by Maggie Mae

Created on: September 27, 2008   Last Updated: September 03, 2010

Imagine a place to sleep that can quickly disappear when you need extra room. No, you are not a magician, you are the owner of a Murphy Bed. What is a Murphy bed? Well, it is a bed that folds up toward the wall either vertically or horizontally depending on your choice. It can be any size that you want. The sizes of these wall beds range from as small as a twin to as large as a California King. There are countless options to choose from in your selection of a fold away bed. Let me highlight the best features of a Murphy Bed.

1. My favorite is the added space that you gain with a fold away bed. You can have an area in your room that is open during the day to allow children to play or for you to have a home office. Then at night, just unfold the bed to sleep peacefully.

2. The cabinets, bookshelves or even workstations that surround or cover the Murphy Bed once it is folded are amazing. A person would never know that a bed was inside until you showed them. There are many wonderful websites that display options available. All I did was Google Murphy Beds, and I was really amazed at the wealth of information about these fold-away beds.

3. Everyone can find a Murphy Bed to love. There are an abundance of finishes available to match any decor.

4. The option to build a Murphy Bed to your design is available. For example, if you son loves trains, you could build him a train against his wall, then at night he could pull down the engine (a horizontal Murphy Bed) to sleep in comfortably. In fact on one episode of Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, the crew built a Murphy Bed to look like bleachers at a sporting event. The front two bleachers were actually a set of drawers that moved on rollers. The last riser was the fold-away bed. How clever.

Now how do you go about building your fold-away bed? The first step is plan the bed and find the hardware you need to build it. There are kits available on line at sites such as http://www.murphybeds.com. The direct page is http://www.murphybeds.com/hardwareKits.asp. You also have to know what you want to surround and hide the bed. Plan for the size of the room, what purpose the room has when the bed is folded away, the function of the bed (company or daily personal use), and the number of times you plan on using the bed. The choices are endless when you design your own bed.

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