Folding Sofa Beds
Buy the best folding sofa beds selected and recommended by interior designers. By Caroline Patterson.
A fold down sofa bed is an innovative way to save space yet also offer a comfortable place for guests to sleep. Simple to use, it often requires no extra steps other than to fold your sofa back up and down. You can opt for a classic square arm look or more of a modern vibe. We’ve picked out a few of our favorites below and reviewed them so you can choose the best product for you.
Folding Sofa Beds
Buying Guide
Caroline Patterson
Interior Design Expert
Caroline is a young, New York-based interior designer and home decor writer, obsessed with textiles and designer furniture. Backed with rigorous training from a prestigious design school, as well as a profound understanding of material quality and fabric care, she offers spot-on advice on how to furnish your place with reliable, functional, and aesthetically pleasing pieces.
The fold down sofa bed is almost a cliché – but clichés are those things that just keep coming around because it works. Your hidden bed, however, does not need to be the ubiquitous monstrosity with the metal bar that catches sleepers in the middle of the back and screams to all passersby, “I am a sofa bed!” Yours can be a stylish couch, sofa or even part of a sectional arrangement that exudes good taste – and better yet – is comfortable to sleep on or just to grab a quick power nap when the going gets tough.
The fold-down office bed can be a stylish addition to any office, living room, camp out or dorm room. The pieces come in a variety of styles and materials. The fancier ones can easily be used as office furniture, while the simplest pack and move easily. They are the perfect answer to sleeping space for a house party or for “the day the relatives came.” Unlike many of the older pull-out sofa beds, they avoid the “bar in the middle of the back” syndrome simply by not having the bar.
Leather and chrome
Leather and chrome look good in any waiting room or professional office. On a busy day, when you can catch a break, pull down the shades, put the “out to lunch” sign on the door, set an alarm and catch forty winks. Statistics tell us that Americans are almost universally sleep-deprived. Your power-nap could make that important 4:00 PM meeting go so much better, especially if you were up until 2:00 am preparing for it and had a full day schedule.
Folding sleeper chairs
They look stylish, usually in loveseat size, and can look professional or comfortable in almost any setting. But those chunky seats fold out into soft, memory foam sleeping mats that are just fine for a tent or for your living room. They also travel well, since they have few movable parts and are not easily broken. They can also be used to pad the floor of a van for those camping moments where a tent just won’t quite do the job, or – should be so lucky as to find one still open – and be placed in the bed of a pickup to view the big screen at the drive-in movie.
Microfiber fold down sofa bed
This stylish couch can spiff up that overcrowded dorm room (replacing the problematic cot) and make your dorm room look like a sitting room – at least as long as you remember to “make your bed.” The fabric cover is easy to wipe clean, and does not show stains that are likely to give away those midnight – er, ah, -- “study” sessions when mom, dad or the RA come to visit. Also good for entertaining when the only agenda is to watch a special movie. The center back panel can fold down into a drink holder, as well as the whole back folding down to create a sleeping surface at sleep time.