craigslinst find, Murphy bed !

[phil]

I've been wanting to rent a room out , but with the not huge bedrooms I was debating over providing a double bed or a single, which would allow a bit more room for a desk.. But I can hardly sleep in a double, I have to sleep corner to corner or it's too short.. i have one bedroom with the laundry in the closet , it's not a bad size but not overly wide.
then I found a Murphy bed ! Free yea.. that's within my price range Picked it up Saturday. it isn't vintage, just a veneered plywood box that goes against the wall and the fold down section is powder coated black, but the great thing is that it's 6'6" and the width of a single. Now I'll have tons of room when it's not being used and no height problems , I even got an extra long sheet set with it. The mattress was perfect. made in Canada even I doubt it was used more than a few times.

they had removed it from the wall during painting and somehow it had opened and sprung a weird way. It has a bunch of heavy springs to facilitate closing it, and they got overstretched. so I have to find some new springs but I think I can just order those online if I can't just scrounge up some that will work.

now I'm rearranging furniture. Ill have to make some little cutouts in the back so it can fit over the baseboard. Ill take a pic when I get it installed.

[Manalto]

Great find, Phil. Beds take up valuable real estate for 2/3 of the day doing nothing (although my dog would disagree) so they're an excellent way to open up space. Looking forward to the photos.

[Gothichome]

Yes, we hope to find an antique Murphy bed for Gothichome. We have one really big room upstairs, we use it as a place to store stuff that hasn’t found a home any were else in the home. Put a Murphy in there at it would be a great third guest room/sewing room/storage room.
Oh, and a great find Phill, and I certainly like the price as well.

[phil]

I like this one because it has that little extra length I could actually sleep comfortably in it. At as least as comfortable as I can be alone A real antique one would look and fit nicer of course but actually it wouldn't be that hard to replace the box with some old growth planks and make it look like it's old when closed up. Over the last hundred years or so the average height of people has increased, there must be a lot of people out there now were their bed is a bit too short for them because the standard sizes didn't really grow. I know most have king or queen sized beds but in our little houses they don't always work too well and they weren't common sizes way back when. singles and doubles feel a bit short for me and I'm only 5'10.

[phil]

Spent the weekend ( and a lot of last)

it had little screws that lock onto clip things to make it easy to assemble with minimum tools. I took all the scews out and bedded them in epoxy, then screwed the thing together. I dripped wax in all the screw holes to hide them. It has about 8 springs on each side. they were all kinked, that's why I got it free. I found some springs but not enough so I shortened what springs I had and reformed loops and so some are now two springs linked together. It worked. I notched it out to fit over the baseboard.

at this point they are just a teeny bit too strong. if ginger hops off it will lift off the floor a little. to access the springs I need to unbolt it from the wall and tip it on it's front. I could take one off but Ill just add a metal bar near the front to give it a bit more weight. I can take that off if the springs weaken any or if bedding makes the difference. It now folds up really easily, it's made to disgiuse as a 2 door cabinet. It fits the room quite well. I felt I did ok not spending a dime on it

[Manalto]

Well done - and professionally tested, I see!