A cabinet bed is a low chest that opens into a full-size bed, with its own folding mattress stored inside. It stands on the floor. A Murphy bed stores its bed on end against a wall and is fixed to it. A sofa bed is a sofa with a mattress folded under the seat.
Among the bedroom furniture we list on Vancouver Island, Merit Home Furniture has 10 Sleepchest cabinet beds, priced $1,899 to $2,999 before applicable taxes. Nine list a queen size, the Sienna's listing gives none, and the Cape Cod and Tuscany also come as a double. Closed, the queen takes 64 inches of wall and 23.25 inches of floor. Open, it runs 80 inches out from the wall on a 6-inch foam mattress.
The closed chest is the easy part to place. The open bed needs the floor of any queen, plus a way past its foot, and that's where I'd start measuring.
Cabinet bed sizes: the Sleepchest range, closed and open
Cabinet bed sizes on Merit's listings come from Sleepchest's own model pages, and the two agree except where noted below. The open depth covers the cabinet and the bed together, so with the chest against a wall it's the distance out from that wall.
| Sleepchest | Size or figure |
|---|---|
| Queen, closed | 64 W x 41.5 H x 23.25 D in |
| Queen, open | 80 in deep, the same 64 in wide |
| Double (Cape Cod, Tuscany), closed | 58.25 W x 37.5 H x 23 D in |
| Double, open | 74 in deep, the same 58.25 in wide |
| Midtown queen, the slim model | 64 W x 42.5 H x 22 D in closed; 80 in deep open |
| Weight limit | 500 lb (227 kg) |
| Shipping box, queen | 66 x 25 x 34 in, 250 lb |
| Shipping box, double | 60 x 24 x 31 in, 210 lb |
The ten differ in their fronts and their prices. The Caspian sits alone at the bottom of the range, and four share the top price.
| Sleepchest front | Sizes on our listing | Price before applicable taxes |
|---|---|---|
| Caspian | Queen | $1,899 |
| Midtown | Queen, slim | $2,499 |
| Dawson | Queen | $2,799 |
| Madrid | Queen | $2,799 |
| Tuscany | Queen, double | $2,799 |
| Sienna | None listed | $2,899 |
| Cabos | Queen | $2,999 |
| Cape Cod | Queen, double | $2,999 |
| Clifton | Queen | $2,999 |
| Stockholm | Queen | $2,999 |
Our listings call the Cabos contemporary, the Cape Cod cottage-style and the Stockholm Scandinavian.
A few listings need a question first. The Cape Cod and Tuscany show one price, so ask what the double costs. Sleepchest's Madrid page offers a double that our listing doesn't mention. The Sienna has no size on our listing and no page on Sleepchest's site.
How does a cabinet bed open? The Sleepchest mechanism, step by step
A Sleepchest cabinet bed opens in five steps by Sleepchest's setup sheet, and closes in reverse. The drawer at the bottom is part of the frame. Pulled all the way out on its casters, it carries the front panel once that's lowered.
- Pull out the drawer. Pull from the centre until it's fully extended.
- Undo the locks. Lift the flip top, then release the side bolts on both sides and the safety chain.
- Lower the front. Stand to one side and lower the front panel onto the drawer base.
- Set the legs. Flip up the legs on the folding door and check that their hinges lock, then open the door out so the legs stand on the floor.
- Unfold the mattress. It's stored folded in three and pulls out flat across the frame.
The sheet asks for the chain and both side bolts to be fastened whenever the chest is closed. Four levelling feet take up carpet or an uneven floor, and a front sitting out of square with the sides means the chest needs levelling.
Because the lid flips up in the second step, whatever sits on top comes off before the bed goes down. Sleepchest sells the piece as "a regular bed, a murphy bed, and a credenza in a single item". In an office, though, that top is better left clear than used for a printer. Its pages don't say whether the bed closes with sheets and a duvet on, so ask before counting on it.
What is a bed in a cabinet called?
