Garden furniture, also called patio furniture, is a type of furniture specifically designed for outdoor furniture use. It is typically made of weather resistant materials. The oldest surviving examples of garden furniture were found in the gardens of Pompeii.

Types of furniture

Garden furniture is often sold as a patio set consisting of a table, four or six chairs and a parasol. Garden parasols are a specialist type of umbrella designed to provide shade from the sun. Parasols fit through a hole in the centre of the table and are secured in a base. Long chairs, referred to as chaise lounges, are also common items. Patio heaters, that run on bottled butane or propane, are often used to enable people to sit outside at night or in cold weather. A picnic table, is used for the purpose of eating a meal outdoors such as in a garden

Materials

The materials used to manufacture modern patio furniture include stones, metals, vinyl, plastics, glass, and treated woods.

Plastic garden furniture is naturally waterproof, so you can leave it out year-round. However, rain water will collect at the back of chairs and in nooks and crannies. As such, surprising amount of dirt can form.

Wooden garden furniture can suffer through exposure to the elements and therefore needs to be periodically treated, for example with varnish. Teak is a commonly used material for outdoor furniture. It naturally contains silica which makes it resistant to fungal decay, many of the effects of water (such as rot, swelling and warping) as well as chemicals. It is also resistant to fire, acid and alkalis.

Aluminium garden furniture is robust and long-lasting. Despite that, agents such as suntan lotions, perspiration and car exhausts can eat away at the powder coating that protects it. To make sure the furniture lasts, it should be cleaned every couple of weeks with a solution of mild washing up liquid and warm water and then rinsed well.

There is a difference between aluminium garden furniture and iron or steel garden furniture. Many times it can be confusing to tell the difference between these two types of furniture once the finish coat is applied. But you can find out by placing a magnet on top of the furniture – the magnet will stick to steel (iron) but fall off aluminium. But what’s the difference, practically? Firstly, both iron and aluminium, as a material, have their own advantages. Although aluminium is cheaper than iron, you do need aluminium to be a little thicker than iron for it to have the same strength. Other than that, the difference comes with price and durability. Many people these days prefer aluminium furniture because of certain benefits.

A dining table  is a form of furniture composed of a surface supported by a base, usually four legs. It is often used to hold objects or food at a convenient or comfortable height when sitting. Generic tables are typically meant for combined use with chairs. Unlike many earlier table designs, today’s tables usually do not have drawers. A table specifically intended for working is a desk. Some tables have hinged extensions of the table top called drop leaves, while others can be extended with removable sections called leaves.

Etymology

The term “table” is derived from a merger of French table and Old English tabele, ultimately from the Latin word tabula, “a board, plank, flat piece”. In Late Latin, tabula took over the meaning previously reserved to mensa (preserved in Spanish mesa “table”). In Old English, the word replaced bord for this meaning.^[1]

Shape, height, and function

A formally laid table set with a Meissen dinner service

Tables come in a wide variety of shapes, height, and materials, depending on their origin, style, and intended use. All tables are composed of a flat surface and a base with one or more supports, or legs. A table with a single, central foot is a pedestal table. Tables can be freestanding or designed for placement against a wall (a console table). Table tops can be in virtually any shape, although rectangular, square, round (e.g., the round table), and oval tops are the most frequent. Long tables often have extra legs for support. Others have higher surfaces for personal use while either standing or sitting on a tall stool.

Many tables have tops that can be adjusted to change their position or size, either with foldable extensions or sliding parts that can alter the shape of the top. Some tables are entirely foldable for easy transport, e.g., camping. Small tables in trains and aircraft may be fixed or foldable, although many are simply convenient shelves rather than tables.

Types of table

A chess table with a chessboard built into its top

Tables of various shapes and sizes are designed for specific uses:

Historically, various types of tables have been popular for other uses:

A Hall Tree is a piece of furniture, usually found in hallways or near the entryway of homes, on which people hang items such as hats, coats, or other clothing. They often have mirrors and drawers to store personal items such as wallets, sunglasses, money, etc. Many incorporate a bench to sit upon while putting on or taking off footware. The bench seat is often hinged with a storage space underneath often used for shoes, hats and gloves. Most Hall Trees are made of wood. In Victorian times some of the better quality hall trees were made of walnut or oak.

  A filing cabinet (or file cabinet in the United States) is a piece of office equipment that is useful for temporary and permanent storage. It is usually used for the storage of paper in a file folder. The two most common forms of filing cabinets are lateral files and vertical files.

