You know the one, it’s like a bench to sit on, but the bench-top lifts up so it is also a box to store things in.
I want to get one, but can’t remember the name, so I can’t search for them online.
Any help, much appreciated.
Hope chest?
I have one from my m-i-l, maple, with a spinning wheel carved on it. Manufacturer was ‘Lane’ and they used to advertise in Seventeen Magazine. You’d store linens and things to use when you got married.
An Ottoman.
A couple other names are cedar chest and blanket chest.
Oddly enough, mine was sold as a toy box, but it works great at holding extra comforters and I can sit on it to put on socks and shoes.
Foot locker?
Obviously, if it were at the head of the bed, it would be a head locker.
Definitely a hope chest.
I’d go with either cedar chest or foot locker.
I’m thinking you want a place to sit while getting on your socks and shoes. The bed is usually too high for this so many people have a bench or chair at the foot of their bed. I used to have a padded bench there, but then I went for a vanity chair in the closet instead.
So try searching for those. Or possibly “entryway benches” or “hallway benches”.
I think any kind of upholstered bench would look nice at the foot of a bed.
Y’know, it never occurred to me to think about why a foot locker is called that. D’oh! :smack:
In my youthful experience, “ottoman” when not referring to the Turks (thn whom it’s nobody’s business) referenced a round upholstered footstool.
I wonder if this is another “Transatlantic disjunction” where the same word holds divergent meanings in America and in the British Isles.
I see those things advertised as “storage benches,” and as Patty O’Furniture implied, often in the “hallway” or “entryway” group of a given store’s offerings. “Storage ottomans” are functionally the same things, though marketed in a different department (the Living Room group, as whether or not an ottoman is round, you’re intended to rest your feet on it while sitting on a couch or chair). Neither group are necessarily sized to fit a standard-sized bed, though, so you want to pay extra attention to measurements.
In the groups more deliberately designed for foot-of-bed use, some were definitely marketed as “hope chests” (famously by Lane, as salinqmind mentions; all the girls in my high school graduating class got a sample toy-sized one along with our diplomas) in the past, but I don’t see that as often anymore, except for antiques. I do see new ones called “blanket chests” or if lined with or made of cedar for moth resistance, “cedar chests,” of course. “Foot lockers” tend to be cheaper and less decorative, like the metal one my dad brought home from his tour in the Army. You wouldn’t want to sit on that one. “Trunks” are similar; they may have straps and handles in imitation of antique luggage. Most bedroom pieces called just plain “chests” (rather than “blanket chests” or “cedar chests”) seem to be “chests of drawers,” but if you search for “chest + lid” you might avoid most of those.
A tuffet?
I don’t think so,
While many “the name for that piece of furniture that sits at the foot of the bed” started their lives as hope chests not all of them did.
CMC fnord!
In my travels, many hotels have a luggage bench.
But if it’s a chest and the lid lifts up, then I guess I think it’s a bedroom storage chest or trunk, perhaps with a padded top to sit on.
I was just saying the other day that when someone says “Ottoman,” you can have no idea what piece of furniture they’re actually talking about. I recently had some potential tenants discussing where they would put the Ottoman, and it seemed to be a thing with drawers. To me an Ottoman is a hassock.
Wikipedia says a tuffet with storage is an ottoman, and redirects “hassock” to “tuffet,” so you and the potential tenants can both be right.
“Storage” perhaps, but not all storage implies drawers, which is what the tenants were talking about. And to complicate things, when many people hear “ottoman,” they think “couch.”
What we need here is a real Ottoman to clear things up. Anyone here from the empire? (Though Tamerlane seems to know a lot about Ottomans – perhaps he’ll do.)
Thanks for the answers everyone. Some disagreement or regional variations, but I have enough keywords to work with now. Thanks all!
Yes, but in my experience a British Ottoman is a chest that is padded on the outside, so as to be a bit more comfortable to sit on. I do not think a mere wooden chest would really count as an Ottoman.