Such differences certainly exist in any country. The set of furniture in everyone's apartments and houses is approximately the same, and there is no point in expecting that, for example, America will surprise you with something super unusual. However, the popularity of individual pieces of furniture sometimes varies greatly: what is very popular here is not in demand in the USA, and vice versa - some things ignored in our country are super popular here.
This is what Alexandra, who followed her husband to the USA, writes. What unusual furniture caught her eye in apartments and houses in the USA?
1. High bed.
Low beds among ordinary Americans in the outback of the United States do not seem to be considered a sign of good taste. Unless you are an eccentric like Steve Jobs, we are not talking about any Japanese style with a mattress on the floor here. A popular bed model in the States follows the fashion of colonial times - it is a high bed with an even higher headboard.
When choosing an apartment upon arrival in the USA, I paid attention to the height of the bed in the demo bedroom. “Who is the princess and the pea sleeping here? – I thought, “Who can you attract like that?” But it turned out that such beds are very popular. The Americans also put a solid wooden box 25-30 centimeters high on a rather low “frame,” and a thick orthopedic mattress on top. I wouldn't be able to climb it without the ladder. Well, sleeping drunk on it is generally dangerous - it won’t take long to kill yourself if you fall from such a height.
2. Built-in wardrobe.
Well, built-in wardrobes, what’s unusual about that?” - you will say and you will be right in your own way. But, in all our apartments and the apartments of our friends, there were only built-in wardrobes! The current trend in our homeland is to build full-wall cabinets so that they resemble built-ins. In fashionable large new buildings you can see dressing rooms, but not everyone can afford such apartments.
Americans understood the convenience of built-in wardrobes a long time ago. Apartments are built with them from the very beginning and there is no need to finish or alter anything. In our first completely inexpensive apartment in upstate New York, there were large closets in each bedroom, plus one in the hallway near the entrance, and a pantry in the kitchen.
3. Rocking chair.
You've all seen rocking chairs at some point, including me, but I didn't think anyone else used them. Well, perhaps in some heroic American films, where an old grandfather under an American flag sits in his rocking chair on the veranda of a house in Arizona and listens from a vintage radio to a live broadcast of how NASA astronauts are saving the planet from an asteroid.
But no, rocking chairs are popular not only in films and not even just in their homes. They can also be found in apartments. Americans love comfort, and what is comfort without your personal favorite chair? And if it also rocks you, that’s the height of bliss. The choice of rocking chairs is huge: from the simple wooden ones we are used to, to large soft, ordinary, similar to ours, but rocking chairs.
How do you like this rocking chair?
4. Love-sit.
Love seat is translated as “love seat.” I'm not a big furniture connoisseur, but I admit that before coming to the USA I had never even heard of this name. It turned out that a love-sit is something between an ordinary chair and a sofa, but only for two people - apparently, two lovers. That’s why the name is “love seat.”
It seemed strange to me that love-sieve is very popular in the USA, because Americans love everything individual. Even when traveling on motorcycles with her husband, the wife usually does not sit behind her husband, but rides a separate motorcycle. Sargent tongues would joke that obese Americans simply do not fit in a single chair and therefore buy double “love sits,” but we will not walk on this thin ice of intolerance.
5. Large dining table.
I noticed that Americans hardly eat lunch in the kitchen. Two of our apartments had huge kitchens, but none of our neighbors put a dining table in it. The kitchen in our first apartment in upstate New York (as they call the outback of the state) had no windows at all - it was clearly not intended to be there for a long time: it was quickly heated in the microwave and carried into the dining room.
Apparently, this is why large dining tables are popular in the USA: heavy, massive, made of natural wood and, it must be said, not cheap! Inexpensive, folding, with an easy-to-wipe finish, our kitchen tables are too simple for an American. The table, apparently, should be from the same colonial set with a high bed: made of good wood, impressive and with legs like lion paws.





