So I promised you in this post that I would be soon revealing what we were planning in terms of a guest bed for the future guest bedroom/office space. And I promised you it would be genius.
Well, perhaps you’ll understand when I show you this…
“Well, sure, Kimberly”, I can hear you say. “It’s a lovely room with amazing storage but there’s no bed, it’s just a little sofa – is this a bed for a child?”
Well, what if I told you my friend Alex – the genius behind this design – started off with this?
You’re still confused right?
Well, she turned that worn out sofa above – with a perfectly good sofa bed mechanism – into this…
How? Well, they tore apart the sofa, realised the mechanism was housed in a plywood box, covered it in tongue-and-groove effect MDF and painted it white… and then built the shelving around it.
(ALL THIS IN A RENTAL BY THE WAY.)
The whole process with pictures is laid out over on AO at Home where Alex is one of our contributors and it may quite possibly be my most favourite upcycle ever.
So that’s the plan… we buy an inexpensive used sofa bed with a good mechanism*, buy a new sofa bed mattress for it, then build an entire shelving unit and daybed around it. We’re going to go for a mix of open and closed storage but we need to fully design the thing first. As you can see, this fully gets around the problem of needing a bed when we have guests but not taking up precious space when we don’t.
(Now does it make sense why Wayne is as excited about this project as I am? HE GETS TO BUILD STUFF.)
What do you think of Alex’s genius design? Give her and her lovely chap Josh who is half responsible for this idea as well as the gorgeous photography some love in the comments…
*Apologies to June of 1910 House to Home who said she’d never make her guests sleep on a sofa bed because yes, that’s what we’re giving our guests to sleep upon!! But I promise the room will have every other luxury to keep them happy and well rested… And if they don’t like it, there’s always a local hotel!! ;)
Thanks for the double dose of blog love today Kimberly! And our guests always say they find the sofa bed very comfy. I did replace the mattress on it a couple of months ago actually, but only after almost ten years of use and no complaints! Plus, in the end, it's always going to be a compromise as a guest room – ideally we'd love to give people a luxury proper bed experience, but it's
I LOVE this! My boyfriend and I are looking at purchasing a condo and realistically will only be able to afford a 2 bedroom… meaning it will double as the office and guest bedroom. I've looked at daybeds but they don't seem very cozy and they only sleep 1. Thanks so much for sharing, and I look forward to seeing how you guys do it! (Hopefully a tutorial?)<br /><br /><a href="http://
I love when Wayne builds stuff. :)
yes yes yes. it's gonna be majorly swoonworthy. and as far as guests not mixing with sleeper sofas,. screw that. we don't want em moving in, am i right? a 3 night max is plenty.<br /><br />michele
You couldn't be MORE right my dear! Haha! xxx
Haha! Yeah, I did say we'd never make guests sleep on a sofa bed – I hate the bloody things. So, to be honest, I was a touch disappointed at first but then, when I realised just how GENIUS this actually is, you've won me over. <br /><br />Alex must be mighty proud her guest room – it's really lovely and I'd be delighted to be put up in such a wonderfully styled room. (And Oly has
Haha! So glad we've won you over! I think a lot of the time, it's the mattress that's to blame if they get a bit worn out and lumpy. But hopefully a decent new mattress will rectify the situation and make it fairly comfortable ;) xxx
Alex's room is amazing and how fabulous is her bed solution! DIY, the extreme makeover edition!! Really looking forward to seeing you do something similar! Our UK homes aren't big enough for a dedicated guest room, so this is a brilliant solution of a sofa bed, I am truly wowed! xxx
Ooh that actually really is genius. And it's so hard to find a stylish and affordable sofa bed, so why not DIY it?! Loving the built in shelving too, can't believe that's not professionally made!