It is a fact that sofas have a long and colorful history, and are illustrative of how a simple piece of furniture can become so integral to modern day life. For many people, the sofa ranks in importance just below their bed. In fact, people probably spend more time on a couch or sofa than just about anything else. A good sofa provides a great deal of comfort and style these days.

Couches and sofas come in a great many styles, fabrics, coverings and shapes. There are so many different versions that people sometimes can become overwhelmed when they go out to purchase one. The modern sofa, though, has its early origin among the French, who gave their version of it the name 'coucher, ' which means to lay down or recline. Surprisingly, the French refer to their sofas as canapes.

Of course, that particular word means something entirely different in English. It was probably in 1450 that English craftsmen developed their own version of a sofa that they referred to as a 'couch, ' probably because they couldn't pronounce the French word for it. 'Sofa' as a word did not yet have a place in English, though today couch and sofa are fairly interchangeable as words in English.

In the 17th century, people in Europe began to become fascinated with the idea of traveling to the Orient and experiencing that particular world. Those who came back also brought back the Arabic word for what we think of as the sofa, only they called it a 'suffah' (soo-fah). This particular kind of sofa actually was a reclining bench that was fairly long. Men would sit on it and drink coffee regularly.

As a item of furniture, the suffah had been around for thousands of years. Ancient Greek and Roman males would sit on their version of the sofa and eat their dinner or just take your ease. It wasn't the case for women, though, who were forbidden to sit or recline on a sofa. They had to make do with eating their dinner or taking a break while sitting on a Greek or Roman chair.

German and English craftsmen in the late 16th century actually came up with the modern version of the sofa. German craftsmen created wooden frames and began to pad them with various natural materials. English craftsmen preferred to take moss from the sea for use as padding. Both nations' craftsmen would then wrap the sofa backs and seats with various common wrappings.

After the sofa was wrapped it would be covered with a rich fabric such as silk or wool or velvet. This style of building, which was completely by craftsmen, meant that the sofa would be so costly that it was only very rich people or royalty that could afford them. Soon, though, advances made in the Industrial Revolution brought the prices of sofas down greatly. This meant middle class people could afford them.

As soon as the middle classes could afford to bring a sofa into their homes, it was fairly soon thereafter -- in the 19th and 20th centuries -- that sofas became a vital item for just about every family of lower or middle-class stature to have. A sofa is probably the second most important item of furniture in just about any household, in fact, placing it just beneath a bed in importance.