This week’s project comes from Bob. Let’s check it out and read his comments:
Here are a couple of photos of a Murphy Bed and pair of bookcases that I made for the spare bedroom/office in my home. I got the project plans from Workbench magazine and modified it to fit my space. The Murphy Bed mechanism came from Rockler. I made the sides of the bed and bookcases from Birch plywood. White Birch hardwood was used for the face frames. I used Minwax tung oil and wipe on poly to finish the project. The center section was painted to match the walls. I don’t have a mattress yet so that’s why I’m using my air compressor as a counter weight.
This is the fifth woodworking project that I’ve undertaken and by far it’s the largest. It’s not perfect but it’s functional. I’ve learned a lot from building it and I hope to avoid my mistakes on future projects. Thanks for the web site and keep up the good work.
13 Responses to “Murphy Bed – Project of the Week”
Pretty nice. Couldn’t tell that this was only your 5th project!
The Murphy Bed looks very good. It’s a nice way to make a room serve two purposes.
A suggestion: I’ve seen an illustration of a Murphy Bed project where the builder put a picture hanger in the middle of the “wall” area and another in the middle of the fake “wall” on the bottom of the bed frame. Then she picked a nice picture and moved it from one “wall” to the other, depending whether the bed was up or down.
To a true woodworker/tool-nut like me, the compressor doesn’t look at all out of place….
Very Nice. I agree with Tom about the air compressor. Claude
Nice
Nice, That is something I want to tackle down the road. Looks good.
Every time I see the Rockler Catalog and see the Murphy bed mechanism and think about making that project. Your bed now has me trying to decide where to build it, and how to sell it to my wife. I liked the white birch a lot more then I thought I would. Great Job.
A picture would be nice on that fake wall, but I think what would truly finish off that piece is a 52″ plasma flat screen TV. I agree with JT, you’d never know it was only your 5th project.
Hey cuz, great job. It looks really nice. I like the bookcases – nice touch.
LOOVE the concept :-) did not notice the compresser (my tool storage IS my room) can’t seem to find out how you hid the end leg of the bed?
the compressor is to keep the bed down until the mattress is fitted?
“ButI’mMuchBetterNow”
Make sure you follow up with it when it is finished. It looks impressive already, but will only get better finished.
here is a link to how he hid the bed legs, if you look at the “folding” image, the legs swivel up,
http://plansnow.com/dn1117c.html
the face that is facing us is now on top of the bed when folded, facing the floor, rotates 180 degrees.
pretty neat idea
Very nice work on the custom wall bed.
Take a look at Cabinet Systems Wall Bed Gallery for some good ideas on doing this yourself.