(Literally) Spooky Furniture

With Halloween just around the corner, it seems everyone is getting into the holiday spirit. From slimy snakes and spiders to ghastly ghouls and goblins, homes all around America are being decked out with spooky decorations in anticipation of the big night.

If you’re one of the lucky few hosting the big Halloween bash at your place, you’ve no doubt gone the extra mile to give your home a terrifyingly fun makeover, inside and out. Decorations and accessories can go a long way in transforming your humble abode into a haunted estate, but if you still feel like there’s something missing, you may need some Halloween furniture.

That’s right. Some furniture designers have taken to creating fully functional furniture pieces with a genuinely creepy motif. So, whether you’re looking to add some “oomph” to your Halloween party, or simply have a really morbid sense of interior design, these pieces are for you!

Coffin Couches

Now you can experience the comfort of a coffin without meeting the typical prerequisites (e.g., death)!

One California-based company has created a niche market, buying real coffins from local funeral homes and repurposing them as couches. The coffins are unusable due to cosmetic defects, but California health and safety laws prohibit them from being resold to the public, so many funeral directors are glad to have someone take these off their hands.

And thus, the coffin couch was born. These unique couches come in a number of colors and designs, or can be custom made. Companies from all over the world have commissioned custom coffin couches for marketing purposes. Lounging around on what was once intended to be someone’s eternal resting place won’t come cheap, though – prices range from $3,500.00 to $5,000.00.

Casket Furniture

Coffins a little too modern for you? How about a tried and true casket instead? Another furniture design team has taken “lifetime guarantee” to new levels with a wide selection of casket-themed furniture.

The casket display case (pictured above) could be used for books, trinkets, shrunken heads, or anything else you can fit on the shelves. Friends coming over? How about a casket pool table (below)? This is sure to spice up your typical game of pool.

These casket concoctions also include coffee tables, entertainment centers, sofas, and even phone booths. But you’ll have to dole out a pretty penny if you want your home to resemble the Crypt Keeper’s pad – prices range anywhere from $500.00 to $9,000.00. Ouch!

Modern Halloween Furniture

So maybe you want to take a more subtle approach to your dark decorating desires…

This skull chair (above) offers up just enough creepiness to set the mood on a dark and stormy night, but still manages to pull off a sleek and elegant  look come daybreak. Throw in a pair of skeleton hand salad tongs (below) and you’ve got yourself one classy monster bash!

Whatever your decorating preferences, just remember Halloween is all about having fun! Be creative, be silly, go all out! It’s not every day we’re allowed to dress up like our heroes and act like kids! May as well take advantage!

Happy Halloween!

Narratives are for entertainment purposes only and frequently employ literary point of view; the narratives do not necessarily reflect the opinions of El Dorado Furniture, its officers, or employees.

Have a comment or topic suggestion for the author? Shoot him an e-mail at vcapo@eldoradofurniture.com.

Wordplay: Etymology of Furniture Terms

With all this talk about furniture, it’s only natural to wonder where some of these terms came from. The English language is notorious for “borrowing” words from other languages, which is why the root of a word can be just as important as its actual meaning; a person fluent in French can quickly deduce the meaning of a French-rooted English word they’ve never heard before. Hence the widespread belief that multilingual individuals are more intelligent than monolingual ones.

For this post, we’re driven more by curiosity than anything else. But if you happen to learn something in the process, kudos to you!

furniture
We’ll start with the mother of all furniture terms. The word furniture actually comes from the French word fourniture, meaning “supply” or “the act of furnishing.” These days, we use furniture to refer to several pieces, but during the 19th century the plural form furnitures was commonly used. That slowly disappeared by the time the 20th century rolled around. Because we modern folk are so busy, we don’t have the time to pronounce that superfluous “s” sound. Take that, logic!

bed 
Such a tiny word could stem from any number of languages. Indeed, many languages contain terms that could conceivably be the root word of bed, but there’s still some debate as to its exact origin. Bed most likely comes from the Old English word, bedd. It may also have roots in the Proto-Germanic word, badjan, meaning “dug sleeping place,” the German Bett, or the Latvian bedre, meaning “hole.” (Hole? Really?) Throw in some possible Latin, Dutch, and Russian root words, and you’ve got yourself quite a diverse slumber party! Whatever the case, it goes without saying that today’s beds are far more comfortable than the  “beds” – or dug sleeping places – of yore.

lamp
This one is a little easier. Our everyday term for “device that generates heat, light, or other radiation” stems from the ancient Greek word lampas, meaning “torch.” This made its way into Latin (lampas) and French (lampe) and eventually to us!

chair
This word seems to make its debut as the ancient Greek word kathedra, which is made up of the words kata (“down”) and hedra (“seat”). This eventually became the Latin word cathedra, meaning “seat,” and then evolved into the French chaire.

sofa
The etymology of this word also gives some insight into the history of the product itself. The Arabic word súffa means “long seat made of stone or brick.” Sounds comfortable, doesn’t it? Though it isn’t clear how the word made its way into our modern vocabulary, it is believed the Turkish or Moorish occupation of Spain helped spread it to European languages.

chaise lounge
We find the story behind this term particularly funny. First of all, chaise is a variant of the French word for “chair,” chaire. Lounge, however, has an unknown etymology. But that doesn’t really matter in this case because the original term for this piece of furniture is actually chaise longue, or “long chair.” The term longue was inadvertently changed to lounge by Americans when this type of furniture became popular in the U.S. The error was so pervasive, the piece eventually became known as a chaise lounge.

futon
Plain and simple, this one. Futon is the Japanese word for “bedding.” Sure, it’s kind of a stretch calling a futon a bed, but it does function as a bed so… it’s not like the word is misleading anyone. Right?

credenza
Credenza’s roots stem from the Latin word credere, which means “to believe.” It eventually evolved into credentia, and then the Italian credenza. The modern credenza was most likely inspired by the credence, a long table used to hold items during Catholic mass. The credenza’s first known secular use was as a sideboard for nobility where food would be placed and then taste-tested by servants for poison.

Narratives are for entertainment purposes only and frequently employ literary point of view; the narratives do not necessarily reflect the opinions of El Dorado Furniture, its officers, or employees.

Have a comment or topic suggestion for the author? Shoot him an e-mail at vcapo@eldoradofurniture.com.