Sofa bed? Or what?? Help!

[Takver]

We don't have a spare room, so when we have guests either they (or more often us) sleep in the front room. ATM we have a futon in there, but its not that comfy to sleep on, plus it looks messy (no frame for it).

There's also a 2 seater normal sofa in the room, a cabinet with the tv on it & lots of tat in it, and a piano + stool. It is quite a small room

Ideally (ie if it wasn't also our spare room) we would get a second sofa in some kind of red damask material to match our current sofa & curtains & put it where the futon is sitting. So it seems like the obvious answer is to get a sofa bed. BUT so far the only ones we have found have not-at-all-comfy mattresses and only come in plain colours not including anything that would remotely match our existing sofa/curtains.

So I guess I'm wondering (a) does anyone have a great solution for a guest bed that can easily be put away in the loft/landing cupboard OR (b) do you know where we can get a really nice sofa bed.

Just to help, we both hate sleeping on an air mattress (we already have one & don't use it) and we live in the middle of no-where, our nearest Ikea / John Lewis / Multiyork for example are all 2.5 hours drive away in Cardiff so we really need to figure out whether they're likely to have something good before making a big trip!

There are fairly decent ones at ikea, the higher price range come with really good mattresses, and they are quite comfy. We visited John Lewis and the sofa bed was good but quite bulky to move and fairly fiddly when it came to putting it back up. The one we have from ikea in our guest room/office/ dumping room is easy to use and flips back into sofa with a single hand lift. I guess I was looking not just for a comfy mattress but also ease of assembly and multiple usage without sighing in despair each time it needed opening. Got some fancy throws/ cover for it too.

That is another option, we could go for a plain cover & put a throw over it. It just seems annoying to buy a new sofa then have to cover it straight away . . .

Have you tried the Aerobed airbeds ? they are nothing like the old style ones and vvv comfy. You can even get high rise ones.

IME, sofa beds end up doing neither thing very well

No, haven't tried an Aerobed. I had wondered about a thick self-inflating mattress as my thin camping Alpkit one is very comfy, but couldn't find a decent looking double. The problem with the airbed we have is that whenever DH rolls over, I wake up . . . do Aerobeds avoid that 'wave' effect?

No wave effect on ours - we have a King size and even though dh is v big theres no heave when he gets up.

We have an aerobed- it inflates to the height of a normal bed in about 3 minutes and you can inflate it further once you're lying on it (it's got a little remote thing)

No complaints from any guests so far- it's v easy to put away too

Hmm, that's interesting CMOT/Icecream - will investigate them further. The other thing we'd thought of was some kind of foam mattress that we could roll up & shove up in the loft.

I think that you're right, a sofabed is kind of the worst of both worlds. We could also have a smaller sofa than would make sense as a bed, which would be helpful given the room isn't that big.

Aerobeds are great - buy direct from the website though, as usually half of what JL charges. JL do free delivery and you can always return it if not right - not that you want to go through that palaver. However, they have some good sofa beds, so would definitely consider a visit to their website for starters.

i bought a sofa bed from sofa workshop - they are good quality. I was lucky to get a ex showroom model. They are pricey, but we don't have a spare bedrrom so is used regularly.

I think their mattresses are a little thicker than others. Its comfy enough for most people, but thinking of getting mattress topper to make it thicker to suit the older guests. Some sofa beds are surprisingly small. Ours is a regular double bed size

We have the same issue and have been hunting for the right sofabed for several months. Think we've settled on the Ikea kivik (can't do links on phone, sorry). There were a couple we liked in JL but they were more expensive and the kivik suits our measurements better. Jl do have some nice ones, but they've also got some really quite rubbish ones so you'd definitely need to visit (although you could couple this with a trip to Ikea Cardiff!) I couldnt find anything I liked anywhere else within our budget.

Haven't bought yet, and am now intruiged by the aerobed option so will be looking in to that as well!

Yes, good point from igetcrazytoo, some so-called double sofa beds are marginally wider than a single so do beware.

Now I've just been reading a load of aerobed reviews on amazon, & there were a distressingly large number of people with leaks (well, not leaking people as such, but YKWIM).

hmmm

MrsKitty, I think that a day going to Cardiff & visiting both Ikea and JL would probably drive me to the brink of sanity, but . . . but . . . it may have to be done. The double sofa = narrow bed is a big problem though, as we don't really have room for a 3 seater.

DH is going to look at foam mattresses nearer home first next week which may win simply on the grounds of relative painlessness at least in the buying if not the sleeping on.

We got a sofabed from JL last year, the salesman commented that it is not as comfortable as the plain sofa from the same range; and sofabeds are generally not as comfortable as real beds either

Can't comment further as we haven't unwrapped it yet as doing other work.