How many can your house sleep?

If you live in a small house or a flat, you know how miserable it is when people come to stay over and you can’t offer them any better overnight accommodation than a sleeping bag on the floor – or, at best, a sofa.

And when you consider that in the UK a staggering third of the country’s entire population lives either in Greater London, or within fairly easy striking of the capital – and you think just how expensive properties are – then it isn’t too hard to understand that space is a real issue for many, many people.

Most of the time, it doesn’t really matter. You live where you live and there’s sufficient space for you to sleep and you manage. But when you have a group of friends over who just want or need to “crash” for a night or two – it can be a real problem.

Fortunately, there are some cheap and easy ways around this – you just need to pick the right furniture.

For example, it’s perfectly possible to pick really smart recliners, these days that fold out into really comfortable single beds when the need arises – in much the same way that first class passengers enjoy on transatlantic flights.

The other obvious choice is to pick a sofa bed for your main sofa. But how about a second one? Sofas are getting ever-cheaper these days. You may be very presently surprised at the bargains you can pick up in a sofa bed sale – then you have one or two “real” double beds whenever you need them. So all of a sudden your tiny one-bedroom flat can sleep seven or eight people when need be, in relative comfort. You just need a little creativity – and to be prepared to queue for the bathroom perhaps!