Furniture

Furniture consists of chairs, tables, beds, and other pieces that provide comfort and convenience in our daily lives. Many kinds of furniture are used in homes, schools, and offices. We relax on comfortable couches, and we store various belongings in chests, dressers, and bookcases. Desks provide a place for study and paperwork. Numerous television sets and phonographs have handsome cabinets, and so they also serve as pieces of furniture. In many homes, a piano is an impressive piece of furniture.

In addition to being useful, furniture is attractively designed to make our surroundings more pleasant. Furniture works with other decorative and useful objects to beautify a room. Such items, including rugs and carpets, curtains, draperies, lamps, and pictures, are called furnishings.

Most furniture is made of wood or wood products. But furniture makers also use glass, metal, plastics, and a variety of other materials.

Certain pieces of the finest furniture rank among the world's greatest works of art. Over the years, expert designers and artisans (skilled craftworkers) have created richly decorated furniture in various styles. Many of these artisans were regarded as artists equal to the most famous painters and sculptors of their day. Today, museums display examples of their furniture as masterpieces of art.

People who study the history of furniture have given names to the different styles. Some styles are named for important people. For example, Louis XIV furniture is named for King Louis XIV of Prance. Other styles are named for historical periods. Thus, the Federal style of American furniture recalls the beginning of the federal system of government in the United States. Still other styles, such as art nouveau, take their name from an art movement.

The history of furniture can be seen as a series of styles that become popular for a time and then fall from fashion. Designers then revive earlier styles, adapting them to fit the taste of the time.

Most furniture made today is still designed to be practical, comfortable, and easy to maintain.

What are styles named for? Find the examples in the text.

Using the information in the text below find the answers to the questions in the following texts.

Ancient Greece (about 1100 B.C. - A.D. 400)

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Look at Picture B and try to make your own design changes transferring this area into a study (at least 80 words).	\|	What does klismos stand for?

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