Accommodating an overnight guest

Spare bedrooms are a luxury fashion that few householders can afford because they are often unused for long periods at a time. Overnight visitors in the average family are usually confined to the occasional guest-perhaps a relation at Christmas, a friend or couple after an evening visit or a dinner party, or a small child after a birthday party. But the problem of where the visitor will spend the night still remains, and on what, since beds are large and expensive things, and difficult to store away tidily when not in use.

Which room?

The first decision to make is which room in the house can best serve as a bedroom for a night, with the minimum of inconvenience.
Many people automatically think in terms of the living room when it comes to putting up an occasional guest. Although this is perhaps the simplest solution, because the room is warm, carpeted and not used at night, there are several points against it. The visitor can't go to bed until the whole family has retired ; if people have been smoking, or the room has been used for eating in, the smell of stale smoke or food will linger in the air. Unless glasses, cups and ashtrays are all cleared away last thing at night, your overnight guest will have an unpleasant awakening the next morning surrounded by the previous night's debris.

Sometimes the hall is the largest and least used space in the house, and if it is properly draughtproofed, there is no reason why it should not be used as a spare bedroom. But long narrow halls that are really corridors connecting the front door, stairs and downstairs rooms are naturally unsuitable, as there would not be enough room for people to squeeze past the fashion bed. Neither would the sort of hall or landing off which every room in the house seems to lead; here, endless traffic would make it far from restful for the visitor.
But many halls, while giving a feeling of space to the house, are rather under-used, and therefore have much to recommend them as temporary bedrooms.

Any hall of reasonable size usually has some form of coat cupboard in it, and may well have a small lavatory with a wash
Below. The most versatile kinds of convertible bed for putting up guests in the living room are those that fold up in thecamp beds and pillows. Foam mattresses should be protected in fashionable washable zipped covers, and bedding can be stored in drawers under the bottom bunk.
Using existing bedroom space almost always means that the regular occupant has to be evicted, and forced to 'double up' with somebody else while the visitor takes over his or her bedroom. In many other ways, however, this is the most satisfactory solution, as it causes least disruption to the rest of the household-no-one to trip over in the hall first thing in the morning, and no enforced early nights so that someone else can retire to bed.

Spare beds

Once you have decided where your visitor is going to sleep, the next step is to choose the sort of bed he or she will sleep on. This is more important than it sounds; where the bed goes when it is not being slept on, and where the bedding is stored, are both questions that will considerably affect the looks and fashion of your home.
If you want a room with another purpose, such as the hall, to double as a spare bedroom, the bed will have to disappear completely when not in use. This may mean using a traditional camp bed, which can be wrapped in a cover and stored in the back of a coat cupboard. There are now light, modern camp beds, some with a flexible foam mattress, that fold up into a surprisingly small bundle, and are far more comfortable than the old-fashioned kind.

The alternative is the kind of bed that stays where it is, but looks like something else. One that is very suitable for a hall is the sort where the mattress can be folded in two to look like a large square pouffe. In this form, it measures approximately 3ft 6in. x 3ft x about 2ft 6in. high (1.1 m x 0.9m x 0.8m) ; it is covered in synthetic leather. There is a zip round the middle of three sides (the fourth is a hinge), and when this is undone, the two leaves can be opened out to form a full length bed.

In the living room, a bed that doubles as another piece of furniture is generally the most successful, as it doesn't take up any extra space. The most common of these is the studio couch, or sofa-bed. This usually has an extendable wooden frame, with a sofa seat that opens out to make a good-sized single mattress on which the sleeper lies sideways. Although this type of spare bed is practical, it isn't usually as comfortable, or as good looking, as an ordinary sofa.

There are better, but more expensive alternatives on the market, which extend further but fold up smaller. One of these is an armchair that extends forwards into a single bed; another is a sofa that converts in the same way into a double bed; with both of these, the sleeper's head lies between the two arms, and the back remains in place and serves as a bedhead.

If you are using your living room as the spare bedroom, a Iet-down bed that folds up into a wall of cupboards or bookcases can be the best solution. With this sort of fitment, whether it is made specially or bought ready-made, it is
Shallow recessed shelves, for instance, which hold small ornaments while the bed is in the upright position, a large mirror (on a bed that is hinged at the end and not along one side), or even fashionable bookbacks, can all help such a large flat surface blend in with the decorations in the rest of the room.

An advantage of the let-down bed, whether it is single or double, is that it can usually be folded away fully made up, so there is no problem over where to store the bedding. If it is incorporated into a wall storage unit, the adjacent shelves can hold all sorts of bedside necessities like a lamp, alarm clock, flask of water and books.

