Buying ottomans as part of the living room furniture set is a simple matter to some people, while to others it has a special meaning, historically speaking, anyway.
The ottoman got its name from The Ottoman Empire and has become an extremely popular and functional part of the American family room and living room for many, many generations.
Standard ottomans, leather ottomans, storage ottomans, the ottoman table, the coffee table ottoman and the bench ottoman all came from the same source: The Ottoman Empire. This magnificent period of Muslim Turks ruled millions of subjects on three continents from 1299 until 1922, when the loss of World War One dissolved their Empire and greatly diminished their power and influence, with the singular exception of the ottomans, the footrest, not the Empire.
The spread of Islam across Part of Southern and Eastern Europe and the taking of Constantinople in 1453 actually spread the Turks’ culture and comfortable furniture also.
The ottoman footrests, (brown ottoman is still the most popular color), demonstrated a secret of the mighty Ottoman Turks to the Western military: the Turks simply knew how to relax between battles. And they had a superior economic usage of space. The storage ottoman actually served two purposes, as a footrest, of course, and also by removing the top or lid of the ottoman, one could use the empty space inside for storage. We certainly do not know what the Turks stored inside their ottomans but nowadays blankets are the most commonly stored items in the American ottoman. Apparently, we know how to relax too. More ottomans are sold in America than anywhere else in the world.
Almost everyone remembers an ottoman from his or her youth. It could have been their grandparents’ ottoman, there parents’ or their uncles’ and aunts’ or their next door neighbors’ ottoman. We have all seen them and used them at some point in our lives.
As kids, ottomans seemed like the perfect piece of furniture. It was just our size and we could play on it, do our homework on it, use it as a table for eating a snack or lunch or, if we were small enough, even hide in it. Ottomans, the furniture, exude total versatility and function in their simple, yet universally appealing design. Is it any wonder that the Ottoman Turks could have such an immense Empire? They probably could not have done it without the ottoman.
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