How to Assemble a Murphy Bed Cabinet With a Murphy Bed Hardware Kit

2 Materials
$700
6 Days
Medium

For the tiny 200 ft2 studio apartment that I'm making over, I chose to go with a Murphy bed to be able to have both a queen sized bed and a sofa. I didn't have the budget to buy a ready-made Murphy bed, so I chose to build one myself using a Murphy bed hardware kit from murphybeddepot.com that comes with all the hardware for the lifting mechanism and the frame for the bed.

After cutting and staining all the wood components (The Murphy bed kit came with a detailed cabinet design and cut list). I drilled the holes for the bolts that will attach the lift mechanism to the cabinet.

Then I attached the lift mechanism on each of the side panels by putting in the bolts. I followed the instructions to do this, which are very detailed.

Then I assembled the bed frame from that will hold the mattress, again, following the instructions.

Once that was done, it was time to put the cabinet together.

Because this Murphy bed will need to be disassembled when it's time to move, I used brackets and screws (sans glue) to put the cabinet together. Typically either dowels and glue or pocket screws and glue would be used to do this.

Murphy beds need to be secured to the wall studs with brackets before installing the front panel so I used a stud finder to locate them.

The front panel is very heavy so I asked some strong friends to help out with this step. After that was installed, I attached the legs that come with the Murphy bed kit.

This is the completed Murphy bed cabinet but I didn't stop there.

Since this Murphy bed will be used every day as the main bed in this studio apartment, I wanted to make the inside feel like it's own cozy room.

I did that by building in LED wall sconces and painting the interior with a warm orange color inspired by the Venice beach sunsets (the apartment is a couple of blocks from the beach.

The wall lamps are in an industrial style which will be the overall style inspiration for the apartment.

You can see how I built the interior panel and wall lamps in this video and you can also get more details on the Murphy bed cabinet build on my blog.

Suggested materials:
  • Murphy bed hardware kit   (online)
  • 3/4" plywood   (hardware store)
Engineer Your Space
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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