9 best sofa beds that’ll keep overnight guests comfy

9 best sofa beds that’ll keep overnight guests comfy

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Few of us can afford the luxury of a spare room – but even if we did have one, these days, it would be more likely used as a home office than a guest bedroom. Enter the trusty sofa bed, a hardworking, dual-functional furniture piece that will allow you to entertain overnight guests in your living space comfortably.

But sofa beds often get a bad rap thanks to the clunky mechanisms, bumpy seat cushions, and paper-thin mattresses of old, leaving you with neither a cosy sofa nor a comfy bed, which is no good to anyone.

The great news though, is that sofa beds have evolved with most contemporary pieces boasting shrewd engineering, clever design, and even high-tech memory foam or coil sprung mattresses to rival the best ones designed for your bed.

Modern click-clack (or clic-clac) styles are considered the easiest to use, with their straightforward functionality that allows you to simply fold the backrest of the sofa down to become the mattress itself. More conventional styles employ an integrated hidden metal frame complete with separate mattress, which opens out with ease. These might be more akin to the sofa beds of yesteryear, but contemporary designs can prove surprisingly comfy and user-friendly.

Both types have their pros and cons of course. Click-clack sofa beds win hands-down on a speedy turnaround, but they can look bulky and rarely sit flush to the wall. And while conventional styles prove the best at disguising themselves as your main sofa, they can be cumbersome space-stealers once opened up. Of course, it’s all down to personal preference and the space you have available, but the very best sofa beds prove perfectly comfy in either set-up, and will withstand heavy, everyday use.

How we tested

We put a range of sofa beds to the test, whether click-clack or pull-out, looking for that sweet spot that gives you comfort and support in both sofa and bed set-ups. We weighed up affordability with quality of craftsmanship, and we were keen to test different upholstery fabrics to see which ones stood up to a battering from the kids – suffice to say, we’ve had numerous sleepovers.

The best sofa beds for 2024 are:

  • Best overall sofa bed – Dreams Gallway clic-clac sofa bed: £899, Dreams.co.uk
  • Best affordable sofa bed – John Lewis Anyday show wood bench 3 seater sofa bed: £499, Johnlewis.com
  • Best sofa-in-a-box sofa bed – Swyft model 04 sofa bed: From £2,295, Swyfthome.com
  • Best corner sofa bed – Sofology Richmond 3 seater/corner/3 seater right-hand facing sofa bed: £2,699, Sofology.co.uk
  • Best fold-out sofa bed – Snug the big chill 3 seater sofa bed: £2,109, Snugsofa.com

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