A lateral file is used to store folders in a sideways fashion. They are standard in government and legal offices. They also permit variety in office design. These are also called side filers in Great Britain.

Horizontal file

Henry Brown, an African American inventor, patented a “receptacle for storing and preserving papers” on November 2, 1886. This was a fire and accident safe container made of forged metal, which could be sealed with a lock and key. It was special in that it kept the papers separated.

Vertical file

A wooden Filing Cabinet with drawer open

The vertical filing cabinet (vertical file cabinet in the United States) more or less as in use today was invented by Edwin G. Seibels in 1898. He was working in his father’s insurance office and realised that the then current system of folding papers into envelopes and storing them in pigeon holes could be improved if the folding was dispensed with. The documents could then be stored in large envelopes (hangfiles) vertically, in drawers.

In the US, these come in two sizes: for letter-size paper and legal-size paper. Foreign firms offer filing cabinets that permit A4 paper to be used in addition to letter-size. Double file cabinets whose drawers each can accommodate two racks for folders side by side.

UK file cabinets are slightly different from US in the width of the rails which support the suspension files, the US ones being narrower; the UK sizes are known as A4, foolscap and A3.

  A nightstand (in American English) or a bedside table (in British English) is a small table or cabinet designed to stand beside a bed or elsewhere in a bedroom, as a place to put anything likely to be required during the night.

Before indoor flushing toilets became commonplace, the main function of a nightstand was to contain a chamber pot. As a result, early nightstands often were small cabinets, sometimes fitted with a drawer, and usually containing an enclosed storage space below covered by one or more doors. Another term sometimes given to such cabinets was commode.

Modern nightstands are usually small bedside tables, often with a drawer. They are often used to support a lamp, alarm clock, reading matter, a glass of water, medication, or other useful items that might be required during the night.

Bogor, W Java (ANTARA News) – The Indonesian Ecolabeling Agency (LEI) has set up cooperation with several other institutions to provide the furniture market with products and handicrafts made from wood taken from ecolabeled forests, a spokesman said.

Therefore, LEI as well as people`s forest management groups in Wonogiri district in Central Java and Gunungkidul district in Yogyakarta which already have ecolabel certificates along with the Indonesian Furniture and Handicraft Industry Association (Asmindo) had agreed to provide the furniture market with ecolabeled furniture and handicraft products, LEI`s communication manager Indra Setiawan said here Tuesday.

“Many furniture and handicraft industries keep on asking for products made from wood taken from forests which have obtained ecolabel certificates from LEI,” he said.

“Products which already have ecolabel certificates will enter the furniture and handicraft markets in the near future. After the Idul Fitri festivity, a store in Jakarta will have and sell furniture and handicraft products which were made from wood taken from forests in Gunungkidul and Wonogiri,” he said.

Realizing that Indonesian forests must be preserved, LEI began developing methods to manage forests in environment-friendly ways in 1994, he said.

“Ecolabel certificates will only be given to forest and forestry product management units which manage their forests through environment-friendly methods and allow local people to share the benefits of the forests,” he said.

An American Sustainable Furniture Council executive told a workshop in Jakarta last week that the US furniture and interior products market was now focusing its attention on products made of wood taken from environment-friendly and sustainable forests. The US furniture and interior product market was recorded at $84.2 billion last year.

Formerly, Indonesian Furniture Association chairperson Ambar Tjahyono said the cost of ecolabel certification amounting to Rp100 million was still considered as hindrance to the progress of the ecolabel certification program.

She said at least 40 percent of Indonesia`s furniture and handicraft exports was absorbed by the US, 45 percent by West Europe and 15 percent by East Europe and Australia.

Last year Indonesian furniture and handicraft exports reached a value of $2.4 billion, she said.

Ambar also said Indonesia`s furniture and handicraft industry needed about 10 million cubic meters of wood and was receiving a supply of 5.4 million cubic meters from state forestry firm PT Perhutani and 4.5 million cubic meters from public forests.

Beds come in a wide array of shapes and sizes. Most countries have a standard set of four sizes of mattresses. While the Double size appears to be standard among English speaking countries, based on the imperial measurement of 4 ft 6 in by 6 ft 3 in, the sizes for other bed types tend to vary. The European sizes differ; they are based on the metric system.

A king-sized bed differs from the other sizes in implementation, as it is not common to have a king-sized box spring; rather, two smaller box-springs are used under a king-sized mattress. On a U.S. Standard or “Eastern” King, the box springs are identical in size to a Twin Extra-Long.

