DIY Installing a Fold Away Bed

By Mark Clement

An “above the fold” bedroom upgrade.

“Above the fold,” I learned a few years ago, is something that merits extra attention.

The “fold” being referenced, of course, is the fold of a newspaper. Something above it, and therefore seen first, is taken to be more important, interesting, or otherwise meritorious of our attention.

Well, I’m hijacking that phrase and repurposing it to describe a home-improvement project I’ve recently completed—one that folds away, no less. It’s a Murphy bed—or wall-bed—and now that it’s in, this furniture-grade upgrade gets and deserves a lot of attention in my house.

When my wife and I designed the room (our son’s room; he’ll be just a few months old when you read this … please wire your cash gifts to my Grand Cayman account; thank you in advance), we knew we would like the wall-bed. As designed, it would enable us to optimize the pace in the room. But now that this bad boy is in, it’s 10 times better than we expected—now there’s a good deal.

And, while I customized our room to accommodate the bed, installing the bed unit itself, manufactured by The Old Creek Wall Bed Factory, proved fast and fun. Let’s get to it.

Design

The Old Creek Wallbed Factory www.OldCreekWallBedFactory.com  where we got our bed, has several finishes to choose from. We selected the clear maple in the Mission style. It’s sleek, slick profile and crisp, classic lines fit nicely with the room’s color and decor. The muted, but classic wood grain gives us design options in the future, like re-painting some years hence.

Because our boy is the youngest, his room is also our designated guest room, so when Grandma comes to visit, he gets the boot and she gets a refined place to lay her head. We also included a maple side-tower, or cabinet, that matches the bed’s trim package. Here, of course, we can store not only his things but bedding and the like, thereby maximizing limited space—both in this room and in the house—attractively.

Get organized early. Make sure all the hardware that's supposed to be included is there. Then place it all in an accessible, but out-of-the-way location so you can get to it later. I like to remove all this stuff from the little plastic bags first, so when I need them I can simply grab them.

Making Sure It Fits. A queen size bed worked best for our space, and that’s what we ordered. The key piece of design information related to bed size is this: Make sure it fits into—and through—your house.

Carefully pry the e-clips from the rod on the side panel using a flat head screwdriver. Unlike some e-clips I've wrestled with, these actually came off without a battle. Then place them carefully where you can reach them. Knocking one down a floor vent by mistake is frustrating.