The Battle of the Murphy Bed

About six weeks ago I finally got around to fulfilling one of my childhood fantasies—I ordered a Murphy bed. I'm not sure why I've always been so obsessed with them. Maybe it was growing up in the late 70's and early 80's and seeing all sorts of depictions of small NYC apartments with beds that came out of the wall that did it. A big part of it probably had to do with my younger self's repeated watching of the film Foul Play and the hilarious scene involving Dudley Moore's bachelor pad and his priceless Murphy bed setup. Who knows? Regardless, I've always wanted one and our guest bedroom/office seemed like the perfect place to put it, as we probably only have guests 10-20 days out of the year.

After researching pretty much every Murphy bed company in the country, I decided on The Bedder Way, mostly due to the fact that they were one of the only places that used real wood to make their beds and because their prices were literally a fraction of every other place I found. The bed was delivered on Friday and Eric and I set aside some time on Friday after work to put it together. The instructions said it would take two people 45-60 minutes total. Ha! Yeah, that's funny.

So needless to say it took us almost 5 hours to put the bed together due to a variety of factors that the bed company did not take into account. First off, we needed about twice as much space as we had to assemble the bed, as they required you to lay all the parts out of the floor and move around them to assemble the frame. Well, the reason we got the Murphy bed in the first place was we were tight on space in this room. So needless to say we didn't have nearly enough to room to lay everything out and then work around it without some serious acrobatics. The other big issue was that our floor and our wall were not 100% level and plumb (as most floors and walls are) and the bed had absolutely no tolerance to be installed any other way than on a perfectly level surface against a perfect flat wall. After spending a few hours shimming the bottom up to get it level we were finally ready to screw into the wall.

Then another issue presented itself as the walls are sheetrock over plaster over brick. Finding the studs was literally impossible with that many layers not to mention the fact that most stud finders work by finding either metal studs or metal screws in wood studs—it was like a wild goose chase, we made so many holes in the wall looking for something solid to drill into. We finally found just one wood stud in that wall but we unfortunately needed at least 3 to attach the bed. Eric constructed a wood backing plate to put against the top of the bed to attach into the studs which also solved the problem of the wall not being perfectly flat. Then we used long masonry screws to get through all that sheetrock and plaster to the brick underneath—this bed isn't going anywhere now! Finally at around midnight we put the finishing touches on the bed, exhausted but happy to have completed something.

Without further ado I give you the Murphy bed:

It's a queen-sized vertical dresser cabinet face made with birch wood stained to look like mahogany with modern chrome hardware. When the inside is properly set up I will take some photos of that too—we opted for interior lighting with a touch-pad switch that I will take some photos of once I have all the wires setup and the holes in the wall filled and repainted. It's huge and was a pain to put together but we love it! Aside from some of the assembly hassles, I found the bed to be very well constructed and gorgeously finished. I would highly recommend the company we bought it from to anyone looking to purchase a Murphy bed. Just remember, you don't just need the right allen wrench—the type of scotch you are using makes all the difference.

Comments

[Why S?]

I am so jealous! of the bed, not the 5 hours of work.

[Jennifer]

I LOVE that bed! I want a murphy bed, too... I think they are SO COOL!

[maureenblum]

I like yours better than the Ft. Lee one. What a beauty.

[JB]

Fort Lee Bed at
http://www.murphybedsystems.com/Gallery01.asp

[dana]

maureen--thems fighting words! But thanks to all. I love it too. I can't stop staring at it. The cats however are very confused about where the other bed went. They'll get over it eventually.

[Maureen]

What color paint is that around the Murphy Bed? It is beautiful and would look great in our soon to be painted living room.

Maureen

[dana]

it's Ralph Lauren's Townhouse red available at Home Depot. If you like that wait until we post our pictures of the finished living room, where we also use the same color on one of the big walls.

[ezky]

um -- hi i'm a stranger and found you by googling. i just got this bed from the bedder way :

http://bungalove.livejournal.com/3933.html

and i too have had a bizarre obsession with murphy beds (and grew up in the 70s and 80s--go figure).

anyway here's my question -- did you install your own lights into the bed or did you order it with the lighting option? I got mine discounted, so no lights for me, but I'd be into adding one myself if I knew how.

Thanks!

[dana]

hi ezky--wow nice murphy bed! we opted to get them to install the lights for us but it doesn't look like it would be very hard. It's a standard under counter puck 3 light system that is installed from the top so all the wires are up there are hidden by the crown molding. You would just need a dremel like too to cut the openings for the 3 lights that are daisy chained together. knowing how they did it we probably we have opted to do it ourselves with chrome lights as the ones it came with are white and don't really match our decor.

[ezky]

hey thanks ! my carpenter recommends a couple of 'spotlights' whatever that means -- he think he can hide the wires in the top of the bed. i'll refer him to your description.

[dana]

yeah i think they are sometimes called spotlights, you can get them at home depot or pretty much any lighting store--usually 3 of them are daisy chained together. They are pretty cheap and should be easy to install. You can definitely hide the wires on top of the bed. Good luck!