We now offer our Murphy Beds with or without a foundation.  A foundation is a mattress support. This takes the place of a traditional box spring. Our foundation is made of a frame work of 1 x 3 boards and corrugated material that is then covered and finished with blue fabric. This gives your Murphy Bed a finished look and feel. You can use a piece of plywood cut ½ inch smaller all the way around than the size of your mattress in replace of this foundation, but as you can imagine this leaves a very unappealing look to your bed and can cause splinter injuries when making your bed. We highly recommend that you buy the mechanism with the foundation as priced below. Most of our customer call later to add the foundation.