The Best Couch for your Apartment
Some encyclopedias claim that the European couch is descended from a simple wooden bench. Nevertheless, the word “divan” is clearly of Persian origin, as well as “sofa” is of Turkish origin. The first real soft chairs and sofas, stuffed with hair, appeared by the middle of the sumptuous XVII century, when the harsh Middle Ages were left far behind.
However the classic French canapés does not look like a couch, though it is also akin to the chair. The elegant, usually carved legs are attached to the same carved frame. The back is as long as the seat. Its shape suggests that several backs of chairs joined together. Canapés was made to sit on, while beautiful women used to lean on couches.
Sofa is a low divan, extremely favoring the bliss, which came to us from the Muslim East. Sofa is covered with bright upholstery fabric or leather. Solid furniture cushions are put on it. At first they were stuffed with wool or horse hair, but then they were replaced by steel springs. After over one and a half centuries of humanity, people rest on this kind of pillows reveling in the moments of rest.
At first, outwardly restrained West preferred to sit on the sofa, and not lie. That is why our eyes are now encouraged by many types of sofas, equipped with backs like chairs’, the seats are separated by a kind of soft table. But gradually the idea of lying on the couch won.
Since the Europeans started to lie and even sleep on the couch, those transformed beyond recognition. Of course, classic saloon sofas survived in the living room. Even new elegant styles were developed, such as “Versace” ones in the spirit of, let’s say, Louis XVI, with all the brilliant parade attributes. The invention of new material created graceful design of chrome tubing and black or colored leather cushions, from bent plywood, and even the inflatable modules. Salon sofa is also designed to entertain the sight and inspire respect, however, like his office “colleague”, that decorates rooms for negotiations and rest.
There is a huge number of entirely new sofas, whose main mission is to ensure a comfortable bed, and not just random guest for one night, but the owner of the house. The costs of urbanization do not allow many to place few bedrooms at an apartment, so at night the living rooms turn into one. Meanwhile, combining the sofa and the bed is not easy. Bed has a wide sleeping space, which is convenient to lie not only alone, but together. But a sofa does not need so much space. Moreover, the wide bed takes a lot of space.
So at the beginning of XX century there were folding sofas. The variety, in fact, determines most of the sofa market now.
