How much space a Murphy bed needs
A wall bed is sold on the promise that it takes no room. Folded up, that is true. It sticks out about as far as a wardrobe. The trouble starts when you put it down, and the room you were going to keep turns out to be underneath it.
So there are really two questions, and they have different answers. Can the cabinet live on that wall? And when the bed is down, is the room still a room?
Measure the cabinet, not the mattress
Every number you need is on the maker’s spec sheet. None of them is the mattress size.
A queen mattress is 60 by 80 inches. The cabinet that holds it is wider than 60, taller than 80, and the bed reaches further than 80 into the room. The frame, the back panel and the fold-down leg all add inches.
Four figures decide the answer:
- Cabinet width. How much wall it eats. Queen vertical cabinets are published at around 65 inches. Side units and trim are extra.
- Cabinet depth, closed. How far it sticks out with the bed up. Published figures mostly run 16 to 21 inches. A cabinet with shelves built into the sides is deeper.
- Cabinet height. Floor to the top, bed up. Queen vertical cabinets run about 84 to 88 inches.
- Reach into the room. Wall face to the far end of the open bed. For a queen vertical bed that is about 86 to 89 inches.
Makers publish these, and they differ by a couple of inches from one to the next. There is no standard. Take yours from the model you are buying.
The floor you need with the bed down
Start at the wall and measure out. About 87 inches of bed, then whatever you want to walk past the foot of it.
Thirty inches is the figure worth aiming at. Below that you turn sideways to get by, which is fine at the end of a spare room and annoying if the bed sits between the door and the desk. Add the two together and a queen vertical bed wants roughly ten feet of room depth.
That is a lot. It is also why the closed measurement fools people: a room that takes the cabinet easily can be two feet short once the bed is down. The room size calculator shows both states on the same plan so you can flip between them.
Ceiling height is the one that stops people
Queen vertical cabinets are roughly 84 to 88 inches tall. A standard ceiling is 96. That sounds comfortable until you measure your own. Basements, loft rooms and older flats are often well under eight feet, and coving or a bulkhead takes another inch or two.
You also have to get the cabinet upright. It goes together flat and is tilted into place, then fixed through its top rail. So makers ask for a gap above the cabinet as well as the cabinet’s own height. The figures quoted run from about two inches up to five.
Check what is on the ceiling, too. A light fitting or a fan in front of the cabinet is in the way of the bed as it comes up, and no plan view will show you that.
Turning it on its side
A horizontal wall bed is mounted sideways. The bed swings out along its long edge instead of down from its head.
The numbers move a long way. A horizontal queen cabinet is about 68 inches tall and reaches roughly 66 inches into the room. Both of those suit a low ceiling or a shallow room. The price is wall: the same cabinet is about 85 inches wide, so it takes seven feet of wall where the vertical version takes five and a half.
The rule is short. Short room, go horizontal. Short wall, go vertical.
One thing to think about first: a horizontal bed has one long side against the wall. You get in and out from the other side or from an end. If you are fitting two people, that matters more than the inches.
What no plan can tell you
A wall bed is heavy, and it swings. It has to be fixed into something structural, which means studs, blocking, or a masonry wall with the right fixings. Some makers also want the base anchored to the floor.
A floor plan measures space. It has no idea what is behind your plasterboard. If the wall you want is a stud wall, find the studs before you order and check they line up with the cabinet’s fixing points. If you are not sure, get a joiner or a fitter to look at it. This is the part of the job where being wrong is expensive.
Measuring your own room
Measure the wall at the height the cabinet will sit, not at waist height. Skirting boards, pipe boxing and a bowed wall all steal width. Measure the ceiling in the corner where the cabinet goes rather than in the middle of the room, because floors slope.
Then measure straight out from that wall to whatever the bed would hit first. That may be the opposite wall. It may be a radiator, a door swing or the end of the rug you are not moving. Type the smaller number.