apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We are happy with out Bassett Furniture. Tons of fabrics to customize your sofa and you can customize the frame as well.

Depending on your budget, by far one of the best sleeper sofas can be found at Poltrona Frau. You will certainly pay for the quality though.

Lifestyle solutions has a few options.
Here's some:

http://lifestylesolutions.com/casual.html
The Roxbury and the Sausalito are the most couch-like.

they're part futon part sofa... as opposed to sofa/ pull out couch.

a tip to make any sleeper more comfortable: get one of those memory foam pads from costco and voila.. a much better sleeping experience.

i jsut went through this whole thing myself, and i did get a sleeper sofa. go to the dock downtown, pick out any sofa, they will upholster it in any fabric from their big selection and for $300 throw in a sleeper bed. we just did this and the sofa looks great. their sofas range from $800-$1500 plus $300 for the bed. its a crazy deal. its all overstock from designer spots. it is a bit of a crapshoot what they will have ech time you go, but there is always a good selection of sofas. also if you join their mailing list they will email you random coupons for free shipping or 20% off. we were really happy with the results. www.thedockdowntown.com
p.s. no i don't work there :)

A friend of mine used to have the best sleeper sofa EVER. It had a very good quality air mattress attached to it, and came with a plug-in motor and only took about 3-4 minutes to fill (queen size). It might've been a La-z-Boy sofa. The sofa itself was a really lovely maroon color, sort of the heavy duty chenille-ish-type cover, and was very comfy as a sofa. The mattress was strong enough to have someone weighing 250 lbs be comfortable all night, and not lose air.

I believe Real Simple already tested the best sleeper sofas, I recall that Crate & Barrel has one they liked for about $399(?), which I always see featured on their Best Buys catalog. Unfortunately I can't give you the name as I've thrown the catalog. I think RS liked one by Ballard Designs as well.

Have you thought of an Aerobed? Then you won't have a big piece of furniture taking up space for the occasional guest. Overstock sells the air beds.

I recently purchased an "everynight" sofa bed from Linge Roset, and am very happy so far. I have family coming to visit to test it out for the first time this weekend. This was the ONLY sofa bed I found that does not have bars digging into your back. It is expensive, but it is beatifully designed, and very flexible and comfortable. I should also mention that I was only looking at sleeper sofas that were queen size or larger. I will second the previous post about getting a memory foam topper from cosco - most sleeper sofas are FIRM.

cheers,
D

http://www.ligne-roset-usa.com/?sec=products&pid=11&cid=13&rid=511&page=0