A bed in a cabinet is usually called a cabinet bed, and some sellers call it a Murphy cabinet bed. Sleepchest describes itself as owned and operated in Canada, with an address in Rocky View County, Alberta. Neither its about page nor its contact page says where the cabinets are built.
What mattress comes in a cabinet bed? The Sleepchest foam, in the maker's words
The mattress in a Sleepchest cabinet bed comes with it, and it's high resilience (HR) foam, 6 inches thick, or 5 inches on the slim Midtown. The Polyurethane Foam Association, the foam industry's trade body, says HR foam has a high support factor and more surface bounce than conventional foam. Support factor is how much firmer foam gets as it's pressed deeper, and the ASTM D3770 standard defines the grade.
Sleepchest's mattresses are standard sizes, 60 by 80 inches for the queen and 54 by 75 for the double, so it says ordinary fitted and flat sheets fit, and you can make up the bed with them as you would any other. For anyone weighing the double against the queen, where a 54-inch double sits among Canadian sizes has the numbers.
The cover comes off and is machine washable. The foam is CertiPUR-US certified, under a program run by a nonprofit. Certified foams are made without formaldehyde, ozone depleters, mercury or lead, and emit less than 0.5 parts per million of volatile organic compounds. The certification is for the foam.
Sleepchest gives the mattress a 5-year performance warranty against manufacturing defects. Its support page also says the foam won't sag or break down the way traditional mattresses do. That part is the maker's claim; the five years are what's in writing.
Can you sleep on a cabinet bed every night?
Sleepchest's pages set no limit on nightly use. The catch is the mattress. Sleepchest lists no other mattress for it, and whatever goes in has to fold in three to fit the chest. Bestar's wall bed, by contrast, takes a mattress of your choosing, which suits a bed slept in every night. Either way, lie on it first for ten minutes the way you actually sleep.
What is the difference between a cabinet bed and a Murphy bed?
The difference between a cabinet bed and a Murphy bed is how each one stays up. A Murphy bed, or wall bed, stores its bed on end and is fixed to the wall. A cabinet bed is a freestanding chest whose bed folds out forward onto legs of its own. Merit doesn't list Murphy beds, so the second card uses Bestar's figures for its Pur queen wall bed.
Sleepchest queen cabinet bed
Arrives as a cabinet with the drawer base and mattress packed inside. Two people lift the cabinet onto the base, and six bolts and a hex key join them. The setup sheet's last step fastens a furniture anti-tip restraint to the wall. To move it later, the sheet says to take the drawer base off first.
Bestar Pur queen Murphy bed
Open, 92 inches from the wall. Takes most queen mattresses 8 to 12 inches thick, bought separately, with no box spring. Rated to 1,000 lb. Bestar says it takes a professional or qualified installer, two people and generally 8 to 12 hours. The frame fixes to studs or masonry and to the floor, with the baseboard off, and needs a ceiling of at least 91.1 inches.
Bestar calls its wall bed semi-permanent: moving it means a professional takes it down and puts it back up. A wall bed that isn't fixed properly can come down, as two Health Canada recall notices show. In 2024, one maker's wall beds were recalled because they "can become detached from the wall and fall". The remedy offered was an inspection and, where needed, reinstallation into the studs. A 2023 recall of a mobile Murphy bed warned it could tip over if it wasn't anchored to the wall while closed and stored. Neither recall involved a Sleepchest.
Sleepchest's support page says no installation is required. Its setup sheet still includes the anti-tip restraint and a step for fixing it to the wall. The sheet is the more careful of the two, so this guide goes by the sheet. Health Canada's tip-over advice is to secure furniture to a wall stud, or use heavy-duty drywall anchors made for that type of furniture.
