Another obscure question - sofa beds???

T

Tmikey

Member
Hello again from North Carolina! Here's a question that my wife and I are hoping to get some truthful feedback on, pertaining to all of the apartment rentals that we've been looking at in Italy for our upcoming trip. We've seen a number of studio apartments that only have pull-out sofas as the beds, and the reviews on these have been overwhelmingly positive (with no negative comments as to how comfortable the beds are), which leads me to believe that for some reason the sofa beds in Italy are different from the ones in the USA??? I mean, really, in my 50+ years of life here in the U.S., I cannot recall sleeping on even one pull-out sofa bed that I would have characterized as even remotely comfortable, much less one that I had to pay roughly $150 a night to sleep on! I know that Italian furniture is world-renowned for it's functionality and comfort, and can only surmise that they have succeeded in designing the world's premier sofa bed, in which case I may well have to start importing them to the U.S. and make myself a small fortune in the process!:D

All kidding aside, can anyone shed some light on this for us?

Thanks!
 
Buongiorno again Tmikey!
that's a good question! I wish I could give you just one feedback on the topic but the variety of the properties/apartments and the diversity of the users complicates the answer.

I have been calling some friends and colleagues working at Villas and apartments for rent to ask them about the quality of the sofa beds. Each one mentioned a different brand of sofa-bed and they pointed that it is important to provide a good mattress or slats for a long term comfortable use. I have also got one at home, which is, according to me, comfortable. We use it every now and then for guests and I have always been told that they slept very well on it.

IKEA used to produce low-budget sofa beds some years ago, but the request for higher standards of the consumers here in Italy made them surely improve the average quality of the mattress.

As far as your habits, you should maybe consider if you are used to sleep in a king size bed at home, or if there is any specific necessity for a very tall person. I would suggest you to ask your host what are the real dimentions of the sofa bed, if it opens as a double bed or as a French bed (which is sometimes offered for two people but it is much narrower!).

I hope I could give you some useful hints and I look forward to your feedback once you try the sofa bed during your stay! A presto!! Elena
 
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Hello!

As Elena posted above, it really depends on the quality and type of the sofa bed.

Email any of the properties you are considering and ask for measurements of the sofa bed as well as thickness of the mattress, you really don't want to be stuck on something that is too small, narrow or uncomfortable.

If you're looking at studio apartments, there are many that also do offer real beds so if comfort is essential (how many days will you be in Florence?), then I'd select one with a real bed! ;-) (I also remember that the sofa bed we had as kids had a super thin mattress which made it uncomfortable!)

Have you had a look at any of the following?
http://www.florenceaccommodation.com/oltrarno-apartment.html
http://www.florenceaccommodation.com/palazzo-la-medicea.html
http://www.florenceaccommodation.com/casa-del-mercato.html
http://www.florenceaccommodation.com/casa-tornabuoni.html

We have an IKEA sofa bed for guests and the mattress is basically the bottom sofa cushions unzipped to open up (you sleep sideways) and guests have said it is comfortable. I think the main difference with ones I've slept on is that the base is NOT metal springs but wide wooden slats. That thing is HEAVY! It is for 2 people but it isn't huge, I'd say around full size.
 
Thanks for the response, Lourdes and Elena! We have already booked our apartment for the ten days that we'll be in Florence, and it has a nice queen bed, so no worries there. The apartments that we are looking at now would be in Rome for the first three nights of our trip.
Even though you folks are primarily focused on Tuscany, I knew that you would be able to offer some generally helpful information about this! Thanks again for your input!
 
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