Sleeper Sofa Dimensions: Closed and Open Sizes, With 19 Real Sleepers Measured

Sleeper sofa sizes, closed and open

These are 19 sleepers from IKEA, La-Z-Boy, Room & Board and American Leather, narrowest first, as their makers list them (American Leather’s as the retailer Baer’s lists them). “Open” is the depth from the wall to the foot of the bed, where the maker gives it.

Bed sizes are the maker’s, width by length. Baer’s lists the two American Leather queens by mattress size only; American Leather gives them a full 80-inch sleeping length.

Closed, a sleeper is a sofa: our couch dimensions guide gives 71 to 86 inches long and about 35 deep for a standard 3-seat sofa. The bed is what changes the room you need.

How deep a sleeper sofa is when it’s open

There are two shapes, and you can tell them apart by the bed’s size against the sofa’s:

• The bed lies along the sofa: its long side runs the sofa’s length, so the bed is about as long as the sofa is wide, and it only comes out as far as the bed is wide. The ÄLVDALEN, BÅRSLÖV, MORABO, Room & Board Oxford and SÖDERHAMN open to 53⅛ to 70⅛ inches from the wall.
• The bed runs out from the sofa: a traditional pull-out, whose mattress folds out to its full length. The American Leather, La-Z-Boy and IKEA HYLTARP queens open to 85 to 94½ inches, measured, in La-Z-Boy’s words, from the back of the sofa to the front of the sleeper mechanism.

The coffee table has to move first. It usually stands 14 to 18 inches from the sofa (see coffee table distance), well inside the space any of these beds opens into.

How much room a sleeper sofa needs

Add the walking space to the open depth. Our bedroom layout planner keeps 24 inches past the foot of a bed at its standard setting (22 at its tightest, 30 at its roomiest):

So every sleeper here fits a room 10 feet deep with 24 inches to walk, and in a 9-foot room (108 inches) only the ones whose bed lies along the sofa, and the small FRIDHULT, do. Width matters less: the open bed is no wider than the sofa, though a guest needs a way in along one side.

Sleeper mattress sizes

A pull-out mattress is shorter than a bed’s. La-Z-Boy’s queen sleeper mattress is 60 × 71½ in, 5½ inches thick, and Ashley’s Soletren uses a 60 × 72 × 4-inch one; a standard queen mattress is 60 × 80, and a full 54 × 75 (Sleep Foundation). So La-Z-Boy’s and Ashley’s pull-out queens are a queen’s width but 8 to 8½ inches shorter; American Leather’s Comfort Sleepers keep the full 80 inches.

Beds that lie along the sofa can be longer, because the sofa’s length limits them, not its depth: the Room & Board Oxford has a full 60 × 80 queen mattress, and the IKEA sleepers above all sleep on 74 to 79½ inches.

Small sleeper sofas and getting one inside

• Narrow sleepers: the IKEA FRIDHULT is 49⅝ inches wide and still opens to a 46⅞ × 79½-inch bed; the LYCKSELE LÖVÅS, 55⅞ inches wide, sleeps on 55⅛ × 74. For more compact sofas, see Nest In Small’s apartment-size sofa guide.
• Weight: the mechanism makes a pull-out heavy: La-Z-Boy lists the Leah at 175 pounds, the Kennedy at 205 and the Piper at 217½.
• The door: a sleeper goes through a door like any sofa, on its back or end, so measure its depth and height against the opening. Our guide to getting a couch through a door has the method.