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Sleeper sofa

Beds and mattresses have been used for ages, but sleeper sofas with foldable mattresses were developed only in the first half of the twentieth century. Sleeper sofas are popular items of furniture because they serve the dual function of being usable as either a seating surface in the form of a sofa and as a bed when a fixture contained internally of the sofa is unfolded into a horizontal planar configuration. Basically, a sleeper sofa includes a foldable bed frame which supports a mattress when the bed frame is extended to a generally flat, horizontal bed configuration. A sofa sleeper is adapted for use as a sofa when the bed frame is folded up into a collapsed storage configuration within the framework of the sofa to permit use of the structure as a seating surface. Sleeper sofas generally comprise a four section foldable bed frame including pivotally interconnected head, body, intermediate and foot sections which are adapted to be folded between a fully folded or retracted position into a box-like sofa frame, and an extended position wherein the sections extend out and over the front rail of the sofa frame to form a bad. Sofa sleepers generally comprise an upholstered wooden frame, internally of which there is mounted a sleeper fixture. This fixture comprises a metal frame foldable into three or four sections so as to be completely contained within the wooden frame or unfoldable into three or four colinearly aligned planar sections having one end attached to the interior of the sofa frame and the other end supported above the floor upon which the wooden frame is resting. Foldable sofa sleepers have pivotally interconnected head, body, intermediate and foot sections movable between a fully folded or retracted position within a sofa frame for use as a seat and an extended unfolded position for use as a bed. Foldable sofa-sleepers are adapted to mount on a stationary sofa frame and include a foldable sofa bed mechanism having pivotally interconnected head, body, intermediate and foot frame sections. Most sofa sleepers employ a wire fabric material or a sheet of woven polypropylene or other plastic material which extends between the side rails of the head, body, intermediate and foot sections of the sofa bed frame for support of a foldable mattress.

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