Cozy Winter Breakfast Room

We’re fully embracing the beauty of winter right now. Celebrating the season, I’m bringing together rustic botanicals with vintage French country charm to wrap our family’s gathering spaces in comfort and joy. Today, let’s tour our cozy winter breakfast room!

Mother Nature is certainly making the presence of winter known, too. It’s frigid and icy, and we can only work outside for short bits of time before we need to come inside and thaw out.

That’s all the more reason to make sure the inside of our home is especially comfy and cozy this season. I have always believed that home should be a place of respite. I carry that goal with every space that I design and decorate, and our winter breakfast room is no exception!

Before we get into the tour, be sure to pin this post so you can find these design ideas again later!

What is a breakfast room?

Maybe a good place to start the tour is explaining what exactly a breakfast room is, in the first place!

When we’re talking about architecture and home design, there are several options for dining space in the home. Depending on how much space you have to work with, you might have counter-height seating at a kitchen island, or a large formal dining room that’s ideal for dinner parties and holiday gatherings.

The breakfast room is a dining area that’s just adjacent and open to the kitchen. The difference between a breakfast room and a breakfast nook is mostly a matter of size. Also, breakfast nooks often have built-in bench seating, while a breakfast room features a set of chairs around a table.

A breakfast room is an especially versatile space that’s perfect for everything from casual dining, to homework, and family game nights. In our home, we do have a formal dining room, but we use our breakfast room 99.99% of the time for all of these activities and more!

{ Related: Hanging an Antique Window in our Kitchen Pass-Through }

Vintage Winter Tablescape

The theme for our table’s centerpiece was percolating in my mind for months before I actually put it all together. I absolutely adore old books and have an enormous collection of them that I use all around the house. Of course I knew that would be the foundation for our tablescape! So, I dug out my storage totes and started picking out the perfect sizes for stacking.

To create the look, I used a vintage linen table runner with a pretty crocheted edge. Then, I played around with various combinations of stacking my books until I found the right design that would support my antique ironstone pitcher filled with evergreen stems.

{ Related: Winter Boulangerie Inspired Dining Room }

Then, what could be more cozy at wintertime than candlelight?

We experience quite a few power outages every year, so candlelight is sometimes more of a necessity than anything else during winter. But, I think it’s especially beautiful and intimate for creating cozy spaces, too.

I used candles in three shades of white and cream, and added them to my favorite sets of candlesticks that all have a vintage French country feel to them. I like the chippy and distressed look of the candlesticks because it makes them feel very humble and well-used in a space that should evoke a similar feeling.

After all, a breakfast room is a central gathering space in the home. Everything in it should be quite practical, lived in, and loved on. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t also be pretty!

{ Related: After-Christmas Winter Decorating }

Cozy Winter Breakfast Room Decor

I’ve said this a million times, but it bears repeating: Just because something is practical doesn’t mean it can’t also be pretty. Even high-use areas of our home, like the breakfast room, deserve to be decorated for the season.

I kept the winter theme going in this space by mirroring our tablescape. I filled three vintage ironstone pitchers with evergreen stems. These pitchers are a bit smaller than the one I used for our centerpiece. They also really help to tie the room together and create flow.

Then, I hung an old soda crate within a vintage picture frame, and decorated the compartments with pine cones.

Hanging the soda crate was super easy. The vintage frame was already mounted on the wall from when I used it as the backdrop for a previous floral arrangement {see it HERE}, so I simply tied the soda crate to the frame with jute twine for a rustic look.

My library of cookbooks is also a staple of the decor in this room. They are all covered in kraft paper with custom labels for a neutral look. Also filling my antique bookcase are a couple of vintage kitchen scales, a copper cookie tin, and a woven basket that holds more of my favorite recipes. A French flower bucket is filled with my collection of vintage rolling pins.

{ Related: Wintertime Fun in the Family Room }

I love the way the way this room came together for the season! I hope you’ve enjoyed touring our cozy winter breakfast room. Coming up, be sure to watch for more of our winter home tour.

Better yet, let’s be email pen pals! That way, you’ll never miss an update!