Furniture

thumb|right|Chair, , mahogany, covered in modern red morocco leather, height: 97.2 cm, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)]]

piece of furniture with a flat top

Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work (as horizontal surfaces above the ground, such as tables and desks), or to store things (e.g., cupboards, shelves, and drawers). 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

thumb|300px|A three-cushion couch in an office lobby

piece of furniture on which several people may sit at the same time

A wardrobe, also called armoire or almirah, is a standing closet used for storing clothes. The earliest wardrobe was a chest, and it was not until some degree of luxury was attained in regal palaces and the castles of powerful nobles that separate accommodation was provided for the apparel of the great. The name of wardrobe was then given to a room in which the wall-space was filled with closets and lockers, the drawer being a comparatively modern invention. From these cupboards and lockers the modern wardrobe, with its hanging spaces, sliding shelves and drawers, evolved slowly.

thumb|A white wooden drawer thumb|Filing card drawer

300px|thumb|Desk; 1765; mahogany, chestnut and tulip poplar; 87.3 x 92.7 x 52.1 cm; [[Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)]] A desk or bureau is a piece of furniture with a flat table-style work surface used in a school, office, home or the like for academic, professional or domestic activities such as reading, writing, or using equipment such as a computer. Desks often have one or more drawers, compartments, or pigeonholes to store items such as office supplies and papers. Desks are usually made of wood or metal, although materials such as glass are sometimes seen.

thumb|right|Honduran mahogany tree, Swietenia macrophylla thumb|Genuine mahogany veneer with a special Figure (wood)|figure, ripple marks

thumb|An example of a tripod design easel with an inclining mechanism built in.|alt=Wooden easel standing in empty room. thumb|Brisbane Technical College Signwriting class, ca. 1900

thumb|Brass tray inlaid with silver, Egypt or Syria, 19th century

thumb|French commode, by Gilles Joubert, circa 1735, made of oak and walnut, veneered with tulipwood, ebony, holly, other woods, gilt bronze and imitation marble, in the Museum of Fine Arts ([[Boston, United States)]] thumb|A British commode, circa 1772, marquetry of various woods, bronze and gilt-bronze mounts, overall: , in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)

thumb|A typical modern nightstand with a drawer and three shelves

thumb|Copper roof on the Minneapolis City Hall, coated with patina thumb|upright|The Dresden Frauenkirche. The church was destroyed during the [[bombing of Dresden in 1945 and rebuilt from 1993 to 2005 with new material; the stones with the black patina are the parts that survived the firebombing from the original 18th-century church.]] thumb|Pre-colonial copper coin formerly used in the Copper Belt ([[Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia). The external layer has been weathered by moisture and rain, leading to the oxidation of copper.]]

thumb|Antique cupboard (right): Decorative crockery and bibelots in vitré armoire or vitrina thumb|Illustration of a closed cupboard A cupboard is a piece of furniture for enclosing dishware or grocery items that are stored in a home. The term is sometimes also used for any form of cabinet or enclosed bookcase. It gradually evolved from its original meaning: an open-shelved side table for displaying dishware, more specifically plates, cups and saucers. These open cupboards typically had between one and three display tiers, and at the time, a drawer or multiple drawers fitted to them.

thumb|upright=1.2|A Waterfall furniture|Waterfall-style sideboard A sideboard, also called a buffet, is an item of furniture traditionally used in the dining room for serving food, displaying serving dishes, and for storage. It usually consists of a set of cabinets, or cupboards, and one or more drawers, all topped by a wooden surface for conveniently holding food, serving dishes, or lighting devices. The words sideboard and buffet are somewhat interchangeable, but if the item has short legs, or a base that sits directly on the floor with no legs, it is more likely to be called a sideboard; if

upholstered chair that is long enough to support the legs

collective term for objects and pieces of equipment installed outdoors for various purposes

thumb|Seats at Upminster station A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but may also refer to concentrations of power in a wider sense (i.e "seat (legal entity)"). See disambiguation.

piece of upholstered furniture used as a footstool or low seat

Editing footstool|thumb thumb|An Ottoman (furniture)|Ottoman footstool thumb|Self-portrait of William Notman (with one foot resting on a footstool) thumb|Automobile pedals in a [[Subaru Legacy. From left to right: foot rest, clutch, brake, accelerator.]] A footstool (foot stool, footrest, foot rest) 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.

desk used to produce technical drawings and architectural drawings

1960s anatomic chair design

thumb|upright=.8|Hall tree at the Clara Barkley Dorr House, in [[Pensacola, Florida, with a marble top shelf and umbrella stands at the sides]] A hatstand (UK), hatrack (US), coat rack, coat stand, hat tree, hall tree, or portmanteau is a device used to store hats and often coats on, and umbrellas within. A coat rack often refers to a set of hooks that are attached to a wall. Usually made of wood or metal and standing at least tall, the self-standing variant is more often referred to as a hatstand and has a single pole, a sturdy base to prevent toppling, and an array of lengthy pegs at the top

thumb|300px|Keyless lockers (Japan) thumb|300px|Lockers made of metal (Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong) A locker is a small, usually narrow storage compartment. They are commonly found in dedicated cabinets, very often in large numbers, in various public places such as locker rooms, workplaces, schools, transport hubs and the like. They vary in size, purpose, construction, and security.

