No room at your inn? Try these comfy alternatives to the sofa bed
This seasonal onslaught raises a question that might keep you awake nights: Where — or more precisely, on what — will they slumber? A futon? A daybed and trundle? A pull-down wall bed? Something inflatable, perhaps?
For centuries, one answer in many households has been the convertible sleep sofa. Indeed, George Washington — who seems to have slept around, as it were — parked his many visitors on an 18th-century English George II "metamorphic sofa," an example of which was bought for Mount Vernon last year at Sotheby's auction for $10,200.
A sofa bed might seem the perfect solution for the occasional guest — providing sleeping space when you need it and seating when you don't. The unhappy truth, however, is that in many — read affordable — models, the foldable-mattress frame construction and flip-out mechanism conspire to make the contraption nothing short of a pain in the ... back.
"They often are not very comfortable," says McLean, Va., interior designer Marlies Venute. Nor, she adds, are they terribly convenient. "You know how you usually have to take all your pillows off and put them on the side, and you have to move the coffee table? Then you can pull the bed out."
Venute prefers steering clients toward old-fashioned pull-down beds concealed behind custom cabinetry or inside modified closets. The best-known was invented in San Francisco around 1900 by William Murphy, who needed entertaining space in his tiny, one-room apartment.
Today some 3,000 steel Murphy mechanisms — ranging in size from twin to king — are shipped annually from the Murphy Bed Co. factory in Farmingdale, N.Y., to distributors, woodworkers and do-it-yourselfers. A ready-to-assemble cabinet with a fold-down mechanism and double-bed mattress — the box springs are built-in — retails for about $1,800 to $2,000, said company Vice President Gene Kolakowski (800-845-2337 or www.murphybedcompany.com).
"There are all kinds of things you can do with them," Venute says. "They can be incorporated into bookcases in a library, study or anywhere that you have a closet, like the basement. The cabinetry can be made to match other furniture; it can be painted, lacquered or faux-finished. Some beds even pull down sideways."
One Venute client, whose Virginia property includes a sprawling home and a carriage house, has 11 Murphy beds and seven "chair beds," all custom-crafted by a local company, Hardwood Artisans (www.hardwoodartisans.com).
The chair beds, essentially mini-futons, have wooden frames and upholstered cushions. When the back is lowered and the cushions are extended to meet a matching ottoman, it becomes a "cot-size bed for the kids," says Hardwood Artisans President Larry Spinks. "The frame looks like Arts and Crafts or Mission style, and they run about $900 for the chair and $430 for the ottoman in oak."
A mass-produced Ikea futon works just fine for architect and furniture designer Jordan Goldstein of Gensler Design in Washington, who notes, "We are certainly not fans of sofa beds in our world." His $600 Ikea futon "looks and sits like a nice contemporary sofa but has a very firm mattress." Locally, says Ikea sales manager Dixon MacKinnon, fold-away guest beds are big-sellers, ranging in price from $49.99 to $99.99. (Ikea in Renton: 425-656-2980.)
"People buy futons because they are less expensive than sleep sofas and less of a hassle to open and they are a lot easier to transport when you move from one house to another," says Romel Moralez, a salesman at the Market Home Furnishings in Georgetown (202-333-1234).
The store stocks futons in sizes from twin to king. The total price for a double frame and mattress starts around $150 and climbs to almost $700. The least expensive models "are not very comfortable," Moralez says. "At about $220, they get comfortable. It breaks down to $80 for an 8-inch-thick mattress and $140 for a wooden frame." A $150 combo "means a metal frame, and you get very thin foam, so you will start to feel the bars underneath."
Another solution is the armless or backless sofa, says Goldstein, who on a recent trip to Milan saw a profusion of sleek, low Italian couches.
Resembling "cool daybeds or chaises," they can easily handle overnight guests. But, he warns, today's "tendency in the design consciousness to go for pieces lower to the ground means that if the people visiting you are your elders, they could have a problem getting down and then up. These would be for your young, hip cousins."
At the contemporary Ligne Roset furniture store in Washington's trendy Georgetown neighborhood, two popular couches — Smala and Arik — often do round-the-clock duty, says manager Illinca Bartolomeu (206-341-9990 in Seattle or www.ligne-roset.com).
"Smala, our best seller, is not meant to be a sofa bed, but it is used as one. The arms and back go up and down. It's a nice concept because it's conceived completely as a living room sofa. If you need more seating, you put the arms down. If you want to sit and snuggle, you put them up. If you want to sleep, you put the arms and back down." Prices range from $2,970 to $5,385, depending on fabric.
At 8 feet long, the two-piece Arik is also "extremely versatile. The frame and the sleep area are not at all connected. You can slide the sleep area anywhere you want," she says of the sofa priced from $2,915 to $3,705.
Another overnight option is a standard bed or a daybed with a pull-out trundle underneath, suggests Deborah Wiener, a Silver Spring, Md., designer who specializes in family-friendly decor. Never mind that one person has to sleep on a mattress-in-a-drawer or mounted on a frame a few inches off the floor, while the other is at normal bed height, she says.
Wiener dislikes pop-up trundles, even if that means a pull-out model separates couples by a vertical foot or two.
"My sons, who are 8 and 12, have trundles in their rooms for sleepovers. But the older boy doesn't want to be lying next to another boy. And what if you have grown-up guests who are not a couple, like a brother and sister?" says Wiener.
She suggests buying trundle sets at furniture stores such as Pottery Barn or Pottery Barn Kids rather than at a shop that sells mattresses "because this is about the frame, not the mattress. And just because they are shown in a kid room setting doesn't mean you can't use it in an adult room."
With all the talk of sleep-inducing permanent furniture, however, tens of thousands of Americans rely on variations of the air mattress. One drawback has always been blowing the thing up.
Since the late 1990s, Aero Products International Inc. has touted inflatable beds equipped with built-in electric pumps and the promise of a three-minute setup, even for its largest model, a $300 thigh-high queen. The company also boasts a 30-second deflation device and the convenience of stowing all its beds into carry-sacks that fit in a closet or car trunk.
"We definitely are a seasonal-type product, for people who come to see you, or when you travel and want to take it with you because you know you are going to be on the couch or the floor," says Susan Sperling, Aero marketing communications director. "But most people buy it to use at home; 43 percent of them use it in their living room and 35 percent put it in the spare bedroom."
Prices start at $99 for a floor-level twin.
The queen is said to handle two sleepers weighing a total of 650 pounds. The beds are available at such chains as Hecht's; Sears; and Bed, Bath & Beyond (www.thinkaero.com).
"I had a bed shortage, and I used AeroBeds and people swore by them," says Jill Irey, who teaches interior design at Montgomery College in Rockville, Md. "One of my kids took one to college and put it on top of his bunk-bed mattress, and it's much more comfortable."
But they clearly don't work for everyone. Chris Petropoulos, a 6-foot-3 New Yorker, lasted one sleepless night on a queen-size Aero shared with his petite girlfriend. The next day, they bit the bullet and bought a futon.
But if holiday hosts get too frantic, decorator Wiener has this bit of advice:
"Want to know where I personally think is the best place to put your guests? In a hotel, especially if they are family."