I remember watching an old cartoon where the cartoon character falls into a wall bed which then snaps shut on him. A few moments later, he pops out of the bed fully dressed. For me, this is just a classic gaff. It is also where my love of Murphy walls beds began. I always thought that a wall bed was the perfect bed for a small space. When you need more room, you simply close the bed. You never have to worry about people seeing your messy bed since you can simply close the bed and the mess disappears. For years, I begged my parents for a Murphy wall bed, but my mom insisted that I needed to first learn how to make my bed before she would allow me to just “shove the mess under the bed.” Now that I am an adult and I have learned to make my bed, my mom’s lesson has stayed with me even though I now own a Murphy wall bed.

My mom’s plan worked. I have learned how to make a bed, and I always make my bed before I shut it up. When I say shut the bed, what I mean is that a Murphy wall bed is a cabinet that you place against a wall. The bed is a little taller than a bed is tall and a little wider than the bed is wide. The bed itself has a spring-loaded hinge at the head of the bed. When you are ready to put the bed away, you go to the foot of the bed and lift. The spring loaded hinge makes lifting the bed and putting it into the cabinet easy. Once it is folded up into the cabinet, you would think that looking at the bottom of the bed would be ugly, but the cabinet work continues on the bottom of the bed, so that all you see is a nice wooden cabinet. In fact, friends who have seen my wall bed have assumed that it was an armoire or an entertainment center.

I keep my Murphy wall bed in my guest room, which doubles as my office. I keep the wall bed closed most of the time, but when I am working late in my office, or when I need a mid-afternoon break, I will sometimes pull down my wall bed and crawl under the covers for a little siesta. If I’m being honest, the wall bed is just as comfortable as the bed in my bedroom. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the mattress, but since you can use a regular mattress on the wall bed, no futon-couch or hideaway bed can compete with the comfort of a wall bed. My parents now love to visit me because they know that my wall bed will afford them a comfortable night’s sleep unlike the sleep they get when they stay at my brother’s house; he only has a hideaway.

I concur with my parents; the wall bed is the most comfortable guest bed I have ever slept on. You might think that a bed that is used in a cartoon show as part of a classic gaff could never be useful for anything besides comedy. I would have to disagree when it comes to the Murphy wall bed. While it would be amazing if I could simply shut myself up in my bed and then plop down a moment later completely dressed, I know that will never happen. Meanwhile, I can pride myself on having a space-saving, yet entirely comfortable guest bed to offer to my guests and to myself from time to time.