Murphy Bed Alternatives: 7 Space-Saving Beds Compared

A murphy bed is not always the right answer, even for the problem it is best known for solving. It bolts to the wall, which rules it out for a lot of renters. It is a big purchase for a room that only hosts guests a few nights a year. And if what actually bothers you is a fold-out couch's support bar, the fix is not always a wall bed at all.

We sell wall beds, so this is not an article talking you out of one. It is the honest list of what else solves the same problem, with real prices from our own catalogue, so you can see where each option actually lands before you buy.

The Short Answer

Renting and cannot drill into a wall? Look at a cabinet bed. Room doubles as a living space every day? A sleeper sectional. Tight budget and the real problem is storage, not floor space? A storage bed. Two kids sharing one room? A bunk bed. Still want the wall bed itself? Have a look at murphy beds, it remains the best option when the room truly needs its floor back every day and wall anchoring is not a problem.

1. The Wall Bed Itself

Worth stating plainly before the alternatives: a wall bed is still the right call for a room that has to be a full office or den by day and a bedroom by night, because nothing else clears the floor as completely. The trade off is installation, our double and queen wall beds are anchored to the wall, and only the twin size in our range skips that step. If that is not a dealbreaker, this is still the answer.

2. Cabinet Bed

A cabinet bed is a real bed with a proper mattress folded inside a freestanding cabinet, roughly the footprint of a dresser. Nothing is attached to a wall, so it works for renters and it can move house with you. Closed, it reads as a piece of furniture rather than a bed. Open, it holds a normal mattress rather than a folding frame. The Olivia cabinet bed is the one we carry, in queen and double, with current pricing on the product page rather than repeated here, since it runs a preorder price and a separate in-stock price and we would rather you see both live than trust an old number.

3. Sleeper Sectional

If the room is genuinely a living room first, a sleeper sectional is usually the better version of the sofa bed answer rather than a wall bed at all. You keep everyday seating, most of ours have a storage chaise so the folded bedding has somewhere to live, and the fold-out bed is a bonus feature rather than the point of the piece. It is the right pick when someone needs somewhere to sit far more often than somewhere to sleep.

4. Sleeper Sofa

A plain sleeper sofa is the smallest commitment on this list, in both price and floor space, and it is the honest choice for a room that is mostly a living room with occasional overnight guests. The trade off is the one every fold-out shares, a thinner mattress over a metal support bar, which most people notice after more than a couple of nights.

5. Storage Bed

Not every space problem is a floor space problem. If the actual issue is a small bedroom with nowhere to put off-season clothes or spare bedding, a storage bed solves that directly by building drawers into the base instead of adding a dresser. It will not give you the room back during the day the way a wall bed does, but for a lot of small bedrooms the dresser is the thing competing for floor space, not the bed itself.

6. Bunk Bed

For a shared kids' room, a bunk bed is the real space saver, not a wall bed. The beds need to be made up every night in that room, so folding away is not the feature that matters, stacking two sleeping surfaces into one bed's floor footprint is. A double over double bunk bed sleeps two without doubling the floor a wall bed or a pair of twin beds would use.

7. Daybed

A daybed belongs on most "murphy bed alternative" lists, and we do carry one: the Arloster upholstered day bed. It is the low, sofa-like frame people picture, it comes in twin and full, and it can be ordered with two under bed storage drawers. Nothing folds away, so it does not give the room back the way a wall bed does, it simply reads as seating by day instead of as a bed. The size range is the catch, there is no queen, so it suits a small room or a home office more than a guest room that has to sleep a couple. If you want more of the daytime-seating side of it, a sleeper sofa is the closer pick, and for the low-profile, bed-first side of it, a platform bed with storage.

Real Prices, Side by Side

Every figure below is ours, in Canadian dollars, read off the live product pages today.

The two things that jump out: a storage bed is the cheapest way to solve a small-room problem by a wide margin, and a wall bed is not automatically the expensive option either, a queen Heidi and a queen Bolsena sofa sleeper sit within about $55 of each other. Category is not a reliable proxy for price at our numbers, the room and the size are what set the cost.

Which One Actually Wins for Renters

If you are renting and the wall is off limits, cross the double and queen wall beds off the list entirely and choose between a cabinet bed and a storage bed. A cabinet bed wins if the room needs to look like something other than a bedroom during the day. A storage bed wins if you are furnishing a bedroom that is always a bedroom and the real fight is for closet space. Neither one asks your landlord for anything.

Murphy Bed Alternatives FAQ

What is the best alternative to a murphy bed?

It depends what you are solving for. If you want a wall bed's disappearing act without drilling into a wall, a cabinet bed is the closest match, it is fully freestanding and holds a real mattress. If the room is a living room first and a bedroom occasionally, a sleeper sectional is the better call because you keep everyday seating. There is no single best answer, only the one that matches how the room is actually used.

Can I get a wall bed without drilling into the wall?

Not from the murphy bed category itself for anything larger than a twin. Every double and queen wall bed we carry is anchored to the wall, which is a real problem if you are renting. A cabinet bed is the honest workaround, it is a freestanding cabinet with a mattress folded inside, nothing is attached to anything, and it can move with you.

What is a good alternative to a pull out couch?

A cabinet bed or a wall bed, if what actually bothers you is the mattress. Most pull out couches fold a thin mattress over a metal support bar, and that bar is what people feel. Both a cabinet bed and a wall bed use a normal mattress instead. If you still need the couch for daily seating, a sleeper sectional is the closer swap, it keeps the seating and improves the storage over a plain sofa bed.

What is the cheapest murphy bed alternative?

A storage bed. It will not clear floor space the way a wall bed does, but it solves the same underlying problem, a small room with not enough space for a bed and everything else, by putting storage under the mattress instead of in a dresser. Our cheapest is a full size bookcase storage bed at $389.99, well under any wall bed or cabinet bed in our range.

Do sleeper sectionals sleep as well as a wall bed?

Not quite. A wall bed and a cabinet bed both take a full mattress, so comfort is a mattress decision. A sleeper sectional folds a thinner mattress over a frame inside the chaise, and most people can feel that for anything longer than a few nights. What a sectional gives you back is daily seating a wall bed or cabinet bed cannot, so the trade is seating for comfort.

What is a good space-saving bed for two kids sharing a room?

A bunk bed, not a wall bed. Wall beds fold away for a room that needs to be something else in the day, which is not the problem in a shared kids' room, the beds need to be up every night. A double over double bunk bed sleeps two kids in one bed's floor footprint, which is the actual space-saving move for that room.

Compare these against the wall bed itself in our murphy beds collection, browse the cabinet bed, or read our head-to-head on murphy bed vs sofa bed and cabinet bed vs murphy bed. We are a Canadian company with showrooms in Kelowna, Calgary and Edmonton, so if you would rather see something before you buy it, find your nearest store.