I tested Cocoon's smallest three-seater sofa bed – it allowed me to sleep two guests in my tiny spare room

Alice Sofa Bed | from £1325 at Cocoon

The Alice sofa bed is available as a chair bed, or as a two or three-seater.

It's well worth doing your research to find the best sofa bed for you and your home, because, as I discovered when trying to find a suitable option for hosting overnight guests in my own home, all sofa beds are not created equal.

If you make the wrong choice, a sofa bed can combine the worst of both worlds. As sofas, they can be stiff, creaky and uncomfortable. As beds, they can often offer thin and unsupportive padding that leave you wondering if you'd have slept better on an inflatable mattress. And, sofa beds aren't cheap, so it's a purchase you want to get right first time.

I've got a very narrow spare room/office space, so after looking at numerous sofa beds that were too wide for the room, I got quite excited when I realised that the 160cm width Cocoon Alice Three-Seater Sofa Bed was a perfect fit for my room's width. As opposed to opting for one of the best chair beds on the market, it also offered me the space to host two guests at once thanks to its double bed-sized sleeping area.

Even better, it's a modular design, meaning it can be disassembled easily if you want to move it to a different room in your house, or if you move house altogether.

Because Cocoon's sofa beds are handmade to order, I wouldn't recommend buying this sofa bed as a quick fix. Mine took about six weeks to arrive, but I've had the chance to test it on a number of occasions since it first arrived – and yes, I've even slept on it myself. Here's how it held performed.

Cocoon sofa bed review – the Alice Three-Seater

Specifications

• Sofa width: 160cm
• Bed width: 140cm
• Mattress: Pocket-sprung
• Fabric options: Micro-suede, micro-weave, micro-cloth, micro-velvet
• Colour options: 48
• Design: Modular, for easy delivery
• Delivery: Pre-assembled and in one piece

Alice Sofa Bed | from £1325 at Cocoon

The Alice sofa bed is available as a chair bed, or as a two or three-seater.

How I tested

Millie Fender

I'm Millie, and I've been reviewing home products for nearly five years. Although I specialise in kitchen appliances, I've also tested a number of mattresses and the occasional piece of furniture. Since moving into my snug two-bed flat a year and a half ago, I've been looking for the perfect sofa bed to host guests in my very narrow spare room, so when I got the opportunity to test the Cocoon Alice Sofa Bed, I jumped at the chance.

Delivery

After much deliberation, I opted for Cocoon's Alice Three-Seater sofa bed in the shade Sky in the brand's 'micro-weave' upholstery. This feels similar to linen but a lot more durable.

Once the order was placed, the sofa bed took about a month to make, but if you're in a rush Cocoon does offer loan beds to tide you over until your order is ready, and you'll only be charged for the cost of delivery and repackaging. I think this is a reasonable workaround if you want to invest in a great sofa bed but are working to a specific deadline.

Having a large item of furniture delivered can always be a bit stressful, especially when you have to navigate stairs and narrow doorways. I was slightly concerned I might have made one of the cardinal sofa bed buying mistakes and measured up incorrectly, but luckily I needn't have worried. Cocoon sent two very amenable delivery men who got the sofa bed in and upstairs in a jiffy.

The delivery team made the process look very easy, but this is a heavy piece of furniture. Luckily, the back can be removed from the main unit, which is how they got it up my winding staircase, and the modular design means that I won't have any trouble disassembling it when I move out.

In this regard, the Cocoon sofa bed measured up to the flat-pack Swyft Model 04 sofa bed my colleague recently reviewed. That too can be easily disassembled and reassembled for easier delivery and house moves.

Ease of transformation

This sofa bed is designed so that the backrest folds down flat and you can use the sofa seat and the backrest to sleep on. 

Cocoon has numerous videos on their site which make it look like you can pull this sofa bed into position with just one hand, and I was pretty surprised when I realised it really was that easy. 

First, you need to remove your cushions. Then, you have to lift from the underside of the front panel of the sofa, which will extend towards you and expose the lower section which sits underneath this. 

Unlike the top and bottom of the sofa bed, this middle section is white and is not covered in the same fabric. You then just need to pull the backrest towards you, and it will fold flat to create a sofa bed that's the same dimensions as a double mattress. 

As you can see below, my spare room is immensely tight on space, so I did find it a bit fiddly to fit my sofa bed with a mattress topper and sheet ready for guests staying over. 

However, it would be a lot easier for those without abnormally small rooms as there is a corner at each side of the bed you can attach an elasticated double mattress topper too, although I'd advise you buy a deep fitting option to avoid it slipping away during the night. 

Comfort

There are two ways to evaluate the comfort of a sofa bed. In sofa form, the Alice Three-Seater isn't the squishiest sofa I've sat on, and is unlikely to give the best sofas on the market a run for their money. I couldn't picture myself using it in the place of my current sofa in our living room as I would find it too firm for everyday use. However, in our spare room, it's perfectly acceptable for perching on.

As a bed, this Cocoon sofa bed really excels. The first guests who slept on this sofa bed were my parents. They had slept on my old spare bed – an IKEA daybed with an actual mattress – numerous times, but they both commented that the Cocoon sofa bed was significantly more comfortable.

When I quizzed them about the three sections and whether it created any issues to sleep on the gaps between them, they both said they hadn't minded it in the slightest.

I then took a turn sleeping on the sofa bed, half expecting to desert back to my comfy mattress a few hours in. However, I was impressed to find that the Cocoon sofa bed offered really good support to my lower back, which can often get sore when I sleep in a new bed.

Like my parents, I also didn't mind the gaps between the sofa cushions, as they fell at points in my body where I don't exert much pressure like my knees and my neck.

The parts of my body that required the most support were well cushioned by the sofa bed's pocket-sprung surface. And if you do need more comfort, adding one of the best mattress toppers will give you more padding.

Verdict

The Cocoon Alice Three-Seater sofa bed isn't cheap. At the time of writing it's available for £1,550. However, that's comparable to other options I considered in my search.

In my opinion, it's also not the most stylish option on the market. It's a little basic and boxy for my tastes. If I'd had the space, I may have opted for the Cocoon Ashley Corner Sofa Bed, which has an almost-Scandi aesthetic that would have matched my interior style better.

However, sadly a corner sofa bed is a little beyond my spare bedroom's limits. I chose the Alice Three-Seater because of its main USP, which is that it offers a double-sized sleeping area in a relatively very narrow width sofa.

The only sofa bed we've come across that offers a comparable sleeping area with a narrower footprint is Innovation Living's Cubed 140 Sofa Bed. But, if your style is more classic than contemporary, you may prefer the looks of the Alice Three-Seater.

All in all, if you're looking for a full-size sofa bed but are working with a smaller space, then I think this Cocoon sofa bed is a brilliant choice.

It's the most comfortable sofa bed I've slept on by a country mile, so your guests will be thanking you at breakfast. And when they've left, it only takes around two minutes to transform it back into a sofa.

Plus, if you have an even smaller space to work with than mine, there's also the option of the Alice Chair Bed that sleeps one, or the Alice Two-Seater sofa bed that offers a small double bed's worth of sleeping space. Check out our guide to chair beds vs sofa beds if you're not sure which option is right for you.

Suffice to say, if my friends had this sofa bed, I'd be inviting myself over for sleepovers on a regular basis.

Alice Sofa Bed | from £1325 at Cocoon

The Alice sofa bed is available as a chair bed, or as a two or three-seater.