Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating (tables), storing items, working, and sleeping. Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, or to store things. Furniture can be a product of design and can be considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose. It can be made from a vast multitude of materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. Furniture can be made using a variety of woodworking joints which often reflects the local culture.
A cushion is a soft bag of some ornamental material, usually stuffed with wool, hair, feathers, polyester staple fiber, non-woven material, cotton, or even paper torn into fragments. It may be used for sitting or kneeling upon, or to soften the hardness or angularity of a chair or couch. Decorative cushions often have a patterned cover material, and are used as decoration for furniture.
A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. It may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in various colors and fabrics.
A couch, also known as a sofa, settee, chesterfield, or davenport, is a cushioned item of furniture for seating multiple people. It is commonly found in the form of a bench with upholstered armrests and is often fitted with springs and tailored cushion and pillows. Although a couch is used primarily for seating, it may be used for sleeping. In homes, couches are normally put in the family room, living room, den, or lounge. They are sometimes also found in non-residential settings such as hotels, lobbies of commercial offices, waiting rooms, and bars. Couches can also vary in size, color, and design.
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something.
A slipcover is a fitted protective cover that may be slipped off and on a piece of upholstered furniture. Slipcovers are usually made of cloth. Slipcovers slip on and off, they come fresh, and may be removed for seasonal change, cleaning, moving, or storage.
A table is an item of furniture with a raised flat top and is supported most commonly by 1 to 4 legs. It is used as a surface for working at, eating from or on which to place things. Some common types of tables are the dining room tables, which are used for seated persons to eat meals; the coffee table, which is a low table used in living rooms to display items or serve refreshments; and the bedside table, which is commonly used to place an alarm clock and a lamp. There are also a range of specialized types of tables, such as drafting tables, used for doing architectural drawings, and sewing tables.
A chaise longue is an upholstered sofa in the shape of a chair that is long enough to support the legs of the sitter.
A footstool is a piece of furniture or a support used to elevate the feet. There are two main types of footstool, which can be loosely categorized into those designed for comfort and those designed for function.
Davenport was the name of a series of sofas made by the Massachusetts furniture manufacturer A. H. Davenport and Company, now defunct. Due to the popularity of the furniture at the time, the name davenport became a genericized trademark in parts of the United States.
A sofa bed or sofa-bed is a multifunctional furniture typically consisting of a sofa or couch that, underneath its seating cushions, hides a metal frame and thin mattress that can be unfolded or opened up to make a bed. A western-style futon differs from a sofa bed, although sofa beds using futon mattresses are common.
A recliner is an armchair or sofa that reclines when the occupant lowers the chair's back and raises its front. It has a backrest that can be tilted back, and often a footrest that may be extended by means of a lever on the side of the chair, or may extend automatically when the back is reclined.
A divan is a piece of couch-like sitting furniture or, in some regions, a box-spring-based bed.
A canapé is a piece of furniture similar to a couch. The word is typically meant to describe an elegant couch made out of elaborately carved wood with wooden legs, an upholstered back, armrests, and single long seat that typically seats three, that emerged from France in the 18th century.
Sofa.com is a UK-based company founded in 2006 whose primary business is selling sofas, sofabeds, chairs and beds online. It has 3 showrooms in London as well as Nottingham, Bath, Glasgow, Harrogate and Guildford. More recently, it has also opened concessions in some House of Fraser department stores. The company was purchased in January 2019 by Frasers Group for "a nominal sum".
The Poäng is a wooden cantilever armchair that has been sold by the Swedish furniture retailer IKEA since 1978. As of 2016, about one-and-a-half million Poängs are sold annually, and a total of 30 million have been produced.
Multifunctional furniture is furniture with several functions combined. The functions combined vary, but a common variant is to incorporate an extra storage function into chair, tables, and so forth, making them so-called storage furniture. It more efficiently uses up living space. Lack of space can be an important reason for choosing such furniture, but combination furniture is also seen in larger homes for more space-efficient utilization. Historically, furniture with transforming mechanisms was called "mechanical furniture".
