Three Questions to Ask Before Buying a Corner Sofa Bed
28 Jun
A corner sofa bed is a unique piece of furniture that not only looks great but is also very functional. If you live in a smaller home without a second bedroom but like having guests over to stay then you may well be consider buying a sofa bed. LiveIn|LiveOut recently looked at five tips for buying a corner sofa and all of these tips still apply to corners sofa beds, but there are additional factors to consider. To start off with lets just summarise the five tips for buying a regular corner sofa:
1. Left or right handed – You need to decide whether the sofa is to be left or right handed.
2. Leather or cloth – Leather is a great hardwearing material for sofas.
3. Do you want it to be a sofa bed – well that’s what this article is looking at
4. Modular – Do you like to move things about or does your home have limited access?
5. Consider whether you want and L-shaped corner sofa or a curved corner sofa.
Do you want extra storage for bedding?
The one big advantage that a corner sofa bed has over a regular sofa bed is that more often than not they will have a large amount of space that you can store bedding in. Although some sofa beds do offer this as an option it will come at the expense of the comfortableness of the bed. If the sofa bed you are looking for allows for storage of bedding then it will probably not have a very thick mattress. A corner sofa bed with storage however has the ‘other’ seats available where you can store pillows, duvets and even guest towels if you so wished and the bed mechanism will then be stored under the other seats. This allows a generous amount of space for a good quality thick mattress.
Do you want to have a generous sleeping area?
Corner sofa beds do tend to offer a much larger sleeping space compared to the non-corner type of sofa bed. Obviously they will take up more room as a sofa – but if you are opting for a corner sofa anyway then you have probably already thought about the space requirements. If you regularly have the same guest over to stay then you may as well make them as comfortable as possible.
What type of sofabed action do you want?
There are at least ten different mechanisms available for sofa beds but the three most popular are:
- A 3-fold metal action
- A slide and lift mechanism
- A modular pouf and sofa
Which mechanism you decide upon will be largely dictated by how often you expect the bed to be used. If you frequently have guests over and expect the bed to be used one or two times per month then the 3 fold metal action may well be the best option. Similar to the traditional camp bed, it is a tried and tested method of providing a stable and supportive sleeping area, you may think that this doesn’t seem very sophisticated but what you should really be worried about is the mattress that will sit on top of the system as this is the main point of contact for any guests.
The second method of turning the sofa in to a bed is that of the slide and lift mechanism and It’s a very slick and easy mechanism to use. When it is unfolded it provides as good as support as the 3-fold mechanism however it’s sophistication means that there is much more to go wring with it. That said if you are only going to be using your corner sofa bed a couple of times a year then there is certainly nothing wrong with this option at all.
The third main action for creating a bed from a sofa is comes in the form of a modular sofa that comes with a pouf. It is the least sophisticated method of creating a sofa bed. Effectively the pouf fills in the gap in the ’L’ which in turn makes the sofa in to a rectangle and consequently a bed. There is certainly nothing to go wrong with this option but what you do need to consider is the material that the sofa is made from. The pouf being a fixed element will not be able to be turned over for people to sleep on so you may have to take in to consideration the wear and tear of the fabric. A leather corner sofa bed that also has a leather pouf would be a much better material to use if this was the type of bed mechanism that you wanted. The main draw back to this type of sofa is that you obviously need a pouf so when the bed is not made up – which most of the time is not – then where are you going to put the pouf?
Hopefully this short guide will have given you something to think about and allow you to make an informed decision when you are out shopping for a corner sofa bed.
What do you want the sofa to be made from? If you know that your sofa will be getting a lot of use but you still want it to stand the test of time, I would highly recommend that you get a leather corner sofa. If you have children or pets then a leather corner sofa is certainly the most practical option for you – leather is easily kept clean by giving it a wipe with a damp cloth, and because of it strong durable nature it cannot easily be snagged by pets claws. Leather comes in a huge variety of colours so you should be able to easily find a sofa that matches your interior.
