Choosing A Sofa Bed

When you're looking for something comfortable to sleep on but space constraints make a traditional bed inconvenient or outright impossible. There are alternatives to consider here including sofa beds, day beds and water beds.

A daybed usually has a three sided frame around a platform of linked springs. These beds fit a twin mattress and normally do not have a box spring.

Daybeds also have pillows or cushions along their backs, allowing these beds to do double duty as sofas. Many daybeds even have trundles which can be collapsed and slid underneath the frame to keep them out of sight when not in use. Daybeds don't have slats or a proper box spring, which means that it's important to use a high quality mattress.

You can usually use regular twin sheets for daybeds. However, you should take the depth of the mattress into account when buying linens. You can also find comforters and bed skirts made specifically for daybeds. You can find daybeds in in different styles such as Traditional, Contemporary and mission beds.

Modern sleeper sofas are significantly better than those from previous generations. They are more comfortable both as beds and as sofas than they once were and in most cases, you can't tell by looking at them that they are anything but an ordinary couch. The folding mechanisms have been greatly improved as well.

There are sofa beds available in sizes from twin to queen, but they do tend to be shorter than most beds regardless of width. Sofa beds also have thinner mattresses than a traditional bed and do not have a box spring.

When you’re shopping for a sofa bed, consider whether it will be used more as a sofa or as a bed. Depending on its primary use, you'll want to look for one which is more comfortable for one purpose or the other.

In addition, if you're going to be using your sofa bed more as a bed than a sofa then consider buying end tables with drawers to more closely resemble the benefit you would normally have with a pair of oak nightstands in your bedroom.

You'll need to take account of the size of the bed when folded out to arrange the rest of the furniture in the room. Make sure that there's enough room on either side of the sofa bed to fold and unfold the mattress and change linens.

Anything in front of the sofa bed needs to be light and easily moved for when the mattress is folded out.

Water beds have made great strides in the last few decades. They now feature more attractive contemporary design and are easier to set up and adjust.

Soft-side water beds look like an ordinary mattress, with a quilted outer shell and water filled cylinders on the inside.

Hard-side water beds have a simple bladder type mattress, with the bed frame being necessary to maintain its shape. These water beds require a heater; when the room is cool, the cool water inside of the mattress draws your body heat – not a comfortable way to sleep.

The vinyl cover of the mattress should be a minimum of 20 cm thickness. You'll want to keep patch kits on hand if you use this style of water bed. When buying one of these models, look for a mattress which has a liner to protect against ruptures and has anti-wave devices, cylinders and baffles to keep the mattresses' movement under control.