Lori bed vs Murphy bed: Which folding wall bed actually makes sense?
Look I was standing in my tiny spare bedroom again yesterday morning just staring at the floor. Well not the floor exactly because the floor is completely eaten up by a normal queen mattress that just sits there taking up all the air in the room. Its so annoying how a regular bed just hogs the whole space even when literally nobody is sleeping in it. My dog Buster likes to hide his gross chewed up toys under the frame but thats basically the only use it gets most days of the week.
So naturally I got sucked into a massive internet hole looking for a way to hide the stupid bed away into the wall. You probably heard of a Murphy bed before I mean everyone has at some point. But then I kept seeing all these weird targeted ads for something called a Lori bed popping up on my phone screen. I honestly thought they were just different brand names for the exact same wooden wall bed situation. Like how Kleenex is just a tissue. But they are totally different beasts entirely and Im really glad I didnt just blindly buy the first one I saw on sale online. Because I would probably be crying trying to put it together right now in my house.
The heavy lifting and the scary springs
A traditional Murphy bed has all this complicated metal hardware stuff attached to it. Like tension springs or these big metal gas piston things that are supposed to help you lift the heavy mattress up into the cabinet. You pull it down with one hand and it kinda floats down on its own slowly which is pretty cool. Its neat I guess for a party trick if you have friends over. I remember my uncle had one in his basement back in the late 90s and it squeaked so incredibly loud every single time you pulled it out of the wall. It sounded like a dying bird or a rusty gate.
But I was reading about the history of it and apparently this guy William Lawrence Murphy invented the thing way back in like 1911. He actually patented it then. He lived in a tiny one room apartment in San Francisco and he wanted to hide his bed so he could invite a girl over. Because back then it was super scandalous for a woman to enter a mans bedroom. So he put the bed in his closet just to go on a date in his own house. Kind of a funny reason to invent a massive billion dollar industry if you think about it.
But anyway those springs scare me a little bit to be honest. If you buy a Murphy bed kit you are staring down a heavy cardboard box filled with a million sharp metal screws and scary yellow warning labels about high tension springs. If you mess up the installation the spring could snap and take your finger clean off. Or the whole thing could rip out of the drywall and smash your nice hardwood floor to pieces. You have to bolt it into the wall studs so perfectly. And finding wall studs is always a complete nightmare for me because my cheap stud finder always beeps when there is absolutely nothing there.
Enter the Lori bed with no springs at all
But a Lori bed doesnt have any of that metal hardware stuff at all. Like zero springs or metal pistons or complicated hydraulics. Its literally just a bed frame crafted out of pure wood. Or well plywood I guess mostly. When I first saw that I was thinking wait a minute how on earth do you lift a whole solid wood bed plus a heavy mattress without springs without completely snapping your lower back in half. I am definitely not a bodybuilder. But they made the bottom edge of the frame curved on the outside part. So you kinda just roll the whole heavy contraption back up against the wall using your own body weight and momentum. It works like a giant rocking chair kinda.
You do actually have to use your own muscle though. Which is the big catch that nobody tells you at first. If you have a bad back or really weak arms you might wanna think twice about that one. I saw a video of a girl doing it easily but she looked like she did crossfit every day. You basically lift from the bottom and walk it up the wall. The manufacturer actually says it takes about 10 to 15 pounds of lifting force for a small twin bed but a queen size requires like 60 pounds of lifting force if you have a heavy mattress on it. Thats like lifting a huge oversized bag of dog food every single time you want to put the bed away to vacuum. I dont know if I want to do a sweaty workout just to clean my guest room for my mother in law.
Price tags that will make your wallet literally sweat
I always just assumed folding furniture was cheap cause its meant for small tiny apartments right. Usually people living in tiny studio apartments dont have ten grand lying around to spend on furniture. Well I was very wrong about that assumption. I looked at normal traditional Murphy beds online and some of them cost like 2000 bucks or even 3500 dollars. Just for the wooden frame cabinet part and that is not even including the actual mattress you have to sleep on. I was reading a report the other day that said the global space saving furniture market was actually valued at over 11.5 billion dollars in 2021.
And its supposed to grow way past 16 billion by around 2030 or something. Its absolutely wild how much money regular people will spend just to have a few extra feet of empty floor space to maybe do yoga on once a month. Did you know the average price per square foot of a house in the US is like over 200 bucks now. So a normal bed wasting 30 square feet is literally thousands of dollars of floor space just sitting there holding dust bunnies.
The Lori bed is definately the cheaper route because your not paying for those expensive German engineered gas pistons and complicated metal frames. I think a Lori bed usually runs closer to 800 or maybe 1200 dollars depending on the exact size and the color you pick out. They have unfinished raw wood which is the cheapest option and then painted ones that cost a bit more money.
Which is still a massive chunk of change to spend on plywood boxes but it doesnt make my bank account cry as much as the Murphy ones do. Plus since there are literally no moving metal parts at all nothing is gonna snap or lose its bouncy tension ten years from now. I really hate fixing broken things around the house so that sounds pretty good to me actually. Just plain wood and screws that last forever.
