While my last post was obsessing over sofas I was dreaming of buying, I had actually done a little sketch of a wood sofa and sent it off to my favourite millworkers. I didn’t know when they would have time to fit my little project in so it was a lovely surprise when they emailed me to let me know it was ready a couple weeks ago!
I designed this sofa in the style of Donald Judd daybeds. I wanted to take the lessons from our current sofa layout. I knew that in a small sofa, having a crease or gap in the middle wasn’t working for us. No one wanted to sit on the crack. What was working was the low back and the open ends. So I kept one end open and closed the other with a thin arm. I added a ledge to act as a side table (MANY of your wrote to tell me it’s a shin smasher. So far only one of us has smashed a shin but I will report back).
Day Bed/Sofa Bed
I factored in the size of an average twin mattress for the sofa. My thought was that we could have a single guest stay upstairs. Since we have a bit more space these days, having guests stay for one or two nights has been nice. Some family and out-of-town friends have stayed on an air matress this summer but we would like to be able to offer them a proper mattress so this sofa acting as an additional bed was one step towards guests being more comfortable in our space. The next step is to add additional bed(s) to the kids room.
Oh I also am still considering that a thinner mattress might have been a better choice but the good thing about buying a standard twin mattress is that I can use it in the kids room and swap it out for the thinner one if it feels too thick.
Materials
I wasn’t super particular about the material as everything the millworkers use is FSC certified. I would have been happy with Birch Ply, Maple or Oak. The millworkers has some offcuts of Rift Cut white oak from a larger project so I was happy to have that. Our floors and dining table are also oak so it keeps everything cohesive.
