Murphy Bed

The old concept of a Murphy Bed always made sense, allowing more efficient use of the space in a room. We decided that our guest room, also used part time as an office, would be a perfect place for our own Murphy Bed. With a queen size hardware kit and basic plans from Rockler, I modified the design slightly by adding two side cabinets and some decorative trim on the main panel, to give it the appearance of an amoire when the bed was in the closed position.

While the basic woodworking for this project was fairly straightforward, the challenge was building a large hinged mechanism that opened and closed while maintaining a nice, uniform reveal around the opening. The addition of a good quality queen sized mattress resulted in a very comfortable bed for overnight guests. The gas shocks make opening and closing this Murphy Bed an easy one-person task.

This modern Murphy Bed has allowed us to utilize the majority of space in our guest room as an office, and easily converts to a comfortable guest room when needed.