There are countless kinds of couches available on the market today. Furniture makers have been creating broad, comfortable benches for multiple occupants for thousands of years. Some of the couches mentioned in this list have a heritage stretching back hundreds of years. Here are some of the most popular couch styles available today.
Lawson
Lawson couches are relatively simple and can easily fit into just about any style of a room. They feature small, recessed arms and an independent back. They are comfortable and unobtrusive. Equally at home in modernist or classical interior spaces, the Lawson is an enduring classic.
Daybed
Daybeds are immensely popular space savers and come in many different forms. Somewhere in between a couch and a bed, these types of furniture originated in the Middle Ages, being inspired by ancient Greek designs before them. Daybeds experienced a fresh burst of popularity in the 1920s when they were used for entertaining guests in the houses of the American gilded rich. Daybeds are perfect for providing guests with something a little bit more comfortable than a conventional couch during their stay. Modern daybeds are often produced with fold-out features that improve the comfort levels of resting guests.
Reclining
Reclining sofas are not exactly fashionable, but we must admit that they are extremely comfortable. Reclining sofas have traditionally been seen as the epitome of American relaxation culture. They have been marketed in leather, although this tends to look a little tacky. The La-Z-Boy brand has long dominated the American market. These couches contain a great many metal components and tend to weigh a lot. You’ll need to enlist the help of a specialist couch shipping company, which can be found at https://www.shiply.com/us/couch-shipping if you want to get one of these behemoths delivered to your home.
Chesterfield
Chesterfield couches are instantly recognizable. They feature deeply ingrained tufting, dark leather and large curled arms that are the same height as the backrest. They often act as centerpieces in large, expensively decorated living rooms. Lord Phillip Stanhope, the fourth earl of Chesterfield, commissioned the first of these distinctive sofas in the 1700s for his stately home. He wanted a distinguished item of furniture that could be sat on by well-dressed gentlemen without creasing their fine suits. The chesterfield sofa became a status symbol. It soon adorned the fine hotels and gentlemen’s clubs of London. From there, the popularity of the couch spread around the world. Perhaps due to its rarified origins, the Chesterfield couch has become something of a class signifier in modern America.
Knole
Knole couches also have aristocratic origins. The first Knole settee was created in the 17th century – probably around 1640. It was not originally designed to be a comfortable sofa. Instead, it was a formal throne upon which a monarch could sit next to their consort while receiving guests. The original example is housed in Knole House in England, which was owned by the Sackville-West family. The Knole couch features arms that rest upon hinges, meaning that they can be lowered and raised. When in the upright position, the arms are nearly as high as the backrest. Influenced by designs from France, it was intended for use by the Stuart monarchs of England. It is one of the oldest surviving examples of an upholstered couch.
Knole couches are relatively rare today. A trend for the reproduction of antique furniture reached its height in the early 20th century, and many of the remaining Knole-type couches in use originate from this time.
Mid Century Modern
Mid-century modern couches are all the rage again in 2022. Although there is no way to sum up all of the permutations of mid-century modern couch design, there are some features that most designs of this type share. Long, flat planes, simple, space-saving structures and muted colors were all popular from the 1940s until the 1970s. Many of these couches have raised bases and sit on splayed wooden legs.
There are some amazingly inventive designs in the genre. One of the most incredible is the ‘marshmallow’, designed by George Nelson and the inventor Irving Harper. Designed in 1956, this iconic couch consists of a frame holding several connected circular cushions. Perfect for that ‘Jetsons’-style home of the future. Other mid-century designs are simpler. The Florence Knoll couch was designed with corporate spaces in mind but has since become a staple of minimalist interior design.
Corner
Corner sofas are perfect for living rooms that need to accommodate large families. As the name might suggest, these couches fit into the corner of a room, allowing for extra sitting space that would otherwise be ‘dead’. Corner couches tend to be rather bulky and hard to move around and are best suited for people with quite a large amount of space.
