What is it???
And if you know, where was it normally used???
Answers are below the fold…
And for something a little different-
Mark Felton’s 16 minute video on the ‘real’ Kelly’s Heroes that stole over a ton of Nazi gold!
What is it- It was called a sleeper couch. It actually folds down to make the equivalent of a twin sized bed (the back and arms all fold down).
Where was it- At least in the south and southwest, it was normally on the screened in ‘sleeping porch’ and used either by the kids, or by the husband/wife it if was too hot to sleep in the house in the summer.
I slept on one many times when we visited my aunt and uncle in east Texas over the years.
A Settee? (sp?)
I will look now.
I never imagined that would do that.
Clever.
I have seen and used sofa-couches where the bed pulls out from under the seat.
My parents had a living room sofa that turned into a sleeper. There was a latch that let the back fold flat, and it became a twin bed. Many older homes in the South had screened sleeping porches off the bedrooms. In the summer the beds would be moved out there.
All those big windows and covered balconies on a southern home are for sleeping. You move the bed (with mosquito netting) onto the balcony and sleep. It’s the only way to stay cool in a world before Willis Carrier. A sofa like that would keep you from having to constantly move furniture outside and in. Plus the folding sofa would keep you from moving your bed into potentially wet weather.
The invention of mass produced screening was a Godsend to the South. Now you could screen off the whole exterior of one’s house and let the cooling breezes in at night. Still probably slept on the porch on the hottest days.
There’s a reason real old southern homes are jacked up 3-10′ off the ground, have 10-12′ ceilings, the hallways are 8-10′ wide, all the windows go from 2′ to 8′ off the floor, the doors have windows on them, every sleeping room has either a separate covered porch or one huge covered porch or covered balcony, and the windows are wide, very wide. And there’s a ‘summer kitchen.’ And the winter kitchen is big enough to move the whole family into if necessary, and can be closed off with solid wood covers over all the windows.
Then, the Blessed Willis of Carrier came along and we now have blessed central air.
Still, with modern windows and insulation, one can rebuild ‘Southern Style’ and have a house that’s comfortable with the windows open during the fall, early winter or spring.
It’s a “patio glider”: porch rocker couch. Surprisingly comfortable, if occasionally a bit damp. A “modern” update to the porch swing.
+1 That’s what it looks like to me too!
As for sleeper sofas, a pox on who ever invented them. I lost count of how many times I helped someone move those heavy bastards up to a 3rd floor apartment or down to a basement rec room. The couch always sprung half open at the worst possible time.
+2 – we just referred to it as a ‘glider’, and they always had a kind of musty smell to them
I don’t think I have ever seen this type of couch where the sides fold down, but sleeping porches were very common in and near the Poconos.
All- Thanks for playing along, so to speak. And yes Beans, you are correct. Our ‘old’ houses at the home place had just such an arrangement, known as a ‘dog run’ house with the wide central hallway.
OldNFO, if I may ask, whereabouts in East Texas. That’s where my father was from, and as a kid, we lived all over northeast Texas, to as far south as Longview.
Quitman.
My dad, who grew up in SW Louisiana, called them shotgun houses, as you could fire a shotgun from the front door and hit something in the backyard.
I did not know that Kelly’s Heroes (one of my favs) had a basis in reality. Thanks for the video!!
Sleeping on a screened in porch. BTBT many times.
MC- You’re welcome!
WSF- Yep!
BAD memories. When I was a kid we had one at our camp (nearly a shack) out on the screen porch in Waveland, Mississippi. We went out there maybe every 6 weeks or so and it was a couple hundred yards from the Gulf. (Read 1000% humidity.) First thing we did after arrival was get the bleach-water out and scrub the mold off the damned thing. My sister and I refused to use it.
Bob- Yep, they ‘were’ prone to mold under the right circumstances…
I believe the actual correct term for that thing is “trundle” or hyde-a-bed. A sofa bed just unfolded out to become a sleeping platform. The trundle bed was a mattress on a spring frame that was stored under a couch and when pulled out sat on its own frame. As a side note the first house that I bought was a craftsmen-built house circa 1923 that came with a wicker “hide-a-bed” on the front porch