Every town has a custom house that makes Murphy Bed components. That's what all of these units consist of.

Huh? So, you're promoting Murphy beds when I asked about cabinet beds?

Why not just invest in a quality air mattress, then only minimal space is used, if space is the biggest concern. But if that’s not an option, I’d rather have a pull out sofa that is rarely sat on versus a cabinet whose only purpose is holding a bed. The sofa would at least have more than 1 use.

I have always been intrigued by cabinet beds, but have never purchased one. I have a Castro Convertible ottoman that pulls out into a twin bed. An annoying issue with pull out beds is where to store the mattress pad, sheets, blanket, and pillow when not in use. And my Castro Convertible mattress is really firm and I need a thin foam pad to make it comfortable. I would advise you to check the comfort of the mattress when buying.

And I give a big "NO" vote to air mattresses. I would rather sleep on the floor.

The mattresses are thin, the hardware/base of the bed will be felt through the mattress as in a fold out couch. A high end air mattress will be a thousand times more comfortable.

I had not considered a high quality air mattress -- excellent thought, thank you. I'll do some research.

What is a cabinet bed? How does it differ from a murphy bed?

A cabinet bed is a bed that folds into a box that looks like a cabinet, rather than a Murphy bed which folds up and down vertically (or horizontally) against a wall. The advantage is that you can put them anywhere (not necessarily against a wall), and that you don't have to actually attach anything to the wall. The down-side is that, because the mattress folds up, it's thinner than most beds (4" - 6" , depending on the brand).

We have a cabinet bed in our spare bedroom. The brand is Canadian so wonèt likely help you much. We love it. It allows us to keep a TV on top along with some books. The tv doesnt have to be moved to use the bed. We love the fact that it can moved, weve changed the wall its on a couple of times. If you get a tradtional murphy bed you loose the whole wall. I leave the mattress pad mostly on when its stored and the drawer is big enough to hold a light summer duvet and 2 pillows. The mattress, although their premium one, isnèt great so we added a think mattress pad and after many years of company it doesnèt seem to be an issue. If someone was going to sleep on it for a couple of weeks it might be an issue. We also have an air mattress but none of our friends like how low it is, making it difficult to get in and out of as weve all gotten older.

Thanks for the explanation on cabinet vs murphy. The things ya learn!

In reading the responses and looking at the pictures, it suddenly struck me to wonder if the solution might be a combination of two solutions: first, the fold-out Murphy bed (as in the video so you don't have wasted space but having no mattress in it). Instead, when that is pulled down, use a high-quality blow-up mattress on top of the Murphy bed. Could they work together I wonder to create something more comfortable than either one would provide alone.

I’ve slept on an airmatress (for weeks) similar to what Maureen posted. It was VERY comfortable. An advantage of air mattresses is that they can be as hard or as soft as desired.