This Childhood Bedroom Staple Is My Secret “Guest Room”
You don’t have to be a frequent host to know a guest bedroom is the gift that keeps on giving. A convenient spot for your favorite people to crash that’s slightly more elevated than an air mattress? Sounds like a win to me. So, when my husband and I moved into our three-bedroom apartment two years ago, we knew we wanted to make room for our friends and family to stay.
The catch? A three-bedroom apartment might sound big — I mean, it’s clearly larger than my old Upper West Side studio — but space is still at a premium. Because my husband and I both primarily work from home, it was important for each of us to have our own office. (After spending the height of the pandemic working from the dining table of our previous apartment together, it was a welcomed upgrade.) As much as we wanted to have a proper guest space, allocating an entire room solely for the occasional visitor felt like a misuse of our square footage.
My husband suggested making one of our offices multifunctional by adding a trundle bed, which is typically a twin bed frame with a secondary bed on wheels that’s nested underneath the entire unit when not in use. If I’m being totally honest, I didn’t love the idea at first. Sure, I may write about interior design for a living (and love a small-space hack as much as the next person), but a trundle bed felt a little … well, juvenile. The last time I’d seen a trundle bed was at a slumber party in elementary school.
That said, if getting a trundle bed meant we could each have our own offices and an area for guests, I could at least give it a try. I eventually ordered the Andover Mills Astra Upholstered Daybed with Trundle from Wayfair, and it’s since become one of the smartest additions to our home (plus, it’s currently on sale!).
Decked out with an upholstered frame with tufted details — which, by the way, was very easy to assemble — the trundle looks like any other daybed when idle. Because it’s located in my office, I love to use this as a cozy spot to tackle early morning deadlines or admin work. However, when we have guests coming to town, I pull out the secondary bed from underneath, place sheets on each mattress, and voilà! Our visitors consistently rave about their good night’s sleep, and we don’t have to compromise space or style to be great hosts.
But perhaps my favorite thing about this double-duty daybed is that the trundle isn’t attached to the rest of the bed frame. Instead of having our guests climb over each other just to go to sleep, we can pull out the secondary mattress far enough so there’s a little aisle in between the two beds. This was particularly useful when we were hosting one of my best friends and my husband’s buddy from graduate school. Because they didn’t know each other beforehand, we moved the detachable trundle into our living room so each friend could have their own space. For a piece of furniture that pulls double (sometimes triple) duty, it’s certainly worth the $431 investment — although note that it’s now 30% off, discounted to $300 in the gray colorway.
The only thing I don’t love about the trundle bed is that it’s not compatible with thicker mattresses. While Andover Mills said this should work with up to 10-inch mattresses when I bought it in 2021, it’s now recommending options no thicker than nine inches, which isn’t exactly the most comfortable. However, because the trundle isn’t attached to the rest of the bed frame, I easily fixed this by adding Allswell’s 10-Inch Hybrid Mattresses and bed risers. A small DIY project that’ll make guests comfortable and seal your fate as a host with the most? That’s a win-win.
Buy: Andover Mills Astra Upholstered Daybed with Trundle, $296 (normally $431)
