drmeow, how are defining a "moderate" price range? It seems it might mean different things to different people? Room and Board has sofa beds that use memory foam, which I think is more comfortable than traditional sofa bed mattresses. They also have the Comfort Sleeper line, which doesn't use bars and is very comfortable. That line is more expensive, though ($2500+). My husband and I did extensive "in-person" research when buying our sofa bed, and liked the foam mattresses the best. We went with a Comfort Sleeper model. Here is a link that might be useful: Room and Board sleeper sofas

We need a full or queen sized sofa bed. It won't get a lot of wear either for sitting or for use as a bed so we don't want to spend a huge amount. Any suggestions? Has anyone bought from The Sofa Company? Thank you!

I have a slipcovered queen sleeper from Pottery Barn. It has a 5" mattress. There is no bar-in-the-back and it really is firm and comfy. We have had two guests with bad backs claim they actually felt better after sleeping on that bed. No lie. As a sofa, it is very comfortable. The slipcover looks schlumpy as a rule, but that's because it goes on differently than a "regular" slipcover I think. It would not be so nice in a living room, but for a den/guest room, it's fine with me...

I've been looking at heated beds this winter for my sickly older kitty. The ones I looked at most interestedly were "thermo-bed" and "ortho-thermo-bed" made by K&H manufacturing. The latter is padded, while the former is a little thinner like a heating pad. I wasn't sure kitty would use it though, so was hesitant to spend the money on a bed she may not use. The draw to these for me is that they heat up when the pet is actually on the bed. I also looked at heating pads on Amazon. There's one particular brand (can't remember the brand), but they are suppose to be rather nice pads and have an automatic shut off after an hour. What I've ended up doing- which has worked very well since I already had all the components in the house- was to use a plug-in heated throw blanket that was made for people to cuddle up under. I plugged this into an ordinary household timer on which I had removed the "on" trigger so it only has an "off" trigger. When I want to turn on the blanket for the cats, I set the timer clock so it is 1-2 hours from turn off and trigger it on. The blanket heats for them and stays on for a limited time. This has worked very well, especially since the sickly cat doesn't use it as much as I'd thought she would. Don't know if that was any help to you, but you aren't alone trying to figure out what to do. There are a lot of choices! Good luck!