He had just bought a high-end townhouse overlooking the Hudson River. He wanted to have a foldaway bed (Murphy Bed) in the guest room.

A niche existed in the wall already so I had to determine whether a Queen sized Murphy bed would fit.

I did a simple drawing showing how I wanted the bed’s bottom to be paneled and included storage cabinets above as we had the room for it.

I usually build a piece an inch less wide than the spot it is to go …to compensate for inaccuracies in the walls, floors, ceilings. I did some research of various hardware kits available. I only wanted the metal parts that allow it to swivel up & down and the mechanism to lock it into it’s closed position …with everything else about the bed, custom made by us.

As small as I could make this foldaway bed to hold a queen sized mattress, we ended up with only an eighth of an inch on each side. Too close for comfort.

Here is a 17 sec video of my son demonstrating how it works right after we installed. You’ll notice that the locking mechanism utilizes two small plaques that when lifted upward, not only unlock the bed from it’s vertical position but also act as support legs when it arrives at it’s horizontal position. So that the plaques looked like they were there for a reason, we mounted a clothes hook on each.

Leslie Gustafson & Co. (interior design) worked with us for this and a number of other projects we accomplished for him before he moved in. I’ll be posting three other blogs of projects for this same client. Stay tuned….

Russell Hudson / Hudson Cabinetmaking, inc.