There are two ways to stop a bed eating the room: use the square metre under the mattress that is doing nothing, or have the bed only exist when it is needed. One warning before you start: no maker publishes how many litres its bed holds, which is the figure that matters most in the ones with storage. We leave it empty and say so.
4 products measured · 1 of 4 folding models publish their stored size · prices checked on 12 Sep
Type in the gap available and we will mark what fits.
JAY-BE
folds in halfOpen70.0 × 190.0 × 35.0 cmStored70.0 × 10.0 × 95.0 cm
10 cm thick folded
Best for A one-bedroom flat where a guest bed has to live in a cupboard eleven months a year.
8.3/10 overall score
£87.00 £125.00 -30 %Price as of 12 Sep 2026
Vesgantti
folds in sectionsOpen75.0 × 190.0 × 10.0 cmStorednot verified
6.48 kg, folds in three
Best for A flat where the guest sleeps on the floor of whichever room is free.
7.8/10 overall score
£59.49 £69.99 -15 %Price as of 12 Sep 2026
Luxchoice
inflatableOpen99.0 × 190.0 × 22.0 cmStorednot verified
Deflated it is a bag
Best for A flat with no cupboard to spare, where a guest sleeps two nights a year.
6.8/10 overall score
£53.99 £55.99 -4 %Price as of 12 Sep 2026
GFW
lift-up ottoman baseOpen106.0 × 202.0 × 85.0 cmStorednot verified
The storage is under the sleeper
Best for A bedroom with no wardrobe space, where the only free volume left is under the bed.
5.9/10 overall score
£158.00 £169.00 -7 %Price as of 12 Sep 2026
You are buying blind on one figure, and you should know it. It is the problem of the whole category: no maker publishes how many litres its bed holds. Not one. In every other section of this site we can tell you how much goes in; here we cannot, because the number does not exist. We leave it empty rather than estimate it, and if a seller quotes you a figure, ask where it came from.
Storage under the sleeper and a bed that disappears are different purchases. A base that lifts uses the volume under a bed you were going to have anyway, and it is the answer when the problem is that your own room has no wardrobe. A bed that folds answers the other question: where does a guest sleep when there is no guest room. Neither is better; they solve opposite problems.
A lifting base needs room to lift. It is the complaint that turns up most in reviews of this kind of bed. A side-opening base needs clear floor down the side; a foot-opening one needs it at the end. In a small bedroom, where the bed is usually against a wall or wedged between two, that decides which one you can actually use. Measure both before choosing.
And ask what it measures folded, because most will not say. Of the four here, only one publishes it, and that one folds to 10 cm. Everything else asks you to guess whether it will fit your cupboard. Where the figure is missing we leave the space score empty rather than work it out from the open size, which would be a guess with a number on it.
A note on lifting bases, because it differs by country. In Spain we do not recommend a single one: they sit between 3.3 and 3.9 out of 5 on Amazon.es, with repeated complaints about transit damage and hardware failing. Here that is not what the ratings say, so there is one in this selection. Same kind of furniture, different market.
Beds that save space
Beds that put themselves away, mattresses that fold and beds that store things underneath. How much room each takes the 360 days nobody sleeps in it.
