Beds for Guests

 If you have company come for overnight then you need some place for them to sleep. This is something that has been on our minds lately around here. Our church is getting ready to have a Retreat and we have people come from out of town and we have fun putting them up in our homes. This year it seems like we are having a pretty good crowd come so we have been working to creatively figure out beds for everybody. (My mom has taken over a lot of the "worrying" on that for both of our homes and some of my siblings too - I have been busy concentrating on just getting the rooms finished so that we are ready to put beds in them.)

  Some people may have a guest room all ready for whenever they have company but that is not something that we have and I know a lot of people don't have that sort of space in their home. Does this mean we can't have overnight guests? Not at all!!! When we rented a two bedroom home when living in Kansas we managed to have I believe it was over 20 people stay with us. Now our family (which was just Ken, Mara and I at the time) did set up our bedroom in the garage but it worked and it was fun!

If we don't have guest rooms and extra beds then what do we use?

• We purchased an air bed - it is simply an air mattress which fits on top of a collapsible metal frame. This is what Ken and I use when we go camping and we have also often used it to turn my office/craft room into a guest room. To make it more comfortable I like to put an egg shell mattress on the top.
• Our couch is a hide-a-bed. We have very rarely used this for couples to sleep on as it is in the living room (so not very private) but kids have slept on it frequently.
• Mara has always had a double bed to sleep on since she was very little. She likes it but the real reason she has it is so that we can kick her out of it when company comes and she takes a sleeping bag on the floor with carpet or a mat or sleeps on the couch. She doesn't mind and actually the boys have been jealous quite a few times that the girls get to have the company in their room and the boys' don't. In our new house we are planning on getting a double bed for the boys' room too. Actually we hope to get/make bunk-beds for both rooms with a double on bottom and a single on top.
• We have lots of camping mats. These are great for providing a little extra comfort for kids sleeping on the floor. An old sleeping bag or folded up bed spread can also help to make a cushion. This makes it so we can turn about any room into a guest room. Quite a few years when we had a house full of company at our Retreat time (we enjoyed 3 families staying with us a few years) the boys (ours and a couple of friends) got to use the laundry room as their bedroom. 
• If you have a mattress (an air mattress, a foam mattress or whatever) but no frame you can throw one together using pallets, cement blocks, five gallon buckets, totes, plywood etc. Just be creative but do make sure it is sturdy and won't wobble around with people on it. If you can make something sturdy it is surely nicer if you can make a bed that is up off the ground for people to sleep on. This is something that both my mom and I have done to make better beds for lots of guests. We have both also used this method to lengthen a regular double bed to better accommodate some of the tall guests we have at times.

Our girls' old bedroom - with the double bed in preparation for company.

I have never actually had any guests sleep in hammocks but I suppose it is a possibility. I bet some kids would find it pretty exciting!

 We have also had a futon before which worked for extra guests. I would like to get one again to have in our basement for both seating and then sleeping.

My sister's family made a cool bed (I think it is called a Murphy bed) that folds up into the wall. It makes it so a room in the basement can be either a play room or a guest room.

  Do you have any additional ideas for providing beds for your guests? I would love to hear how you do it at your house!