Sofa bed for everyday use or the odd guest? How to choose

Most sofa beds are bought for the odd guest: a sister staying over at Christmas, a friend after a late night. Some are bought to be slept on every night, in a studio flat, a teenager's room or a living room that is also the only spare bedroom. Those two jobs ask different things of a sofa bed, and the short answer is this: for occasional guests, choose the sofa you want to sit on and check the bed is big enough; for everyday sleeping, choose the bed first and make sure opening and closing it is something you will happily do every single night.

Here is how to tell which kind you need, and what to check for each.

Start with how often the bed will actually come out

Be honest about this before you look at anything else. A bed that comes out five times a year can be a little fiddly to open, sit in the middle of the room for a weekend and still be a good buy. A bed that comes out every night cannot. Every small annoyance, from moving a coffee table to making up the bed from scratch, gets repeated hundreds of times a year.

A rough guide:

• A few times a year: you are buying a sofa that happens to have a bed in it. Seating, size and style come first.
• Most weekends, or a regular visitor: sleeping size starts to matter as much as the seating.
• Every night: you are buying a bed that folds away. The size of the sleeping area, the space it needs when open and how easy it is to convert matter most.

Sleeping area: the number to check first

Every sofa bed page on our site lists the sleeping area where we have it, in centimetres. It is worth holding that number up against the bed sizes you already know. In the UK a standard double mattress is 135 x 190 cm and a king is 150 x 200 cm.

That gives you a quick test. A sleeping area of around 200 x 120 cm is a little longer than a standard double but narrower, which suits one adult nightly or two guests for the odd night. Our larger U-shape sofa beds open to 264 x 176 cm, wider than a king in both directions, so two adults are not sharing a narrow strip.

Colours vary in stock, so check the one you want on the product page before you order.

If the bed is for the odd guest

For occasional use, the sofa is what you live with 360 days a year, so treat it as a sofa purchase first.

• Get the seating right. Number of seats, overall length and depth should suit the room as a sofa. Our corner sofa beds such as the Palermo and Capri seat four, and as universal corners they can be built with the corner on either side. If handing is new to you, our guide to how a universal corner works explains it.
• Check the bed is big enough for your guests. Around 200 x 120 cm is plenty for one adult and workable for two on the odd night.
• Think about where the bedding lives. The Florida Sofabed Universal Corner (£998, sleeping area 200 x 120 cm) has a storage compartment under the chaise, which saves hunting for the spare duvet when someone arrives.

If the bed is for everyday sleeping

Nightly use changes the priorities. Here is what we would weigh up.

Size for the people sleeping on it

If two adults will sleep on it every night, look at the U-shape sofa beds in the table. At 264 x 176 cm the Moscow and Palermo U-shapes give a sleeping area bigger than a king mattress. The Como is different: its bed runs the full length of the main side, 310 x 120 cm, which is long but not wide.

How it converts, every night

On our electric sofa beds the change from sofa to bed is powered, at the touch of a button. That makes a real difference to a job you do twice a day. The Dakota Electric Sofabed 3 Seater (£1,149, sleeping area 188 x 111 cm) also reclines electrically, so one piece covers both. Electric models need a plug socket close to where the sofa will stand, so check that before you order.

On many of our sofa beds the seat cushions are fixed to the frame, as the folding action needs, so there is no pile of seat cushions to find a home for each evening.

Space when it is open

Measure the room with the bed open, not just the sofa closed. Add the sleeping area to your floor plan and leave space to get in and out, open a door and reach a wardrobe. Our size finder checks the sofa's footprint against your room, and the sleeping area on each product page tells you the rest.

Keeping it fresh

If you sleep on your sofa, you will probably want to wash its covers more often. On several of our sofa beds, including the Palermo, Moscow and Como, the back cushion covers come off for washing. It is worth checking the product description for this if the sofa will double as your bed.

The mattress question

We do not list mattress details on our product pages, so if the mattress matters to you, and for nightly sleeping it should, message us about the model you are looking at before you order. If you plan to add a mattress topper, check it fits the sleeping area and think about where it will go when the sofa is closed.

Quick answers

Can you sleep on a sofa bed every night?

Yes, if you buy it as a bed first. Choose on sleeping size and how easy the bed is to open and close, rather than on the sofa alone, and ask us about the mattress on the model you like.

Are corner sofa beds big enough for two?

Our four seat corner sofa beds open to around 200 x 120 cm, which is fine for two guests now and then. For two people every night, the U-shape sofa beds at 264 x 176 cm give far more room.

How is a sofa bed delivered?

Two people carry it to the room of your choice and set it up. Delivery is in 5 to 14 days, usually within a week, free on orders of £499 or more, and every sofa bed comes with a 12 month guarantee.

Browse all our sofa beds, from around £900 to £1,400, or send us your room size and how often the bed will be used on WhatsApp on 07418 613890 and we will help you choose.

Written by Owen and Will, who spent three years collecting and refurbishing sofas around Bristol before starting Sofa Renewals. We use AI tools to help draft and check our guides; every fact about our sofas comes from our own product data.