Cabinet bed, sofa bed or daybed for a small guest room
A cabinet bed, a sofa bed and a daybed all fit a guest bed into a small room. What differs is the piece you live with the rest of the year: a chest, a sofa or a twin daybed. The table sets one of our listings, the La-Z-Boy Kennedy queen sleeper, beside the Sleepchest figures above.
| Figure | La-Z-Boy Kennedy sleeper |
|---|---|
| Price at Merit | $1,849 |
| Closed | 77 W x 38 D in by La-Z-Boy (our listing says 69 W) |
| Open, out from the wall | 93.5 in |
| Mattress | Queen, 71.5 x 60 in, 5.5 in quilted innerspring, included |
| Weight | 188 lb |
Against the Sleepchest queen, the Kennedy's mattress is 8.5 inches shorter, because La-Z-Boy's queen sleeper mattress isn't full length. Open, the sofa also reaches 13.5 inches further into the room. It costs $50 less than the Caspian, the lowest-priced Sleepchest, and $1,150 less than the four at $2,999. It's also a sofa the rest of the year, which a cabinet bed can't be.
A daybed never folds away, so its full depth stays in the room all year, and a twin sleeps one guest. The only daybed we list is Ashley's Realyn twin, $1,249 before applicable taxes and listed for our Duncan store. Merit's sleeper sofa listings run to 26, starting at $799. How wide a queen sleeper sofa runs is measured with the other sofas.
Will a cabinet bed fit? Room depth, doors and stairs
A queen cabinet bed fits a room when the floor in front of the chest can take the open bed and a way past its foot. Sleepchest gives no walkway figure. Bestar asks for 30 to 36 inches around its open beds, and added to Sleepchest's open depths, that comes to:
- Queen: 110 to 116 inches out from the wall, about 9 ft 2 in to 9 ft 8 in.
- Double: 104 to 110 inches, about 8 ft 8 in to 9 ft 2 in.
In a spare room 10 feet deep, a queen against one wall leaves 40 inches past its foot. Along the wall it needs only its own width, because the bed opens straight out. A desk on a side wall can stay where it is, as long as it clears the open bed.
Getting a cabinet bed into the room is the smaller problem. The whole queen ships in one box, 25 inches on its narrowest side, with the drawer base and mattress packed inside the cabinet. That passes a 30-inch bedroom door on edge. Stairs, a tight landing or a basement suite are worth mentioning when you order. Check the door and the turns with a tape, as you would for a sofa.
My rule for a cabinet bed is to measure the room for the open bed and the walk past it, never for the closed chest. The chest fits almost any wall. Tape the open bed's outline on the floor and walk around it before deciding.
Who a cabinet bed suits: a guest room, a condo, a cabin or a visiting parent
A cabinet bed suits a room that has to be something else most of the year, which is how it makes a guest room out of an office. The chest holds the bed and its mattress, so the office keeps its floor between visits.
In a condo or a rental, the fastening in the compare cards matters most: one strap to the wall, against a frame fixed into studs and floor. At Merit we see plenty of odd-shaped rooms in Island character homes and cabins. A cabinet bed stands about waist height closed, while a wall bed needs a full-height wall. Under a sloped ceiling or a window, the cabinet bed is the one that fits.
For a parent who has trouble getting up, the height of the bed matters as much as the mattress. HealthLink BC's falls checklist suggests changing the height of a bed for anyone who has trouble getting in or out of it. A cabinet bed's height is fixed, and Sleepchest doesn't publish how high the mattress top sits when open. That's worth measuring on an open one first. The same checklist puts a lamp close to the bed where it's easy to reach, and a night-light on the way out. An office turned bedroom for a week may have neither.
Neither maker publishes how much effort opening takes. The Sleepchest steps mean pulling a drawer and lowering the front panel from the side. Bestar says its wall bed folds up and down on a dual piston system. For a host with a sore back, trying the steps on one that's set up is worth the trip.
Are cabinet beds any good? Where a Sleepchest falls short
Cabinet beds are good at one job, a real queen bed for guests that closes into a chest, and weaker at the others. These are the drawbacks I'd weigh first.
- The cabinet's warranty is one year, for factory defects. That's the shortest cover in this guide, against 10 years on Bestar's wall bed.
