Need a bed for company: how about an air mattress?

[MickinMD ★]

I talked to my sister today about having to look for furniture to finish off my home's needs and mentioned getting a queen bed for one of the spare bedrooms since I'm expecting visitors from out of state to resume by next year.

I have one queen bed now and sleep half the time on my recliner, so another bed or two should be the max I need.

She said that when she was getting her son's apartment ready in Phoenix the last couple of weeks and he was going to be there with an unusual couple of days off flight attending, she ordered a queen air mattress from Amazon.  She liked it better than his queen bed.

It's just $149, sits 20" above the floor, is self-inflating and can be rolled up and stored when not in use.  It's also available in white, $119.95 twin, $179.95 king, and a little less for 16" and 13" queen and twin sizes.

It beats paying upwards of $1000 for a regular queen bed and I can roll in up in the storage bag that comes with it and use the spare room for other things.  I can also take it with me if I'm going to a relative's wedding, etc. and the relative I'm staying with needs a bed for me - which can be rolled right up and out of the way in the morning.  A couple of pillows, sheets and blanket and I'm good!

and if I needed another bed because of a boatload of guests coming into town for some event, I'd get another bed for $149.95!

75% of the 28,423 ratings a 5 stars and 12% 4 stars.  Some complained that they had to add air often after months of use, but I don't expect anyone to sleep on it every day.

[shootingstar]

It's ok. We slept on an air mattress for a few weeks before ordering a bed with a bed stand too.  I wonder if it depends on the weight of the person and if they have already back problems. If it's just for a few days, should be ok.

[12string]

We've slept on air mattresses, they have really gotten quite comfortable.  Your guests will be fine.

We also often slept on a fold out at my BiL's that was just awful.  Didn't want to make them feel bad, so we didn't say anything.  Then some friends staying at our house one night told us how awful our fold out was.  We were actually very appreciative to hear, how would we have known?  So I ordered 2 new fold out mattresses and had one delivered to my BiL.

[Razors Edge ★]

31 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

I talked to my sister today about having to look for furniture to finish off my home's needs and mentioned getting a queen bed for one of the spare bedrooms since I'm expecting visitors from out of state to resume by next year.

My wife and I were JUST discussing this a few hours ago.  We are having a houseguest for a week or so, and have two guest bedrooms. One is a "full time" guest room and the other serves multiple purposes but we'll use it when families visit rather than just a single/couple.  I think an air bed works in that situation - especially for kids - but I worry about long term comfort for a guest (multiple nights) and durability of the mattress.  I know my cheaper camping blow-up beds can eventually fail where they are folded, so one poor folding/rolling could ruin it. That doesn't happen to the traditional queen mattress we have in the main guest room, but that mattress takes up a lot of space   I think a Murphy bed is an option I would like.

[Airehead]

I slept on a very comfortable one once. Firm

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

Air mattresses are great. There when you need one, not there when you don’t. They are more comfortable than a sofa bed. We bought one when we bunked at mom’s condo. She insisted that her sofa bed was just fine but admitted that she never slept on it. We told her, okay mom, you sleep on the sofa bed and we’ll sleep on your queen size bed. She said nothing more and we slept on the air mattress. 

[Longjohn ★]

Owl be sleeping on an air bed for seven days of GOBA.

[shootingstar]

1 hour ago, Old No. 7 said:

Air mattresses are great. There when you need one, not there when you don’t. They are more comfortable than a sofa bed. We bought one when we bunked at mom’s condo. She insisted that her sofa bed was just fine but admitted that she never slept on it. We told her, okay mom, you sleep on the sofa bed and we’ll sleep on your queen size bed. She said nothing more and we slept on the air mattress. 

Agree, that a good air mattress that blows up over 2-3+" deep in mattress,  is better than a a fold-out sofa bed,like the one that Mick featured. Mine is similar but not that deep/thick which looks good.  I slept on air mattress daily for 3 months in a rental, before getting current home. 

[Kirby]

I've never slept on one, but my sister has one they use for company and like it.

[Tizeye]

My only experience with an air mattress was camping in a tent. It leaked. 

Woke up in the middle of the night touching the ground with the mattress enveloping around me. Too early to try to move around and re-inflate...just made do until the morning. My wife still laughs about it.

[Bikeguy]

Or...   Plan B.

You can buy yourself a new mattress for your bedroom, and a bed frame for the spare bedroom.  Use your existing mattress for the spare bedroom.

2 hours ago, Tizeye said:

My only experience with an air mattress was camping in a tent

This was my experience too.   At least our mattress didn't leak.  Now I'd rather stay in a hotel.  

