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I don't have a 3rd bedroom anymore so was thinking of getting a sleeper sofa. I remember my father's old sofa bed and want to get something better than that. Looked at Ikea's Karlstad but it has have been recently recalled. Innovations has a Wing sleeper that I found locally for a good price. Any other suggestions?
Not sure the meaning of a sleeper sofa. We have tried probably every kind of these. We have five kids so through the years it was not unusual for us to have as many as 10-20 kids sleeping in our home. There are four types of sofa that double as beds that I am aware of:
1. Bed folds out of a sofa. These are a pia, uncomfortable, incredibly heavy, and you will likely discover you never use them (then after years of disuse, you may discover mice or bugs have made nests in the mattress). You can make them better by putting a 3/4" sheet of plywood over the bed once you fold it out, then putting the mattress on top. Howqeever that kind of destorys the point of a fold out bed. You can also make them somewhat more comfortable by buying a better mattress for them. Be sure it is a folding mattress though (which translates to only marginally more comfortable than the 2" foam thing it came with). The folding mechanism will break after a few years of occasional use. We found it more practical to open it up, pull the mattress out and put it on the floor, then fold the bed back into the sofa and sleep on the mattress. The added advantage is that if your sofa part is big enough, you can put another person on there for the night after you fold the bed back in. Oh, never try to open one of these things when you and your friends are seriously drunk. Best case, you will have a partially unfolded and set up mess with a friend sleeping on the floor, worst case you will break some rivets and the sofa bed is ruined. Mostly people regret buying them, especially when you move or try to get rid of them.
2. Sofa is wide and you can just remove the back cushions and have a twin bed. These are usually more comfortable but you end up with a really deep/wide couch. On the other hand a deep wide couch is better for laying on and watching TV which is the primary use for a couch in many households. Sectional versions where you push different pieces together to form a bigger bed are stupid. They pull apart unless you C clamp them, and even then you end up with an uncomfortable spot at the joint. 100% utterly worthless as a bed, unless the individual pieces are big enough to form a separate bed by themselves.
3. Daybeds. These are actual beds set up to serve as a sofa when you add a bunch of pillows. Most have a second bed that springs up after being rolled out from underneath. The idea is to connect the two twin beds and make a full size. Don't bother. Same problem as the sectional sofa bed. You cannot keep the two mattresses tightly together enough to be anything but miserable. On the other hand, if you replace the mattresses with something of decent quality, daybeds can make both very comfortable twin beds and serviceable sofas. We have one in our game room and my daughter slept on it for two years after her bedroom mysteriously acquired a small river. She said it was fine. You do need to replace the mattress that comes with the daybed. Just leave the original mattress wrapped in its plastic wrapper and donate it to Christnet or something simlar and go to a quality mattress factory outlet.
4. Futon. Sits up like a couch but is akin to sitting on a sack of rocks. pull it out and drop the back and it is a bed mad from a sack of potatoes. When it is a couch the futon pad tends to slide down all the time and when it is a bed, the floor is more comfortable, But hey Futons are Feng shui and trendy at times. Your friends will be impressed with it as they stand in your living room looking for a comfortable place to sit (just bring in some logs and stand them on end, or maybe some large rocks or a concrete block - anything is more comfortable than a futon). It can be fun though, you can sit on it and exclaim how wonderfully comfortable and firm this high end futon couch bed is compared to those awful spongy things your parents have. Then everyone will have to sit on it and agree with you or risk appearing barbaric by calling you out for sitting on a gravel driveway and calling it terrific. It is fun because it is kind of an emperors new clothes thing. It will allow you to discern the individuals form the sheep amongst your friends.
SOLUTION:
After trying all of these things, we finally found the answer. Get a nice couch that is easy to move and fits your decor. Then go to Target and buy a double king or queen size air bed (or get several of them). They are fabulously comfortable, easy to store, can be set up anywhere (even in a hallway in a pinch) and you can take them camping. they cost around $80 for a full size to about $200 - $250 for a king size. They have built in pumps, so you just plug it in, turn it on and leave for a while, Return and presto, a bed. Twins are really cheap, but you tend to roll off them, especially if the lose some firmness during the night due to temperature changes. Downside is they will get leaks after 1-5 years of use and if they leak at the valve, you will have to replace them, otherwise you will just patch them. We bought one king size that is fancier in how it is made (individual cells or something). It is the second most comfortable bed in our house. Everyone loves it.
One warning - some friends bought a really fancy one, It had a built in platfrom that made a hard sided box for the thing when deflated. It was really cool to watch it inflate and the platform pieces unfold and spring into place. They are wealthy, so I would guess it costs over $1000. Very comfortable. The one problem is it has a thing where you set the firmness and the bed keeps it at that firmness. So if the air gets cold or it loses some air somehow it fills it back up. Problem is at 3 a.m. when that pump suddenly kicks in and you think there is an earthquake or something and jump out of bed in terror. Don not buy this fancy thing. Just get the ordinary ones. they hold air well enough, especially if they are indoors where climate is controlled. Our big one sometimes can be up for a week or more without needing any air added.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 11-29-2016 at 07:18 AM..
If I were you I would go to a store and test them out. Some of the mattresses are really thin like 4 inches.
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