Standard sizes

Modern manufacturing conventions have resulted in a limited number of standard sizes of commercial bedding for mattresses and box springs. They vary by country of origin.

The sizes in the UK, other than the Double, vary compared to the U.S. sizes, being generally smaller. The U.S. Queen corresponds to UK King and King to Super King. The European or continental basic sizes are similar to the UK but have a set length of 2 metres. The denominations Queen, King and Super King are not used in continental Europe, and Double refers to 140cm or any higher width. Instead of these US/UK denominations, the bed width is given in centimeters.

These dimensions are for the mattress—the actual bed frame will be a little bigger in order to fully encompass and support the mattress. The thickness of the mattress may vary considerably.

Historically^{[attribution needed]}, Single referred to a bed size that was half the width of a Double, that is, approximately the width of one pillow. In Western nations, such beds have become quite rare, with a Twin bed becoming the standard for one-person sleeping.^{[citation needed]} Without another common use for the term Single and with the term Double being widely used, Single has come to be another term for a twin bed in these places.

Portable cots are generally the size of original single beds.^{[citation needed]}

Other U.S. sizes

Other UK sizes

Other European sizes

Modern continental Europe practice is to refer to a bed by explicit width or size (“80 cm bed” or “80×200 cm bed”).^{[citation needed]} Other sizes found include:

In France, the length of older beds is sometimes 1.9 m instead of 2 m.^{[citation needed]}

Other Australian sizes

Other New Zealand sizes

The following bed sizes are available in New Zealand:^[6]

A bed (listen) is a piece of furniture or location primarily used as a place to sleep.

To make beds more comfortable, the top layer is frequently a mattress. Originally these were bags of straw for most people and filled with feathers for the wealthy.^{[citation needed]} Eventually new fillings such as cotton and artificial fillers became common. In modern times most mattresses use springs, solid foam, latex, water, or air.

The second layer is the box spring. The box spring or “divan” is a large mattress-sized box containing wood and springs that provide additional support and suspension for the mattress.

The third layer is the bed frame. The bed frame lifts the mattress/mattress-box spring off the ground.

A dust ruffle, bed skirt, or valance sheet may be used to make the bed frame match the rest of the bedding.

For greater head support, most people use a pillow, placed at the top of a mattress. Also used is some form of covering blanket to provide warmth to the sleeper, often bed sheets, a quilt, or a duvet.

Also, some people prefer to dispense with the box spring and bed frame, and replace it with a platform bed style. This is more common in the European region.

  The first tables, in Europe, specifically designed as and called coffee tables, appear to have been made in Britain during the late Victorian era.

Prior to the late 18th century, the tables used in Europe in conjunction with a settle included occasional tables, end tables, centre tables, and tea tables. By 1780, the high backed settle was being replaced by low back sofas and this led to the development of sofa tables which stood against the back of the sofa and could be used by anyone sitting on the sofa to put down a book or a cup.

According to the listing in Victorian Furniture by R. W. Symonds & B. B. Whineray and also in The Country Life Book of English Furniture by Edward T. Joy, a table designed by E. W. Godwin in 1868 and made in large numbers by William Watt, and Collinson and Lock, is a coffee table. If this is correct it may be one of the earliest made in Europe. Other sources, however, list it only as ‘table’ so this cannot be stated categorically. Far from being a low table, this table was about twenty-seven inches high.

Later coffee tables were designed as low tables and this idea may have been introduced from the Ottoman Empire, based on the tables in use in tea gardens. However, as the Anglo-Japanese style was popular in Britain throughout the 1870s and 1880s and low tables were common in Japan, this would seem to be an equally likely source for the concept of a long low table.

From the late 19th century onwards, many coffee tables were subsequently made in earlier styles due to the popularity of revivalism, so it is quite possible to find Louis XVI style coffee tables or Georgian style coffee tables, but there seems to be no evidence of a table actually made as a coffee table before this time. Joseph Aronson writing in 1938 defines a coffee table as a, “Low wide table now used before a sofa or couch. There is no historical precedent…,” suggesting that coffee tables were a late development in the history of furniture.

  A coffee table, also called a cocktail table, is a style of long, low table which is designed to be placed in front of a couch, to support beverages (hence the name), magazines, books (especially coffee table books), and other small items to be used while sitting, such as coasters. Coffee tables are usually found in the living room or sitting room. They are available in many different variations and prices vary from style to style. Coffee tables may also incorporate cabinets for storage.

The idiom “Gather round the coffee table” is derived from the furniture piece and its proclivity for encouraging conviviality and light conversation.