[groupw]

We have, and have used air mattresses. They are decent as long as one is not a restless sleeper. WoW is restless at times during the night. For me it’s like trying to sleep on a busy trampoline. I do fine if it’s just me. 
Our guest room has a queen size mattress. We can add an air mattress in WoW’s office if needed. 
I worry about Mom on stairs if she visits and all our bedrooms are upstairs. The front living room is not large. However IKEA has a love seat that instead of the awful fold out, pulls out another cushion kind of like a trundle bed. We laid on it in the store and it seemed quite comfortable! Check out this FRIHETEN from IKEA.
Here’s a little more information:
https://ingka.page.link/BakhsqHoMsNmUd257

[Tizeye]

8 hours ago, Bikeguy said:

Or...   Plan B.

You can buy yourself a new mattress for your bedroom, and a bed frame for the spare bedroom.  Use your existing mattress for the spare bedroom.

This, depending on what your mattress is like.

Plan C - what we did (except the end - thought of Plan D as tying this). Guest room was daughter's cheap super cheap mattress at college 20 years ago and guest complained about it even when sliding sheet of plywood between mattress and box spring. With daughters family coming last month for 3 weeks, bought a Casper queen at Costco, currently on sale for $549, and a frame from Zinus similar to this (more of a knotty pine finish) https://www.zinus.com/beds/wen-deluxe-wood-platform-bed-frame. They do have several metal only frames less than $100. Works out fine and more of a permanent solution.

Plan D - Free! if you have a frame or looks like the link has a 100 night trial, Get a bed-in-box that has at least a 100 night trial. NOTE: 1) Read fine print on return, looking for those that don’t require shipping back, but donate to local charity with pickup. 2) must be from manufacturers web site, not Amazon (including their store) or a local furniture store as then would be required to follow that store’s return policy which may be physical return (Amazon) or exchange (local store). Costco has the most generous return policy (satisfied, with only time limit on electronics) but you would have to return the fully inflated mattress to the store. With the charity donation, you scan to pdf (or photo jpg) the charity receipt and upload on manufacturers return link.

[bikeman564™]

Great idea. I'm not sure the brand, but BCC has one that we used for camping. It's very comfortable. I was amazed.

[MoseySusan]

We had two: one twin and one queen sized air mattress with plug in air pumps. They were comfortable for most, except those who have back problems. And both mattresses needed repairs after a few uses. The queen holds air, but the twin didn’t, so we got rid of it. 
 

We also have a futon with a very thick pad that is comfortable to sleep on and a good place to sit and watch the tv in that room. Folding it down is easy, but it takes two of us to fold it back into a couch because the pad is thick.
 

Our queen guest bed has a good mattress because the people who come to visit tend to have back issues or they want a good sleep.  It gets used a few times a year, so we make it comfy. 

[MickinMD ★]

17 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

My wife and I were JUST discussing this a few hours ago.  We are having a houseguest for a week or so, and have two guest bedrooms. One is a "full time" guest room and the other serves multiple purposes but we'll use it when families visit rather than just a single/couple.  I think an air bed works in that situation - especially for kids - but I worry about long term comfort for a guest (multiple nights) and durability of the mattress.  I know my cheaper camping blow-up beds can eventually fail where they are folded, so one poor folding/rolling could ruin it. That doesn't happen to the traditional queen mattress we have in the main guest room, but that mattress takes up a lot of space   I think a Murphy bed is an option I would like.

I can't vouch for them, but my sister slept on one for a few nights and liked it better than the bed she had been sleeping on.

From the comments on the Amazon link, having someone use it for a couple weeks at a time should be comfortable and problem free.  That's all I need.  I also like the comment, "this will also be incredible for travel and camping trips. The air mattress packs nicely into the carrying bag. I have NEVER had an air mattress with an auto inflatable mechanism so this was a piece of cake. It blew up fast."

The poor comments on the Amazon link were from people who were sleeping on it as their regular bed for months and there wasn't a problem with comfort, but with leaks not due to rips.  One complained that it started leaking air after 4 months.

A typical comment was: I've been sleeping on this (twin size) for a month now (due to being evacuated for the forest fires). I'm 5'8" and 220 [the queen bed is rated for up to 600 lbs] and its quite comfy - not too narrow. It was blown up and has been left inflated in one spot for this whole time. I've had to top it up 3 times. Twice in the first few days after initial use (accounts for the material stretching, heating and cooling, etc) and only once about 3 weeks later I added a little more air.
So far so good.

[MickinMD ★]

11 hours ago, Bikeguy said:

Or...   Plan B.

