Before the sofa existed, most people in a 1700s household didn't sit on anything upholstered at all. The only true piece of furniture in many homes was a chair reserved for the male head of the household. Everyone else sat on benches, stools, or chests.What did people sit on before the sofa was invented?According to Kensington's Michael, who researched the question after thinking about the store's own long history, 1700s homes had almost nothing like today's sofa. Seating was sparse, hard, and strictly ranked by who you were in the family.The master chair: the only true furniture in the homeMichael describes it plainly: apparently men sat in "the only true furniture in the home", which was called a master chair. It was the one piece of seating built and treated as real furniture, and it belonged to the man of the house. Everyone else in the family made do with something else entirely.What everyone else sat on: benches, stools, and chestsWives, friends, and children sat on what Michael calls backless benches, not chairs. Beyond that, 1700s homes relied on a handful of other seating forms, none of them upholstered: Settees Joint stools Storage chests Windsor chairs None of these offered the kind of cushioned, sink-into comfort we associate with living room furniture today. There was no deep-seated, down-filled sofa to come home to after a long day, because that kind of upholstered seating simply didn't exist yet for the average family.Why a furniture store cares about this historyKensington has been in business 113 years, and Michael frames the question as a natural one for a store that's been part of its community that long: what's the history of the thing we sell every day? Looking back at how people actually sat before sofas existed puts the comfort of a modern sofa in perspective. As Michael puts it, "How happy are you that it's 2026 and you're able to come to a place like Kensington and have a sofa" instead of a master chair or a backless bench.The takeawayThe sofa most of us take for granted, the plush, deep-seated piece we relax on at the end of the day, is a relatively modern comfort. Before it, seating was about rank and function, not comfort. Michael's short dive into 1700s furniture history is a reminder that the everyday sofa in a living room today would have looked like pure luxury a few centuries ago. Key takeaways In 1700s homes, the only true piece of furniture was called a master chair, reserved for the male head of household. Wives, friends, and children sat on backless benches rather than chairs. Other common seating forms of the era included settees, joint stools, storage chests, and Windsor chairs. None of these seating types were upholstered, unlike the deep-seated, down-filled sofas common today. Kensington's Michael connects this history to the store's own 113 years in the furniture business. Questions people ask What did people sit on before sofas existed? In the 1700s, households used master chairs, backless benches, settees, joint stools, storage chests, and Windsor chairs instead of sofas. What was a master chair? A master chair was the only true piece of furniture in a 1700s home, and it was reserved for the male head of the household. Did 1700s homes have upholstered furniture? No. According to the video, seating in that era was not upholstered, so there was nothing like the deep-seated, down-filled sofas common today. Who is Michael in the video? Michael is a Kensington team member who is featured in the video and can be found among the sofas in the Kensington showroom.
