Sofa bed

The sofa bed is really a development of the futon. The proper Japanese futons were nothing more than fold up mattresses, however in the West the futon became a transformational bed that would convert into a very basic chair. This did away with the need to store the futon when not in use and it also produced an extra “occasional” seat.

What the sofa bed does is take that “bed to seat” conversion to a higher and more technically advanced level. It produces an item of furniture that looks like a sofa and is comfortable to sit on, but which also converts into a comfortable bed for occasional use. It should be born in mind that any sofa bed will have a primary function and in the case of 90 percent of these sofa beds the main function is to be a seat.

A typical sofa bed

Sofa beds can be single or double, however most are in the double format.

The typical sofa bed will look very much like a normal sofa with arms, probably two seat cushions and a padded backrest. The transformation comes when the seat cushions are removed to reveal a fold out mechanism normally incorporating an edge sprung mattress support. A thin foldaway mattress sheet then sits on this platform.

When in the “bed” format, the sofa bed will have the mattress projecting outwards from between the arms of the sofa with its foldaway legs supporting the mattress at its centre and at its foot.

When in the “chair” format, the whole of this mattress and leg frame folds away neatly within the boxed seating area of the sofa.

Appearance

Sofa beds can be cheap, expensive, or anywhere in between.

Most of these beds are indiscernible from regular sofas and they come in different fabric finishes and different styles. This means that you can have a sofa bed in your living room, or any other reception room and it will not look out of place.

When in bed mode, the typical sofa bed will offer a sleeping surface slightly smaller than that of a standard double bed, however it is more than adequate for two people when used occasionally. There are larger sofa beds that have a mattress size comparable with that of a standard double bed.

Cheaper sofa beds and other designs

In addition to the type of sofa bed described above, there are also much cheaper and simpler functioning versions. These budget priced models often do away with any kind of fold up mechanism and simply have a double thickness seat cushion design that is unfolded to reveal a mattress that projects out from the backrest and is supported by the floor. This type of sofa bed is fine for occasional use, but its comfort levels are low.

Another variation of the design is to have the backrest of the sofa fold back to a horizontal position. When this is the case the combined area of the seat and horizontal backrest produce a sleeping surface. Again, this type of sofa bed is for very occasional use.

Whilst the normal way for a frame sprung sofa bed to function is for the longest dimension of the bed to extend out from the sofa’s backrest, this is not always the case. Some large corner sofas also incorporate a bed and when this is the case the bed opens out lengthways with the head to foot dimension running along the length of the sofa (i.e. between the arms).

A final variant on the sofa bed is the three seater sofa or settee that has the bed section fold out from within two of the three settee seats. This type of sofa bed is primarily a sofa, but one that can be used as a put-up bed when required.

From a support perspective the sofa bed is very much an occasional use bed. It does not offer the kind of orthopedic support provided by beds with “proper” mattresses and therefore it should be confined to infrequent use.