pulling bed out of back bed room... replacing with Pullout

[Georgia]

We absolutely hate the bed and mattress in our Diplomat so we've decided to remove it and replace it. Since we are going to do this anyway, we want to replace it with a 65" wide SOFABED, so we can make it a day room as well. Any thoughts on a brand for a sofa bed?

We are considering keeping the 6" riser below the bed, or just ripping it all out and re doing the whole bed room floor as well.

cheers
geo

[MickBrennan]

Where is your engine? Won't it, kind of, be in the way, a little?

[bigdomino]

Isn't the bed on a slide?

[Billieg]

Here is what I got and it works well:

Fits standard full size mattress 54" x 74"
See top for complete dimensions*
Four position changes
Hardwood
Finish can be painted or stained
Easy to assemble
Carriage bolt construction for extra strength
5 year warranty
See it here on the web:
Mission Lounger Futon Frame

[TXiceman]

Isn't your Diplomat a diesel pusher? What about access to the engine? Is the bed on a Slide?

Ken

[Robi.1014]

Sanity check: Have you ever slept on a sofa bed for an extended period? Maybe as a teenager it wasn't so bad.

FWIW: We put a 2" foam topper on our bed and we are both quite pleased with the feel and support.

[Georgia]

it's a diesel pusher, and no the whole point it to remove the bed, so in fact the engine will be more accessible with a sofa taking up way less space than a "permanent" bed in the middle of the room. And with the bed in "sofa" mode, we get another "day" room to use.

I like the futon thing, but we're going to try to match it with the couch in the front room as much as possible. I've located a few sofa beds deigned for RVs that have the "leather" look and look very much like the sofa in the main room.

I was hoping to hear from a few people as to favorite sofa beds, like the futon or other design so I can start to eliminate the competition...

We have slept on a number of sofa bed, and I can tell you, although some of them plain out suck... most are better than the bed in our RV right now! I'm going to purchase a good sofa bed, and replace the mattress with some sort of high end mattress or memory forma or something better than what will inevitably end up being supplied with it.

cheers
geo

[Cherylv]

I would love to see the outcome and input from you on how comfortable you make it. Please post pics when you get 'er done

[Georgia]

Will do. We're thinking of using this one.
FRONTIER II RV LUV SEAT
As all our SEATCRAFTTM rv furniture the Frontier II motorhome Luv Seat is available in Ultimate Leather that is as soft as calfskin, yet it cleans easily with mild soap and water. Our line of rv seats are better-than-leather, easy-care polyurethane combines the beauty of fine home style furniture with solid automotive engineering. One of the the best offerings in a fine line of sofa beds. All rv furniture is also available in cloth.



It's Around $800 and I'm guessing if we can install without pulling a slide it will be around $1500 to complete the install with the redo on the floor and new carpet. If we have to pull a slide I'm guessing another $1000 on top.

The other piece of the puzzle is to build a drop down desk mounted on the forward wall. With the slide in there is about 8" of space between the slide and the wall. I figure that's enough to mount a flat 3' wide by 2' deep desktop on a piano hinge with a strengthening plate under the piano hinge. Then when we drop the desk down, we can attached 2 legs to the base. So , by night a bed room, by day another office. At least that's the plan.

cheers
geo

ps: the present bed is mounted permanently with hinges at the headboard and lifts up from the foot to access under bed storage. Obviously we'd lose that storage area.

[Diplomat Don]

Georgia.....I just took a look at the Monaco archives and all of the 2007 Diplomats have the bed in the slide, making about 1/3 of the area under the bed unuseable. That means that you would either have to mount the sofa on top of the 12" mechanism box and create legs for the bed when its extended or mount the bed in front of the box which would give you no room to walk around the bed when it was extended.

I think your idea my be unique, but I'm wondering how useful it would be. I guess if you have kids or grandkids and need a play room it would be nice, but what do you do with the living room in coach.

Have you thought through the hassle of putting together a sofa bed every evening. You said you would find a better mattress for it, but better usually means larger/thicker and won't fit when the bed is closed.

The only comfortable sofabed I can think of is the Flexsteel air/foam mattress like we have in our coach. Once it extends, youinflate the air portion of the mattress. It makes a nice 8" deep mattress.

[moisheh]

You had better plan on dying in that unit as it's value will get awfully close to Zero. I have slept on some fancy sofa beds and none are similar in comfort to a real mattress. I still do not see how you are going to overcome the slide out mechanism and the raised floor for the engine. But then again where would be in this world without some "out of the box" thinkers?

[nodine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Georgia We absolutely hate the bed and mattress in our Diplomat so we've decided to remove it and replace it. Since we are going to do this anyway, we want to replace it with a 65" wide SOFABED, so we can make it a day room as well. Any thoughts on a brand for a sofa bed? We are considering keeping the 6" riser below the bed, or just ripping it all out and re doing the whole bed room floor as well. cheers geo

I have a bad back and must have a very good mattress. We took the original mattress out and replaced it with a high quality mattress. Life is good now. Before the change my back would hurt every morning and make walking the dogs difficult. We even tried a piece of 2 inch memory foam on the original mattress without success. I can tell you that the memory foam was very heavy and put a lot of stress on the gas struts. I was glad to get rid of it, especially since my back still hurt even with the memory foam.

Bob

[Dave and Jaime]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Georgia We absolutely hate the bed and mattress in our Diplomat so we've decided to remove it and replace it. Since we are going to do this anyway, we want to replace it with a 65" wide SOFABED, so we can make it a day room as well. Any thoughts on a brand for a sofa bed? We are considering keeping the 6" riser below the bed, or just ripping it all out and re doing the whole bed room floor as well. cheers geo

If the current bed is so uncomfortable, why replace it with a sofabed? No sofabed is going to be more comfortable than a good quality mattress, whether it be a sleep number type or good coil and spring mattress or one of those contour foam types. So much time is spent sleeping and it is so important to get a good night's rest, I would get a good bed, not a multifunction piece of furniture.

True, many of us have some type of sleepersofa in our coaches but those are often only used for guests or children. When we are alone (no other travelers) we would never consider sleeping on the sofabed instead of the regular one in the coach.

I'd be vary leery about going that route. You have already decided that you need a better bed to sleep on. Don't compound that by spending money on a sofabed that may even be worse than what you have.

[Dave and Jaime]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moisheh You had better plan on dying in that unit as it's value will get awfully close to Zero. I have slept on some fancy sofa beds and none are similar in comfort to a real mattress.

Ditto. THis might be a fun experiment on an older or vintage coach where you have little invested but a 2007?