These look great, but there's gotta be a solution that doesn't cost $5000 and take 6 months to ship from Italy...

This is clever. But I think my freshman dorm room layout was better. I had a twin bed on wheels that tucked under a wall-mounted storage unit during the day. The storage unit was mounted just above bed height, ran the length of the bed, was about 10" high and had doors on the front that were slightly slanted back toward the wall. When the bed was tucked under the storage unit during the day, the mattress became a comfortable couch, and the doors provided an inclined backrest. I think the doors opened from the top, for easy access. And, as I remember, the top of the storage unit was the same height as, and connected to, my desk. It was a great use of space in a tiny room.

Wow greer, that set-up in you had in your dorm sounds amazing.... very efficient. I priced out horizontal murphy beds in Vancouver and they were certainly a lot less than $5000. I'm sure if we have them here, you have them in the States.

This actually seems like something that an ambitious diy-er could do...esp since it's a twin.

I think I had the same dorm setup, greer. With material upgrades, it would have been really nice.

I heart you AT for posting any and all creative murphy bed designs. If i stay in the city like i'd hope to i will never have a room that can be just a guest bedroom.
I too have seen dorm's with that design. They were actually comfortable as couches. The design i'd seen had uphostered fronts to the backrest/storage cupboards. many crafty students would staple thier own fabric over the awful orange nubby stuff for a custom look.

You could do two twins in a den/TV room instead of an office like shown.

Greer, you didn't go to Tulane did you? I had the exact same set-up in my freshman dorm!

The best looking one I've seen is also the cheapest, the Moddi Ikea hack, approximately $200:

http://www.moddidaypeople.com/murphy_bed_wall_bed/murphy_bed.html

Horizontal Murphy Beds are the wave of the future.

Mine is a vertical one, just the frame, which opens from within a set of double doors built into my apartment. It cost $250, with free shipping from Murphy Bed Depot. It was quite a daunting effort assembling the beast. It didn't include any cabinetry to conceal it though, which I didn’t need.

I’m not sure I like the laminate look.

Check out pics of my Murphy Bed/Home office/living area all in 480 square feet!

www.dcrinteriors.com

This is a great design! And a few months ago, I found a place in New York that sells these. It's a company called Resource Furniture (http://www.resourcefurniture.com) and they have a whole line of crazy creative wall beds like this (they call them "Space Savers").

I had a buddy who transformed a tiny room that was being used as a makeshift walk-in closet into an office/guest bedroom with a similar model called the "poppibook". I loved it so much that I stopped in to look at stuff for my apartment.

I found the PERFECT bed/desk for myself, called the "ulisse desk". It's a queen bed with a desk on the front, and the coolest thing about it is that when you lower the bed, the desk stays parallel to the ground, so everything that's on the desk can stay there. You can literally can just close your laptop and open your bed! It's the best thing I've ever seen, and I can't wait to actually get it.

If you're squeezed for space, you MUST check out these multi-function wall beds!

Oops. The that link didn't work. Try this:

http://www.resourcefurniture.com

At first I hated the idea of a Horizontal Murphy bed, someone would always be pushed up against the wall and frankly I knew it would be me. However, when ceiling height became and issue, a Horizontal Murphy bed grew on me.

<a ref="htttp://www.wallbedfactory.com">Old Creek Wall Bed Factory</a> has some really great designs, both vertical and horizontal wall beds.

Check out their designs at:
<a ref="htttp://www.wallbedfactory.com"> www.WallBedFactory.com</a>

http:www.murphybedsdirect.com
You can buy the mechanism and cabinet or just mechanisms and make your own cabinets.