- The mattress is fixed. With no alternative listed, a guest who finds the foam too thin has no upgrade.
- Moving it takes two steps. Sleepchest's support page says the chest can be easily moved. Its setup sheet says never to move it with the drawer base attached, or the glide rails can warp.
- Young children shouldn't work it. The setup sheet says so in capitals, which matters with grandchildren in the house.
For a guest room used a few weeks a year, those are fair trade-offs for a full-length queen that folds away. For a bed slept in every night, a wall bed with a mattress of your choosing makes the stronger case.
Cabinet bed delivery, assembly and cost on Vancouver Island
Delivering a cabinet bed from our Duncan store costs $150 across the Island with assembly included, and the store can arrange some Gulf Islands deliveries; call for details. Those are Duncan's terms; Nanaimo, Campbell River and Port Alberni confirm their own. One caveat from us: a mattress may need a different shipping method across the Island, and a cabinet bed travels with its mattress inside, so ask which applies.
From the Comox Valley, the Campbell River store on Homewood Road is closest, 58 km from Comox, and it prices delivery to Courtenay and Comox itself. From Duncan, a run that far is for larger orders.
When the order is in, we call to book a time, Monday to Friday between 9 and 5. If the bed you choose is a special order, we ask for a 24% deposit when it goes in. A cabinet bed as a special order takes 2 to 3 weeks, ready for pickup or delivery. We finance. Ask us how.* A Fairstone® plan can spread a cabinet bed over time.
*On approved credit. Terms and conditions apply. An annual fee will be charged to your account as set out in the Retail Credit Agreement. See our Financing page for more details about our plans.
Merit backs the maker's warranty on what we sell. We order the parts and look after the repair, so a problem with the chest or its mattress starts with a call to us.
Where can I find cabinet beds in Canada?
Sleepchest sells through dealers, and its site finds the nearest one by postal code. On Vancouver Island, Merit's ten are in the cabinet bed collection, each with its photos and price.
Where the cabinet bed figures come from
- Sleepchest, Support and frequently asked questions (mechanism, mattress sizes, weight limit, warranty, Murphy bed comparison), checked September 2026.
- Sleepchest, Setup and how-to-use sheet (two-person lift, anti-tip restraint, levelling feet, cautions), checked September 2026.
- Sleepchest model pages for the Cabos, Cape Cod, Caspian, Clifton, Dawson, Madrid, Midtown, Stockholm and Tuscany (sizes and boxes), checked September 2026.
- Sleepchest, About and Contact, checked September 2026.
- Bestar, Pur 65W Queen Murphy bed and its FAQ, checked September 2026.
- La-Z-Boy, Kennedy Queen Sleep Sofa, checked September 2026.
- Health Canada, Furniture, appliance and television tip-overs, checked September 2026.
- Health Canada, wall bed recall, November 21, 2024, checked September 2026.
- Health Canada, mobile Murphy bed recall, December 7, 2023, checked September 2026.
- HealthLink BC, Checklist for preventing falls at home, checked September 2026.
- Polyurethane Foam Association, Glossary (high resilience foam, support factor), checked September 2026.
- CertiPUR-US, the certification program, checked September 2026.
- Merit Home Furniture's live Sleepchest, La-Z-Boy Kennedy and sleeper sofa listings, and its delivery, returns, financing, warranty and Campbell River store pages, read September 23, 2026, with prices re-read October 16, 2026.
Opening a Sleepchest cabinet bed before you buy one
Call before you drive to ask whether a Sleepchest is set up, and which front. The Duncan showroom on Ingram Street is open Monday to Saturday, 9 to 5. From the Comox Valley, the Campbell River store at (250) 286-0868 is the nearer call. Bring the room's depth from the wall and the width of the narrowest door on the way in. Nobody will follow you around while you open and close it.
Call the Duncan store, (250) 746-5527
The rest of our bedroom furniture writing is on one page. For a bed that stays up all year, what a regular bed frame adds to a mattress is measured maker by maker.