You can buy yourself a new mattress for your bedroom, and a bed frame for the spare bedroom.  Use your existing mattress for the spare bedroom.

This was my experience too.   At least our mattress didn't leak.  Now I'd rather stay in a hotel.  

OF course, since I just moved into my house after the post-fire rebuild, I have a new mattress in my bedroom.

I have three other bedrooms, one downstairs and two upstairs with absolutely no furniture.  The main problem was with the lack of availability of descent stuff.  But now, with inflation, I don't want to wait too long. The furniture stores have big 4th of July sales each year and I'm going to busy in June, checking them out.

The fact I'm not going to have to look for beds and that $149 + sales tax took care of it made my day!

I'm also going to check some of the used stores and Goodwill.  My sister got two superb living room chairs at Goodwill for next to nothing and paid to have them reconditioned and reupholstered.

[ChrisL]

4 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

OF course, since I just moved into my house after the post-fire rebuild, I have a new mattress in my bedroom.

I have three other bedrooms, one downstairs and two upstairs with absolutely no furniture.  The main problem was with the lack of availability of descent stuff.  But now, with inflation, I don't want to wait too long. The furniture stores have big 4th of July sales each year and I'm going to busy in June, checking them out.

The fact I'm not going to have to look for beds and that $149 + sales tax took care of it made my day!

I'm also going to check some of the used stores and Goodwill.  My sister got two superb living room chairs at Goodwill for next to nothing and paid to have them reconditioned and reupholstered.

Hey Mick I’d recommend you check out Costco as well.  We bought a memory foam mattress  there for around $130.  They were considerably more everywhere else we looked.  Guests who have slept on it said it’s really comfortable.

 

[Longjohn ★]

Quote

Need a bed for company: how about an air mattress?

An air mattress wouldn’t be very good company, I would recommend a girlfriend. Much better company.

[ChrisL]

1 minute ago, Longjohn said:

An air mattress wouldn’t be very good company, I would recommend a girlfriend. Much better company.

I when we were mattress shopping I would joke to the salesman that we need the most uncomfortable mattress you got.   The salesmen would look at me quizzically & I’d say guest room, we don’t want our guests (code for MIL) getting too comfortable!

Some if them rolled with it and took us to super thin hard mattresses, perfect for the MIL! 😂

[Bikeguy]

14 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

The main problem was with the lack of availability of descent stuff.

  Yeah...   I keep forgetting about that.    When we purchased a lot of stuff for our home,  it was in 2018 and 2019.   It took less than a month to get stuff delivered then.

1 or 2 months ago, we were looking for solid wood folding tray tables.  The Amish place (they sell what is made by the Amish in Ohio, here in IL)  we like told us it would take about 8 months to get them made and shipped to their store.  

[Longjohn ★]

19 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

1 or 2 months ago, we were looking for solid wood folding tray tables.  The Amish place (they sell what is made by the Amish in Ohio, here in IL)  we like told us it would take about 8 months to get them made and shipped to their store.  

Did you order them? Are you still looking for them? If you are still wanting them post a picture of what you have in mind. Pennsylvania Amish are faster than Ohio Amish. I also have a good friend from church that makes furniture for a living. He is busy but I don’t think he is 8 months busy.

[Square Wheels]

Be careful where you store it.  We had a nice, and very expensive one.  We don't have mice in our basement, except for the one that ate our bed.

[Tizeye]

I find this more comfortable that an air mattress. The wooden legs don't squeak like the aluminum.

 

[Bikeguy]

1 hour ago, Longjohn said:

Did you order them? Are you still looking for them?

No and no.

Thanks for the offer....  but we went with plan B and found wood tables in a store. 

[Tizeye]

Just go retro...at least one room needs to be. 

 

[ChrisL]

2 hours ago, Tizeye said:

I find this more comfortable that an air mattress. The wooden legs don't squeak like the aluminum.

 

Most don’t know how luxurious those are after days of little sleep, what sleep we did get was in the dirt…

[groupw]

4 hours ago, MoseySusan said:

We had two: one twin and one queen sized air mattress with plug in air pumps. They were comfortable for most, except those who have back problems. And both mattresses needed repairs after a few uses. The queen holds air, but the twin didn’t, so we got rid of it. 
 

We also have a futon with a very thick pad that is comfortable to sleep on and a good place to sit and watch the tv in that room. Folding it down is easy, but it takes two of us to fold it back into a couch because the pad is thick.
 

Our queen guest bed has a good mattress because the people who come to visit tend to have back issues or they want a good sleep.  It gets used a few times a year, so we make it comfy. 

I can vouch for the comfort!