Our new home has two 10X10 bedrooms in addition to the master. We are using one of the bedrooms as a workout room and one as an office. However, we have guests 2-3 times per year and we needed a comfortable place for them to sleep without losing an entire room as the “guest” room.
The “Murphy” or wall bed you see was a good solution to this problem. It was built using just the Ryobi One + tools (which are GREAT!) you see plus a couple of Kreg jigs, a Keter folding table, a router, a square, and the occasional hand tool. I used a stock plan and modified it for size (Queen) and style.
There are Murphy Bed hardware kits for around $300 but I decided that I could accomplish the same thing with a bit of research on which gas shocks I needed and what hardware I could use to make the pivot point. The costs were under $150.00 for the hardware, around $300 for the wood (paint grade select pine and paint grade birch plywood) and the Serta mattress was right at $300.
I also wanted some bookshelves (for both pictures and books) and a small table that doubles as a night stand when the bed is down so I measured the space and put together some fairly simple built-in shelves after the bed was completed. I trimmed the sides using 1X2’s and the bottom using standard base moulding and, once caulked and painted, the two parts look like one big built in piece of furniture. The paint is the same color as the trim in the rest of the house so it matches nicely.
So, for $750 and 60 or so hours of my time we now have a nice solution to a common problem!
Our new home has two 10X10 bedrooms in addition to the master. We are using one of the bedrooms as a workout room and one as an office. However, we have guests 2-3 times per year and we needed a comfortable place for them to sleep without losing an entire room as the “guest” room. The “Murphy” or wall bed you see was a good solution to this problem. It was built using just the Ryobi One + tools (which are GREAT!) you see plus a couple of Kreg jigs, a Keter folding table, a router, a square, and the occasional hand tool. I used a stock plan and modified it for size (Queen) and style. There are Murphy Bed hardware kits for around $300 but I decided that I could accomplish the same thing with a bit of research on which gas shocks I needed and what hardware I could use to make the pivot point. The costs were under $150.00 for the hardware, around $300 for the wood (paint grade select pine and paint grade birch plywood) and the Serta mattress was right at $300. I also wanted some bookshelves (for both pictures and books) and a small table that doubles as a night stand when the bed is down so I measured the space and put together some fairly simple built-in shelves after the bed was completed. I trimmed the sides using 1X2’s and the bottom using standard base moulding and, once caulked and painted, the two parts look like one big built in piece of furniture. The paint is the same color as the trim in the rest of the house so it matches nicely. So, for $750 and 60 or so hours of my time we now have a nice solution to a common problem!
