"A raising/lowering arrangement for a seat and bed clothes holder in a piece of combination furniture with a bed and sofa function" is a further development of the Applicant's "Patent no. NO- B-155423 - Arrangement at a sofa", from 1983. The object of the solution was to develop a piece of combination furniture that in one move could be converted from a bed to a sofa. The solution had to be both simple and practical. The invention was based on the need to make good use of small rooms that double as a bed room at night and a living room in the daytime.

Patent no. NO- B-155423 initially met these requirements but consisted of too many moving parts. This in turn led to stricter requirements when it came to the strength of the materials and precision, which in turn caused the product to become both heavy and time consuming in manufacture. With today's production equipment the weight problem has been solved, but the product still consists of too many moving parts that required high precision.

Today there exists a variety of furniture to meet just this need; however they are so full of compromises that one does neither sit nor lie very comfortably. Moreover, it often takes a lot of time to convert this furniture from the day position to the night position and vice versa. In addition, the bed clothes must often be packed away in closets and drawers. The present invention is based on simplicity and functionality. The bed must have a high quality mattress. When this is converted through a simple operation into a sofa with good seating comfort and optionally a table solution, the bed clothes will remain "strapped" to the bed. At night the sofa is converted back into a ready made bed, through a simple operation. It can not get any simpler.

The raising/lowering arrangement for the seat and bed clothes holder of a piece of combination furniture with a bed and sofa function has the same function as patent no. NO- B-155423 but the technical solution is both simpler and better. The Applicant has long seen the potential for this solution, but the requirements for seating and bed heights made the Applicant's patented solution seem the only way to meet these requirements. The solution developed herein fulfils these requirements in a much simpler manner.

According to patent NO- B-155423 the seat must in order to meet the requirements for seating and bed heights, be lowered to the bed position. In prior solutions, the whole seat was brought down to the lowered position along the floor and back again along guides at the sides.

The new mechanism involves the seat remaining fixed at a hinge point in the extension of the seat at the rear (cf. drawings). When the bed is in the lowered position the seating height is approximately 35 cm. Upon conversion from bed to sofa/chairs and table, fittings mounted on the back of the bed frame ensure that the seat is raised to a height of approximately 45 cm at the front. The seat then assumes a correct and comfortable slanting position.

The "bed clothes catcher" forms part of the raising/lowering arrangement for the seat and bed clothes holder of a piece of combination furniture with a bed and sofa function and is, according to the invention, a longitudinal bow at the rear of the bed frame, made from suitable materials, which is guided in by means of guides in the side members and keeps the bed clothes strapped to the mattress during the entire swivelling operation when converting from a bed to a sofa/chairs and table. At night, the "bow" remains vertical against the wall at the rear of the bed frame, and will then act as a "buffer" against the wall. It may also serve a locking purpose for the bed frame.

In the present application, means of locking the bed frame in the day and night positions has been selected as illustrated in the appended drawings. Other locking mechanisms may be spring loaded carriage bolts, "the bed clothes catcher" or similar. These are not included in the patent application, as they are well known, commonly used solutions.

The raising/lowering arrangement for the seat and bed clothes holder of a piece of combination furniture with a bed and sofa function according to the invention is shown in the drawings, where figures A to N are side views of the arrangement and figures O to Q are isometric perspective views:

• A. View of the guide frame seen from outside the arrangement:
  • 1. Side member to which the following devices are added or integrated:
  • 2. Bed clothes
  • 3. Lift arm for sofa cushion
  • 10. Cushion in the lowermost position when the bed is operative
  • 13. Bed frame
  • 14. Bed clothes holder in the up position.
• B. View of guide frame seen from inside the arrangement:
  • 4. Track that allows the bed/ backrest to be swivelled - the track helps guide the bed/backrest into the locked bed or sofa position
  • 5. Guide track for bed/backrest
  • 6. Guide track for bow that keeps the bed clothes in place when the sofa function of the arrangement is being used (see fig. C)
  • 7. Suspension point for the cushion lift arm
  • 8. Guide track for guide wheel for the cushion lift arm (3)
  • 9. Guide wheel/suspension bracket for cushion (here four per arrangement)
• C. Section of the arrangement with the sofa function in position:
  
  The cushion 10 is hinged at point 7 and is lifted into the seating position by an arm mounted in the bed section 18. When the bed function is swivelled down about the rotational shaft 11 in track 4 and in guide tracks 5 and 6 by guide wheels 15 and 17 the arrangement is converted into a sofa. In order to be able to swivel the bed around so as to convert the arrangement into a sofa, the bed must first be raised to allow the rotational shaft 11 to travel to the uppermost position in track 4. Then the bed section must be pulled further towards the person carrying out the conversion, so that guide wheels 15 and 17 move out of the locking slots in guide tracks 5 and 6. When the sofa is to be converted into a bed the person carrying out the conversion must in this case pull the backrest 13 to him so as to make shaft 11 move in the uppermost position in track 4 and out of the locking slots in guide tracks 5 and 6, as this movement allows the guide wheels 15 and 17 to travel up to the uppermost position in the guide tracks 5 and 6. The bed is automatically locked in position upon reaching the top of the guide tracks, and then the shaft 11 travels to the lowermost position in track 4 under the influence of the weight of the bed/backrest and is locked in the locking slots at the top of track guides 5 and 6. The entire sequence of movements can be seen in figures D to Q.
  • 11. Suspension and rotational shaft; these move in the track 4 provided in the side member of the arrangement (see figure A).
  • 12. Backrest cushion. The arrangement includes three of these mounted in the bottom of the bedstead. The middle one may be swung down to the seating level, where it acts as a table through its plane, hard backing plate. The cushion/table is swivelled about the hinge point mounted between the outer cushions 19.
  • 13. Bed frame/backrest
  • 14. Bed clothes holder is swung in about the hinge point 16 and keeps the bed clothes in place by the bed clothes holder 14 being swung in over the bed clothes by means of guide 6 and guide wheel 15. See sequence of movements in figures D to N.