The delivery and the cardboard mess
I also read that when they deliver a Lori bed it comes in like three massive heavy cardboard boxes that weigh like 70 pounds each. The delivery guy usually just dumps them on your front porch and you have to drag them inside all by yourself. I have a really small front porch so it would block my whole front door and I would probably trip over it trying to get my mail. And then there is the material they are made of.
Most cheap Murphy beds you buy online from big retailers are made of particle board. You know that cheap flaky fake wood that gets all puffy and ruined if you spill even a drop of water on it. For three thousand dollars you basically get glorified sawdust glued together with chemicals. The Lori bed is supposedly made of real cabinet grade plywood. Plywood is way stronger than particle board at least so it wont fall apart if you look at it wrong. But its still very heavy to drag up a flight of stairs.
What do they look like when they are closed up though
This is where I get a little bit picky about how things look in my own house. When a traditional Murphy bed is folded up it usually just looks like a big blank ugly cabinet door. Like a giant flat wall of wood just sitting there staring at you making the room look way smaller than it is. Sometimes they put fake metal handles on the front of it to make it look like a fancy wardrobe or a tall closet but you cant actually open the doors to put anything inside. It feels a bit like a fake movie set piece that is just pretending to be furniture.
The Lori bed is pretty clever here because the outside part actually has real functional shelves built right into it. So when the bed is folded up against the wall you can put heavy books or little green plants or framed family photos or whatever on the shelves to make it look like a normal bookcase. It genuinely looks really nice in pictures. But wait I suddenly realized something super annoying about that design.
You have to take all those plants and books off the shelves every single time you want to pull the bed down for a guest to sleep. Where do you put all that stuff in a tiny room. You just dump it on the floor I guess. I mean I guess you could just keep the shelves entirely empty all the time but that completely defeats the whole purpose of having nice shelves in the first place. Maybe you just put lightweight plastic decorations on there that you can easily toss in a laundry basket when your buddy needs a place to crash after a few beers.
The mattress problem nobody talks about
Oh I almost forgot the most important part of this whole thing. You have to buy your own mattress for both of these beds usually. They just sell you the wooden frame. Traditional Murphy beds have really strict weight limits because of those gas pistons we talked about earlier. If you buy a heavy luxury memory foam mattress that is way to heavy the bed wont stay up in the cabinet and it will just fall open on its own hitting you in the head which is super dangerous. But if the mattress is to light the bed might randomly fold up into the wall while you are literally sleeping on it. That sounds completely terrifying like being swallowed by a wall monster in a horror movie.
The Lori bed on the other hand doesnt really care as much about exact mattress weight cause its just a heavy wooden box sitting directly on the solid floor when its open. It has no tension springs trying to violently pull it shut while you sleep. But you still cant buy those super thick 14 inch luxury mattresses for either of them because the bed frame physically wont fold up all the way flat against the wall if the mattress is to fat. You have to stick to mattresses that are under 10 or maybe 11 inches thick max. Which are usually kind of firm and not that comfortable for older guests with bad joints.
Putting the things together is a weekend ruined
Putting these giant things together is a whole other headache I totally wasnt ready for. I watched a tutorial video for a Murphy bed online and the guy had like five different power tools laid out. You have to measure everything so perfectly level and if your floors are uneven good luck getting it right. The Lori bed is basically just screwing big wood panels together like a giant Ikea puzzle on steroids. Honestly I still really hate assembling flat pack furniture but it seems slightly less dangerous without springs under high tension waiting to pinch my fingers off.
But you still have to heavily anchor both of them to the wall. You definitely dont want a 200 pound wooden box falling on your head while you watch tv or read a book in bed. Anchoring into the wall means finding the wall studs again. Im terrible at that. My walls always look like swiss cheese by the time I actually hit a solid piece of wood with my drill.
So I really think it just comes down to how much money you want to burn and if you hate springs or hate lifting things. The Lori bed is simple and raw wood and you have to do all the heavy lifting yourself every single time you want to use it. The Murphy bed does the heavy lifting for you with its fancy metal parts but it costs way way more money and the moving parts can totally break down over the years. Plus the installation is way more intense and scary. I am still just standing here deciding which one to put in that tiny spare room of mine. I keep measuring the walls and changing my mind every five minutes. I kinda like the nice bookcase look of the Lori but I am incredibly lazy and taking things off shelves sounds like a huge chore. Honestly maybe I will just buy a nice thick air mattress and throw it in the closet and just call it a day. Its so much cheaper and I can use the spare room for my weird hobbies instead of housing a giant empty bed box.
Ethan Caldwell is a licensed contractor and residential remodeling specialist based in Denver, Colorado. With over 15 years of hands-on experience, he focuses on structural renovations, foundation repair, and large-scale home transformations. Ethan’s work bridges the gap between technical construction and practical homeowner advice, helping readers understand complex renovation challenges in simple terms. When he’s not on-site, he writes about budgeting strategies, renovation sequencing, and avoiding costly remodeling mistakes.
