A broad blue lampshade hangs over an old wooden table, low enough to give this tall Bristol kitchen a more intimate scale. Below it, an upholstered seat turns the corner beneath the window. The table has a substantial presence, with a rounded edge and turned legs, but the bench makes it look comfortably settled.

An inherited gateleg table sits beside a fitted corner banquette in Tess Rummer and Tristan Hogg's Bristol kitchen. Photograph: Huntley Hedworth.

This is Tess Rummer and Tristan Hogg's home in Montpelier. In Clair Wayman's Homes & Antiques report, the table is identified as an inherited 17th-century piece, and the fabric pendant was made by Tristan's sister. Neither needs to match the fitted kitchen to belong here. The eating place has its own character within the room.

I like the relationship between the seat and the lamp. One establishes a place at the edge of the room; the other gives it an overhead boundary. Together they make the table feel worth approaching, rather than merely fitted into a leftover patch of floor. That is a useful distinction when a kitchen plan begins to fill with storage before anyone has drawn a chair.

The wider kitchen photograph shows how the table shares the room with an island. Terracotta-painted cupboards, a pale worktop and white glass pendants mark out the cooking space. Beside it, the table provides an ordinary-height seat and a place to face other people.

The island and its white glass pendants define the working area of the same Bristol kitchen. Photograph: Huntley Hedworth.

For a kitchen with room for only one of them, the choice needs to begin with use. If you lack a suitable preparation surface, a table may not solve the problem. If you already have enough worktop but nowhere comfortable to eat, another run of cabinets could leave the more frustrating omission untouched. A table deserves a place on the first drawing, while there is still a choice about what occupies the middle.

The fitted seat changes that drawing. Along a wall, it removes the need to pull a chair backwards on that side, although people still need a comfortable way to get in and out. At a corner, access can become awkward for the person furthest in. The attractive outline in a photograph is only part of the arrangement; the occupied room matters more.

That suggests a useful, unglamorous rehearsal. Before commissioning a bench, set out the proposed table and seat positions at full size and try the movements you expect to make. Sit down, stand up, reach a place setting and walk past someone already seated. Open nearby doors and drawers. Leave the room's access route clear. There is little pleasure in a beautiful corner if every arrival requires somebody else to move.

A separate Oxfordshire home offers a more generous version. In Koo and Denny Akers's house, designed with Victoria Barker of Faeger, a red-checked breakfast sofa sits at a rectangular antique table. Dean Hearne's photograph shows loose chairs opposite and a dresser behind. The high upholstered back gives one side an especially settled appearance, while the open chair frames keep the other visually light.

A different house in Oxfordshire: Faeger's breakfast sofa faces loose chairs across an antique table. Photograph: Dean Hearne.

The composition is useful because it allows the two sides to behave differently. Chairs can move individually; the sofa gives a continuous backdrop. The table still has visible floor around its legs, so the group reads as furniture within a room rather than a solid block of joinery. Softness has been given space, with the dresser supplying the stronger vertical element behind it.

A purpose-made breakfast seat has to work with the table in front of it. Seat height, cushion compression, back angle, table apron and leg position all affect whether somebody can sit comfortably close enough. A sitting-room sofa may be a poor substitute. Bring the existing table's measurements to the start of the design discussion, and try the intended seating with it.

For a smaller kitchen, we would start by trying an existing table against a wall, with a suitable bench on one side and movable chairs where access needs to be flexible. Check a folding leaf with its supports open, then test the space around it. The room has to work with somebody seated there.

Decoration can follow that decision. Once the table has a convincing place, a light centred over it or a small group of pictures can give the area attention without adding another large piece of furniture. Fixed electrical changes need an appropriately qualified electrician, and the fitting must suit its location. The ambition is a pleasant seat, not an obstacle course created around a lampshade.

There is a good test before adding anything else to the plan: pull out the chair you would choose, sit down and look at the room from there. A kitchen is usually designed standing up. The view from the table deserves a turn.