When I was a kid, I slept in a Murphy bed. They’re also known as hideaway beds or wall beds. It was awesome for several reasons, but one in particular: making my bed consisted of bungee-cording my pillow and blanket to the bed and then sending it up and into the wall. It took me about 3 seconds to “make” my bed, with no military style sheet tucking or parental nagging needed. To this day I am still reluctant to make the bed. After all, I’m only going to be sleeping in it again later that same day. It’s wasted effort I say! Not surprisingly, my wife disagrees with this philosophy. If you’d like to avoid making your bed and then hide the evidence of your misconduct, maybe a Murphy Bed is just what you need too. But wait, I know what you’re thinking, “Aren’t Murphy Beds around $2000?!” Not if you DIY your own Murphy Bed with the Create-a-Bed kit available from our sponsor Rockler.
Aside from hiding your unmade covers, Murphy Beds excel in other areas. Most notably, hideaway beds save space. They’re ideal for a guest room that does double duty for other purposes. You simply fold the bed up, and voila, you’ve saved yourself more square footage than the Las Vegas convention center, give or take a couple million square feet. In some rooms a conventional bed looks out of place or can even be an obstacle to traffic flow. A wall bed can solve all that. Here’s a quick video showing an overview of the Murphy Bed kit Rockler offers:
The Murphy Bed kit includes all you need to get your hideaway bed DIY on, with the exception of cabinetry, a mattress and all that pesky bedding you’re planning on hiding. To avoid being a sucker and buying a low quality, poorly designed kit, I don’t like to be the first one to order a kit like this. Fear not! At the time of writing this article, the Rockler website has a whopping 45 reviews, all tallying up to an impressive five star rating. It’s one of their top sellers. Amazon has another four reviews, also with a combined five star rating. Words like “excellent directions”, “goes together very easily”, “quality product”, and “strongly recommend” are just a few bits of a great deal of glowing praise. That kind of praise is hard to find on just about any kit. Numerous reviews tout the instructions and included DVD video as essential, and several also emphasize it’s very important to read/view the instructions BEFORE getting your project rolling. Word to the wise, this isn’t a project to wing it without the directions.
The kits come in twin, full and queen sizes, so make sure you’re ordering the right size for your project. You can find this Murphy Bed Kit for just $299 from Rockler (via Amazon).