Surprise! Brilliant sofa beds for unexpected guests

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Wouldn't it be lovely if we could always know when guests would arrive on our doorsteps? Well, unfortunately, we can't always predict it and many of us feel that we have a duty to provide them with a comfortable place to sleep as and when they do show up! This is fine if you have a large house with a plethora of spare bedrooms that are always ready to receive guests, but what if you have a smaller home and not much capacity for expending it? Sofa beds could be the perfect solution for you!

We know you might be frowning a little bit, picturing the sofa beds of decades past that were lumpy, uncomfortable and worse still, unattractive, but these fantastic space-savers have come a long way since their inception, so let us show you some of the best on the market to give you some inspiration. The best thing is, you can even have one as your main sofa, making it super easy to welcome guests to stay the night! Now that really is a great way to blend space-saving and practicality together!

Modern and sophisticated

Now this is nothing like how we remember sofa beds from our youth! If they had been like this, we don't think there would have ever been arguments about who had to take the sofa bed at a sleepover! 

Finished in a stunning coffee and cream colour scheme, this amazingly contemporary leather sofa from Gamamobel transforms effortlessly into a sleek, comfortable and intensely stylish bed that takes nothing away from the beautiful finish of the wider living room. We love how easy that mechanism looks too, which is a sign of quality craftsmanship!

Luxurious and opulent

When we started talking about sofa beds, we bet you had a very old fashioned image in mind! Let's see if we can accurately describe it. Something with a creaky frame that wasn't comfortable enough to be a sofa or a bed, with a super thin mattress that felt lumpy. Are we right? Well, that absolutely need not be the case any more, as just look at how incredible this sofa bed is! 

Plump, luxurious, comfortable enough for royalty and gorgeous to boot, we don't think that we would ever get back up if we snuggled down on this fabulous piece of furniture. Thank goodness there are some action shots included, or we may not believe this actually is a sofa bed!

Natural and chic

If your home has a more natural or rustic feel to it, you might not want to splash out on a super high-end sofa bed and instead, you might favour something a little simpler. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and simple does not have to mean provincial, unexciting or unattractive,  just look at this perfect little wooden futon, complete with squishy mattress if you don't believe us!

A pretty way to inject some practical furniture into your home, we don't think you can ever go wrong with a futon and they are so timeless when finished in wood!

Simple and functional

Here we see another take on the classic futon design, this time in a super simple boxy format and we can't help but think that this would be perfect for a smaller spare room, such as a box room in a traditional terrace! Those smaller spaces always seem to go to waste, but now, they could legitimately be put to great use as a guest room.

Though comfy, sofa beds such as this one are more geared to infrequent use, so this could be a great way to encourage short visits from travelling family and friends. Not that you like having your home to yourself or anything…

Something for the office

When you've had a hard day at the office, what could be nicer than just curling up for a short nap to rejuvenate yourself? Nothing, when you get to snooze on sofa beds that look this amazing! 

The ultimate in office chic, this sofa bed would be a great addition to any office, but especially a home office, so all you lucky self-employed people out there, this could be the next piece of furniture you buy! Great for pow wows with clients, this is not simply a great place to catch up on some z's and it really does make the space look more high-end too!

Compact and colourful

For the house that has everything, neat and compact little sofa beds are a great addition and can usually be placed anywhere. The task is made even more simple when the furniture itself looks so stylish that you can't take your eyes off it!

We love this piquant orange number, complete with thin mattress and super slim metal frame design as it really works with the rest of the room and has that contemporary yet retro vibe that is so difficult to capture. This is making it look deceptively easy though!

Fun for kids

Kids love colour and you love stylish design and now, sofa beds are a great way to combine the two within your home. Just look at this fabulous example of a modern sofa bed and you will see what we are talking about!

The high back design looks funky and fun, while the bright red adds a little personality. A great way to bring some social potential to your little one's bedroom, this is the kind of sofa bed that would be perfect for teens who want to have regular sleepovers, but still like to have a big bedroom, as the mechanism allows for fast and neat tidying away.

In all shapes and sizes

You probably realise by now that sofa beds are no longer an uncomfortable hybrid of two pieces of furniture that we all know and love. Instead, they are available in every conceivable style, shape and colour, while also being incredibly comfortable and easy to use. In short, they are the ideal solution when you need potential guest accommodation but cannot spare an entire room and we are willing to bet that if you choose wisely, nobody will ever guess that your fabulous new chair is actually a sofa bed!

Speaking of comfortable sofas, why not take a look at this Ideabook: Unbelievably Comfortable And Sumptuous Sofas. We just know you'll find something you love and want to curl up on!

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