when they come to visit the new baby or when a parent needs to nurse their baby in the middle of the night. (via The Owner Builder Network)

9. Toy Box Bench

Benches can be just as useful for children as they can be for new infants. Anybody who has ever had a kid knows how many toys, crafting supplies, and other miscellaneous items end up from one end of the house to the other if they aren’t kept organized. This sophisticated toy box bench functions both as toy storage and as a play bench where kids can sit. The rails of the bench help prevent children from sliding off the edge and accidentally hurting themselves.

(via Her Tool Belt)

10. Planter Bench

Using benches around the home doesn’t have to be restricted to indoor spaces. Benches are a great addition to the garden. Here you can sit, relax, and enjoy the fruits of your labor, whether those fruits are tomatoes or roses. The cool thing about planter benches is that they can function as another space for you to plant. The planters in planter benches are perfect for planting invasive plants such as mint that might try to take over in other parts of the garden.

(via Black and Decker)

11. Shoe Storage Bench

One of the biggest tripping hazards that exist on the floor of most homes is the shoes that people take off when they get home. These usually end up cast somewhere on the floor near sitting areas. Using a bench for storing shoes near the front half of the house can help encourage people not to leave them lying everywhere. This can also keep less dirt and debris from getting tracked on the floor if you’re trying to encourage people not to wear their shoes indoors. (via Fix This Build That)

12. Mudroom Bench

If you’re going to use a bench in your home to store shoes, why not use it to store other items at the entrance to the household too? Mudrooms can be difficult to decorate since they’re a transitional space, but a bench is a great item to build for a mudroom since it can be used to store not only shoes but coats, backpacks, scarves, and other clothing accessories too. A mudroom bench serves as the perfect place for people to sit down and get comfortable.

(via Honey Bear Lane)

13. Patio Cooler Bench

Patios are one of the best places to use a bench since it’s a gathering area where you’re likely to entertain guests. Your friends will need somewhere to sit, and this patio bench incorporates a cooler so that you can keep plenty of cold drinks available by just flipping the cooler open. One of the advantages of this patio cooler bench is that it can be stained or painted any color you like, making it a versatile addition to your patio design. (via Wood It’s Real)

14. Curved Fire Pit Bench

While this bench isn’t technically inside the house, a great use of a bench in the home is as seating around the backyard fire pit. Benches can be placed on every side of a fire pit to create a squared-off, modern look. When building a fire pit bench, it’s important to keep the benches far enough away from the pit that they can’t be caught on fire or singed by the heat. Because fire pit benches are shared seating, they’re perfect for fostering a closer connection between the people sitting together. (via A Beautiful Mess)

15. Library Nook Bench

Looking for a softer seating? A good use of a bench in the house is to use it in a reading nook or library. This gives people a great place to relax and read. If you sew a cushion to fit over the top of your library bench, you can cover it with a wide variety of different fabrics to help your bench blend in perfectly with your library decor. Be sure to add plenty of book storage around the bench so that you always have a good read in easy reach. (via Spacewise)

16. Divider Bench

You can use smaller benches to divide a space in your home instead of using them for seating. Not all benches need to be strong enough to hold up people. Instead, you can use shorter benches to act as a long table for placing plants, books, or knick-knacks. Placing a bench behind a couch can act as a good visual divider for the room and can help lay out the pathways around a living room sitting area. This is an especially useful concept for helping to define the function of spaces inside an open floor plan. (via The Spruce)

17. Barstool Bench

One of the best things about using benches in your house is that they increase the amount of seating you have if you like to entertain. Barstools are often used if you have a walk-in bar in your home, but bar benches are another stylish option that’s available. Even though these are barstool benches, they don’t have to be restricted to the bar. Use these upholstered benches to add seating at your kitchen island or practically any other area of the home. (via Houseful of Handmade)

18. Headboard Bench

If you have an old headboard you aren’t using, one way to upcycle in household beds when it’s time to upgrade is to use your old bed’s headboard to build a bench. This is a great way to use up the pieces of an older bed that you no longer need while also adding your own personal touch to your bedroom decor. Even though you create a headboard bench out of bedroom furniture, these benches add a touch of style to any room of the house. Old wooden headboards can be painted or stained to complement many designs, and they’re sturdy enough to form the foundations of a bench for people to sit on. (via My Happy Simple Living)

19. Greenhouse Bench

A greenhouse bench is a great way to add seating to a space where you’ll want to sit back and enjoy looking at your plants and projects. Greenhouse benches can also act as a great place to rest plants while you’re transplanting or just when you need a place to take a break from working in the garden. Greenhouse benches should be constructed out of a material that can tolerate not being in a temperature-controlled environment. (via Homestead and Chill)

20. Hallway Bench

Wide hallways in your home can be useful for passing other people, but from an interior design perspective they can make the space feel flat and uncomfortable. A hallway bench may not be actually used much for seating, but it can act as a great focal point for an otherwise awkward part of the home. A wooden bench is a timeless piece that can work well with many different interior design styles. (via Making Manzanita)

Benches are one of the oldest forms of human furniture, and date back to a time when chairs were only reserved for the highest members of a household. However, this doesn’t mean benches aren’t still one of the most useful pieces of furniture in the house. They can either be freestanding, fixed to the wall, or even built into the wall itself. There are plenty of benches that can be purchased, but if you have a little bit of crafting skill you can easily build your own. Using benches in and around your home can easily help upgrade either indoor or outdoor spaces. No matter what room of the house you’re trying to decorate, you’re sure to find some type of bench that would work well to offer additional seating, storage, or decor to your space.