flat horizontal plane used for storage

thumb|right|Child in modern playpen

thumb|A stainless steel countertop

right|thumb|200px|Burrs on a tree trunk in Norfolk, England

thumb|right|A New England easy chair with its upholstery sectioned 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.

thumb|Design of a cloth antimacassar thumb|Armchair with antimacassar-Sheffield Mayors Parlour thumb|Antimacassars on rail carriage seats

piece of cabinet furniture with drawers

thumb|Box-bed in Austria A small box-bed (also known as a closed bed, close bed, or enclosed bed; less commonly, shut-bed) is an enclosed bed made to look like a cupboard, half-opened or not. The form originates in western European late medieval furniture.

type of furniture for storing a suit for daily wear

furniture packed flat for final assembly onsite

item that holds a roll of toilet paper

thumb|Faldstool displayed at Palazzo Vecchio in [[Florence, Italy]] thumb|Reconstruction faldstool, folded and unfolded thumb|Ecclesiastical faldstool, 1400s-1500s

radio receiver / gramophone combination furniture

upright|thumb|A c. 1810 guéridon by French-born American cabinetmaker Charles-Honoré Lannuier. Mahogany, satinwood, rosewood, and possibly sycamore veneers, gilded brass, and marble. Located in the Red Room of the [[White House.]] A guéridon is a small table supported by one or more columns, or sculptural human or mythological figures, often with a circular top. The guéridon originated in France towards the middle of the 17th century. The supports for early guéridons were often modeled on ancient Egyptian and Greek as well as various African human traditional figures (inspired by caryatids).

luxurious couch

material-handling equipment

storage device for umbrellas and walking sticks, usually located entrances

type of chair with a solid wood seat and turned legs

weather-resistant furniture for use out of doors

thumb|right|Bookwheel, from Agostino Ramelli's Le diverse et artificiose machine, 1588 The bookwheel (also written book wheel and sometimes called a reading wheel) is a type of rotating bookcase that allows one person to read multiple books in one location with ease. The books are rotated vertically similar to the motion of a water wheel, as opposed to rotating on a flat table surface. The design for the bookwheel originally appeared in a 16th-century illustration by Agostino Ramelli at a time when large books posed practical problems for readers. Ramelli's design influenced other engineers an

heater

thumb|250px|Empty cubicles in an office thumb|3D model of cubicles thumb|3D model of cubicles in the classroom to get power to the desk and computers in the classroom for a computational education A cubicle is a enclosed office that is separated from neighboring workspaces. partitions that are usually tall. Its purpose is to isolate office workers and managers from the sights and noises of an open workspace so that they may concentrate with fewer distractions. Cubicles are composed of modular elements such as walls, work surfaces, overhead bins, drawers, and shelving, which can be configured d

thumb|Some cassoni, in the Museo Bardini, Florence thumb|Republic of Florence|Florentine cassone from the 15th century (M.A.N., [[Madrid)]] thumb|Walnut cassone in the form of an Antique sarcophagus, Rome, 16th century ([[Walters Art Museum)]]

trade fair in Milan

furniture leg with a double curve, convex above concave

Type of Asian pillow

right|thumb|The Missal, by John William Waterhouse (1902), depicts a woman kneeling on a [[prie-dieu, a piece of furniture with a built-in kneeler]]

thumb|White lead pastiglia on an Italian casket, late 15th century, with [[Marcus Curtius at left, British Museum.]] thumb|The casket made for Cardinal Bernardo Clesio, whose arms allow it to be dated to 1530–38, [[V&A]] thumb|Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder, [[Botticelli, with pastiglia medal]] Pastiglia , an Italian term meaning "pastework", is low relief decoration, normally modelled in gesso or white lead, applied to build up a surface that may then be gilded or painted, or left plain. The technique was used in a variety of ways in Italy during the Renaissance. The term

thumb|upright|An étagère for candies thumb|upright|An étagère for decorative objects

small cache of first aid items and drugs

thumb|Chinese daybed from the Ming Dynasty A daybed is an item of furniture used as a bed as well as for lounging, reclining, and seating in a common room. It may be considered a form of multifunctional furniture. Their frames can be made out of wood, metal, or a combination of wood and metal. They are a cross between a chaise longue, a couch, and a bed.

decorative wall mirror between windows

Furniture for holding shoes

type of harness designed to allow sexual intercourse between one partner suspended and another who moves freely

thumb|1950s-style credenza thumb|15th- or 16th-century Italian credenza thumb|right|Modern built-in or fitted credenza