As a Boy Scout and now as a Scout Leader I have slept in innumerable
locations that made for an uncomfortable night's sleep. However,
these
uncomfortable nights were typically not ones spent on the forest
floor, but rather as a guest on someone's sleep sofa or
fold-out-couch.
Call it what you want, "hide a bed", "sleep sofa", or "fold out
couch", these contraptions seem to be required torture devices in any
home. As a result, when we had company on the way for a visit
during which adults would
be using our fold-out-couch, I set about to make the experience as
pleasurable as possible for our guests.
Initially, we reviewed the "bed board" option in which some type of
stiffening device is placed under the mattress to protect the sleeper
from the horizontal frame bars of the fold-out-couch. However,
this
option was quickly discarded placing the hide-a-bed mattress on the
floor and giving it a quick test provided us with the evidence that
what we really needed was a better mattress. At the same
time, it
would be really great to have a full size mattress so our guests would
have maximum comfort and we could use standard sheets and bedding
linens. Obviously, this was not a viable concept because there
would
be no way to fold up the "sleep sofa" with this gigantic mattress in
place.
After searching a variety of sources, we found that the best mattress
for the "sleep sofa" / "fold out couch" / "hide a bed" came in the
form of a combination mattress which fit the form factor of our
original "sleep sofa" mattress, but utilized the advanced features of
"air bed" technology to increase the mattress in thickness to that of a
normal sized mattress.
A quick review of sources for such a mattress leads one to the AirDream
mattress, which can be purchased at
SleepDynamiX.com/AirDream, 1-877-528-0662.
The beauty of this particular mattress (aside from its attractive price
of $299- $349) is the added benefit of the "air over coil" technology,
which provides the sleeper with an ergonomic, weight-distributed sleep
surface.
The practicality of the "inflatable" approach is enhanced by the
ability to fill the
Sleeper-Sofa-mattress with air in only 25 seconds. The small,
easy-to-use pump
,
minimizes the effort
to inflate the bed. The design of the "air input port"
also aids in the ease of inflation.
It makes a lot of sense. When one goes camping an air mattress is often used to make sleeping more comfortable. Why would you settle for less indoors? Using an airbed as an integral part of the mattress is just a great idea!