Foldaway wall beds first appeared in America in the early 1900s. William L Murphy (hence the term “Murphy” beds) was living with his wife in a one-room apartment in San Francisco with a standard bed taking up most of the floor space. The basic concept for Murphy’s original design for a pull-down bed, secreted away behind cupboard doors, has changed very little.

Murphy wall beds are still sold today, mainly for use in dens and home offices, where a spare guest bedroom needs to double as family space. Murphy Wall Beds’ foldaway mechanism has a sprung-base “divan”, which is suitable for a sprung mattress (cheaper foldaway bed frames are often only designed for lightweight foam or latex mattresses). Prices for Murphy wall-bed frames, including divan base but excluding mattresses or cabinetry, start at £420 for a single, £470 for a double and £520 for king size.

Other wall-bed suppliers have now come up with designs that are sleek and chic, with headboards and shelving incorporated into space-saving wall units. Desks pull down and stay horizontal, to reveal a bed mattress behind, or sofas with panel shelving above fold down on counterbalanced weights in a single automatic action to reveal a ready-made bed.

Wall beds can either fold vertically or horizontally against the wall — vertical is preferable since you have access from three sides. When folded down, however, a horizontal wall bed protrudes much less, and may be more suitable in rooms with limited floor space. Cheaper wall beds will have less depth and are likely to have poor-quality frame mechanisms that can take only very thin latex or foam mattresses. Always check the folding mechanism for ease of handling (the best models will be properly counterbalanced with weights, springs or pneumatic cylinders and should glide easily).

You can either buy wall beds as a basic foldaway frame, which you then conceal behind existing cupboard doors, or as part of a complete storage unit. The Wallbed Workshop has some of the most stylish designs. Its Telemaco single wall bed has a particularly smart front, with a single brushed-steel handle, priced from £960. The equivalent double costs £1,252. Its Ulisse desk conversion, priced from £1,619, has a wall panel with a desk at the front, which gently lowers itself and stays horizontal. Its Lollipop bunk bed has two horizontal flip-down beds, priced from £1,233, and can also have a desk added to the lower bed level, priced from £1,615 for the complete unit.

The London Wallbed Company provides a variety of wall-bed designs, including revolving wall beds and wall beds hidden behind sliding bookcases. Its single wall-bed units, including frame mechanism and cabinet surround, cost from £1,037. The equivalent standard double size is from £1,166, and bunk beds are from £985. For £3,820, you can have its complete, double Sofawallbed unit, with integrated shelving, drawers and lighting.

Encompass sells the La Literal range of folding beds, stylishly designed to maximise the use of space in small flats and studio apartments. Single horizontal flip-down beds cost from £604; bunk beds start from £1,065. These prices exclude mattresses.

John Strand has some of the cheapest complete wall beds, including frame and storage units in contemporary white and coloured laminate or wood-veneer finishes. A single, horizontal guest bed that folds away into a half-height unit costs £293.75 (excluding mattress, priced from £152.75). A single vertical wall bed, with wooden slats suitable for everyday use, which folds away behind double wardrobe doors, is £468.82, and the equivalent double-bed size is £934.12.

Wallbeds Direct sells simple vertical or horizontal foldaway bed frames, from £425 for a single and £525 for a double, without mattress or surround. Its bed-in-a-cupboard costs £1,300 for the single and £1,450 for the double version.

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