The wall beds are great. Firm enough, and easy to climb into. A bit expensive though, especially for those once a year visits! My husband has a raised Aero "type" of mattress which he thinks is fine. He got it for those visits to his mom's apartment, after he couldn't take the sleeper any longer. It doesn't work for me at all...I just need a real mattress. I have two antique wicker day beds which have worked well for company. We had a mattress made for them at a local mattress company for under $200 each, and a slipcover I can unzip and wash when I need to. Although they are not quite as wide as a twin bed, they are much more comfortable than a sleeper sofa (been there, done that) or an air mattress. No one has ever complained, and we take naps on them frequently. They are low enough to fit under the windows, and great for extra seating when watching tv or reading a good book. It's another alternative. I know you can find trundles second-hand sometimes. Maybe you could start looking for one in the paper.

I have two guest rooms that are pretty much left to be only that. One has a full bed, a night stand and an armoire. The shelves in the armoire serve as my linen closet for quilts since I don't have a linen closet. One of the drawers I use for "that may fit me again some day and when it does I MiGHT want to wear it" stuff. It's actually fairly empty. The other drawer I leave empty for guest use. No one ever uses it. The drawer, I mean. The closet is small. I keep half of it filled with boxes containing the Christmas decorations. I live in Texas and it's too hot to keep that stuff in the attic. The other half of that closet I leave free for guests to hang things. There are plenty of hangars in there for that. The other guest room has a queen bed plus a bench that can be sat on plus a nightstand. It also has a tv plus a laptop so guests can check their email or whatever. That closet is slightly bigger. About half of it is full of scrapbooking supplies I can't bring myself to get rid of yet although I seldom scrapbook. The clothes rods are about 3/4 full of overflow clothes. The rest provide hanging space for guests. The great, great value to me in using those guest rooms almost exclusively as guest rooms is that there are always two rooms in my house that are spotlessly clean and uncluttered. I find them calming to look at. Okay, here's a nutty thing. When I'm away from home I have to guard against anxiety. Mostly that's accomplished by making sure I get enough sleep. (I type at 3:33a because I can't sleep because I have strep throat and I feel like my throat is being shredded by glass. But typing this response has helped get my mind off this incredibly horrific pain.) But another thing that truly helps me is to have pictures (on my phone) of rooms in my house that are clean and clutter free. It makes me feel at home and soothed. I try very hard to guard against clutter in all rooms but sometimes things start to pile up. Then I have to get back after it. De-cluttering is an ongoing process. BTW, when given a choice, my company almost always chooses the guest room with the queen bed. I think it's because it has the tv and the computer. Not that you asked, but let me add what bothers me about other people's guest rooms. No offense is intended. Just something to think about if you haven't. I'm perfectly happy to stay in a hotel if I visit someone. But I have one friend in particular who is very offended if I won't stay with them. Last time I went, I stayed for 4 days or so. Too long for me but not long enough for them. They love having me stay with them. When they come visit me, they stay at least 8 nights. WAY too long for me but they don't know that. Anyway, back to my last visit. They put me in their son's room. I slept in a futon. It was very uncomfortable. The room was very, very cluttered with toys and junk. There was no hanging space in the closet. I didn't have any drawer space. I had to live out of my suitcase. At least it was an improvement on the time I stayed a week to help them through a family difficulty. Then I was given the sofa bed in the main family room. They stayed up sitting on that sofa bed until midnight so I couldn't go to bed until then. The kids woke up at 6a ready for me to play with them. I wasn't given any closet space anywhere or drawer space. I had not one shred of privacy. In a 4000 square foot house, mind you. My advice for guests you like and want is to give them some PRIVACY! Give them a good bed and good pillows and blankets. Give them a fan. A lot of people sleep with a fan. Give them a nightlight. Give them closet space and drawer space. Give them an alarm clock. If they're more tech aware, give them an alarm clock with an ipod dock. Give them a water carafe. Give them fresh flowers. Give them current magazines. Give them snacks - cookies or m&ms plus some fruit. I just remembered someone put a link to a checklist above so a lot of this may be redundant but I'll leave it here for those who don't like to click over to links. Give your guests access to a computer for checking email. Give them a tv with a remote and a sleep timer and a channel guide. A lot of people are unsettled in unfamiliar beds and they like having a tv to watch when they're trying to settle down. Okay, that's all. My throat is still killing me but I need to go try to get some more sleep.

Homeagain, the walls were originally knotty pine. I had to seal each and every knot with kilz primer, then we painted them. I know many would consider it a mortal sin to paint wood, but I just wasn't feeling the orange, and it was so dark and dreary in the rooms. We get very little natural light b/c of all the tree cover outside, so I wanted to brighten it up. I think I've posted photos of what it looked like before. The color of the paint is called Malted Milk by Valspar at lowes. I love it. Thank you all for the compliments.

Too funny! I was just going to mention the same thing as DLM did. . . after the first week, a futon will never be in any position except down! When DS got to his teens, he wanted a queen or king-size bed, but I felt he needed more floor space for hanging out with his friends instead. I bought him a sturdy oak day bed with a generic trundle in case he had anyone stay over. He ended up appreciating that it worked nicely as a sofa during the day . . . when he took the time to make it, that is! If you go that route, keep the cover very simple to put back on. He did occasionally gripe that he needed a bigger bed, but I just told him that he was in training for his dorm bed someday ;^P . I bought him several floor pillows for the kids to lean or sit on and a sturdy (used) oak coffee table, too. He and his friends loved hanging out in there. When he went off to college, he was in a miniscule dorm room that first year and couldn't use anything from home. Now that he's in grad school, his room works as a guest/tv room while he's away. I love having the trundle in there. DD's room is smaller, so I had a window seat built in with a 4" foam cushion on it. It makes a comfy sleeping area when her friends stay over, too. When the window seat was going in, I also had two tall cabs built in on either side of it. They have deep and shallow drawers, and both open and closed shelving to hold her clothes, books, jewelry, etc. I could then get rid of her dresser, which helped a lot in there, space-wise. The window seat has doors on the front of it and holds her games and bedding (to use on the window seat ). I bought her a desk with a hutch to hold her reference books for homework. It will be able to eventually hold a computer, too. The bottom line with girl teens is buying furniture that won't lock them into one specific style or color, as they're always changing their minds! With both, I think sturdy and well-made is the way to go. They all flop rather than just sit on furniture and no one ever seems to take off their shoes.