I’m moving into a flat with a spare bedroom! I want to host guests (and since I moved to a new country, visitors will likely be staying for at least a week) but also want my floor space back when they leave. Any recs that comfortably and gracefully solve this dilemma? An actually-comfy sofa bed? Something more creative?

Question

Zoe · Answer

Not a Sofa Bed: Sometimes you need a bed. Sometimes you don’t need a bed. Sometimes you don’t need a sofa either. Here’s an alternative that saves space when it’s packed down and still provides a good night’s sleep when made up.

You will need:

1 x Z fold mattress. Get the densest one you can get. Remember high school physics? Divide the weight of the mattress (conveniently available on the Amazon listing page) by the volume of the mattress (also available on the Amazon listing page, with a bit of arithmetic). Yes it’ll be heavy but foam mattress comfort is completely reliant on density - I don’t make the rules.

Get one with a cover and when it’s folded up it’s a nice little bench that has like a third of the footprint of a sofa. Linked is the one we went with.

1 x Foldable platform bed base

This is what elevates the bed experience (HA!) from being a mattress on the floor. Folds flat and is convenient to store wherever you want because you’re not tied to keeping all the bed parts in the same room because this isn’t a sofa bed!!

We have hosted so many people on this combo and received nothing but good reviews. Tiny London flat approved!!