An attic has the advantage that it can be a permanent stand-by spare bedroom, with several camp beds at the ready. Most attics, however, unless they have already been converted into 'proper' bedrooms, are draughty and cold in the winter, and this means that winter bedding should be really well insulated. Here sleeping bags are ideal for many reasons; they are quick to make up, they don't come untucked or slide off the bed, and the sheet lining is easy to launder. They also give as much insulation beneath the body as on top-an important consideration on a thin mattress in a cold room.

If the occasional guest is going to be put up in one of the family bedrooms, rather than elsewhere in the house, there is no point in trying to make the spare bed look like anything but a bed. A convertible sofa is not much use in a bedroom in its 'day' form, for example. The important consideration here is saving space, so anything that stacks or stows away is worth having.

It is possible to buy a pair of beds that slide one under the other, so that the room can be either single- or twin-bedded. If two bedrooms in the house are equipped with these beds, the occupant of one can move into the other room, leaving a twin-bedded spare room for visitors.
If a non-folding divan bed is used as a spare, it has the advantage of being able to double as a sofa or couch; in fact many teenagers prefer their rooms to look more like bedsitters than conventional bedrooms.

Some foam mattresses are made with extra-firm edges that hold their shape, and these are best for the purpose, since they keep someone perching on the edge from slipping off. Some divan bed frames have storage drawers underneath, and these can be useful for storing bedding. A divan bed can lose its bedlike appearance and be turned into an inviting piece of furniture by making it a tailored cover in a smart fabric, hanging a long cushion on a brass rod on the wall behind, and scattering it with small cushions to give the impression of an informal couch.

Bed sizes

If you are thinking of buying, or even of constructing your own spare bed, you should bear in mind that standard beds are on the small side for most people to sleep in comfortably. For reasons of economy, spare beds, or beds for occasional guests, are frequently even smaller than those the family sleep in; the theory presumably being that you can stand anything for one night.
The opposite, in fact, is generally true; most
Above. A modern sofa with a foam mattress on a wooden base can serve adequately as a spare bed for occasional guests without having to be converted.

people find it more difficult to settle down in a strange bed than in their own familiar one, and therefore any aid to comfort, such as a bed of reasonable size, should be encouraged. Ideally, a bed should always be at least 6in. (1 50mm) longer than its occupant's height, and at least 3ft (0.9m) wide (you should be able to lie in it on your face with your arms folded).
In Britain, slightly larger metric standards are now coming in for beds, and these mean that larger frames and mattresses are gradually becoming available. The metric single bed size (2m x 1 m or 6ft 6;in. x 3ft 38in.) fits the minimum requirements for comfort easily, except in the case of a very tall man. The metric double size (2m x 1.5m or 6ft 64in. x 4ft 11 in.) is a great improvement on the previous double bed width of 4ft 6in., which was exactly twice the width of an average child's cot.

Ease of cleaning

Another important point to remember if you are going to buy or make a bed-whether for the spare room or elsewhere-is that it should not cause cleaning difficulties. This can be provided for in one of three ways; either the bed frame should be a box fitting flat against the floor, so you don't have to clean under it at all; or it should be high enough off the floor for a broom or vacuum cleaner to pass under it easily; or else it should be easy to move-both in terms of being movable on castors, and of having
enough space in relation to the rest of the furniture in the room.

Useful aids

There are all sorts of aids to easy bedmaking, which can apply just as well to your own bed as the spare. The principal ones are fitted bottom sheets, non-iron fabrics, fitted bedspreads, and above all continental quilts. The introduction of these bedcovers which you just shake, fluff up, and lay flat across the bed, has not only cut an enormous amount off bedmaking time, but also done away with the blanket fluff and dust that fills the air when you shake the blankets during conventional bedmaking sessions. There are now continental quilts filled with synthetic fibres; these are not only washable, but invaluable for asthma sufferers who are allergic to ordinary down.

Additional comforts

However brief a visitor's stay, and wherever in the house he or she spends the night, there are several 'extras' that will be appreciated in addition to a comfortable bed. The basics are a reading light that can be switched on and off from the bed, a bedside table, curtains that really do shut out the light (they can always be left open to let in the moonlight or an early dawn), and some form of rug to step out of bed onto if there is no carpet.
The final addition is an electric blanket, heater pad, or a hot water bottle as an acceptable substitute. A spare bed that hasn't been slept in for some time may well feel cold and even damp, and nothing promotes sleep more than a feeling of warmth and cosiness.

Accommodating an overnight guest