Murphy Beds by Fold Direction and Layout
Vertical Murphy Beds
A vertical Murphy bed folds down from its long side. The headboard end stays at the wall, so it sleeps like any other bed, and it's the usual layout for a queen. Angi notes that vertical beds need more ceiling height, since the folded bed stands on end, and puts them at $1,500 to $3,500 installed. With the bed up, the face panel is all anyone sees: a pair of false shaker doors, one flat slab, or a grid of drawer fronts that don't open. Ask what weight the mechanism is rated for, how the counterbalance gets adjusted when you change mattresses, and whether the foot-end leg folds flat when the bed closes.
Horizontal Murphy Beds
A horizontal bed folds from its short side, so the cabinet is wide and low instead of tall. Angi calls it the style for lower ceilings and prices it at $1,500 to $3,800 installed. A side-tilt twin or full fits under a window, below a sloped bonus-room ceiling, or along a casita wall where a tall cabinet would block the light. The wall above stays free for floating shelves or a row of wall cabinets. There are two trade-offs. Open, the bed runs along the wall and takes more floor length. And on a horizontal queen, whoever sleeps by the wall climbs in over the foot. Twins and fulls suit this layout best.
Murphy Beds with a Desk
A desk-front Murphy bed puts a work surface on the face of the cabinet. On many designs the desk stays level as the bed comes down, so lowering it doesn't mean clearing the top first. Others fold the desk up out of the way, and those do need it cleared. Angi lists desk-integrated beds at $2,500 to $6,000. It's the right layout for a spare room that's an office five days a week and a guest room a few nights a year. Ask to see the mechanism cycle with a laptop on the desk. Check that the desk is deep enough for a keyboard and your forearms, and plan the cord path, because a bed that swings down has to clear every cable. A full office wall is a different job, covered under home office cabinets.
Murphy Beds with Side Cabinets
A library-style Murphy bed sits between two towers, with a bridge cabinet over the top that ties it into one built-in. The towers can carry adjustable shelves for books, closed doors for spare bedding, a drawer bank that replaces a dresser, or a narrow wardrobe section with a rod. Angi puts cabinet-style beds at $2,000 to $5,000 and fully custom designs at $3,500 to $15,000 and up, and a full wall like this tends toward the custom end. Puck lights in the bridge and reading lights in the towers are easier to wire before the boxes go in. Each tower needs its own fastening to the wall, the same as the bed cabinet, because a loaded bookcase pulls forward too.
Why St. George homeowners call St. George Cabinet Makers
- Estimates are free, and you're under no obligation to hire
- Measured on site and drawn before you commit
- Written price with species, finish and hardware listed
- One local cabinet maker per request, not a call list
- You pay nothing for the referral itself
Murphy Bed Anchoring and Wall Safety
A wall bed that pulls loose falls on whoever is in it or standing in front of it. That's not hypothetical. In 2025 the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a $16.025 million penalty against one wall-bed company for not reporting a defect quickly. By the time it did report, it knew of 35 incidents of its beds detaching from the wall, with one death and 15 injuries. A separate recall dated November 2024 pulled about 69,300 wall beds from another maker after 22 reports of beds falling and 10 injuries.
The fix isn't exotic. The cabinet goes into wall studs with the fasteners the mechanism maker specifies, and blocking gets added where the studs don't line up with the mounting points. Angi's guide says the same thing about wall-mounted beds: they attach directly to the studs. Before the build, ask the cabinet maker where the studs fall on your wall, what fasteners go into them, and whether the base also screws to the floor. A wall with a plumbing stack or a return-air duct in the stud bays is the wrong wall. Bunks follow their own federal rules, which are on the built-in bunk beds page.
Murphy Bed Cost: Retail Frame or Built In
HomeGuide's range for the bed alone is $300 to $5,800, with a queen at $1,000 to $5,800, plus $100 to $550 for a furniture installer to put it up. Angi's installed numbers run higher: about $3,000 on average, with most jobs between $2,000 and $4,000. Both are national estimates, not quotes.
A custom bed costs more because more of it is cabinetry. The lift hardware is sold on its own (Angi prices the specialty hardware for a DIY build at $100 to $400), so a cabinet maker can build the box, towers and face panels around a standard mechanism. Ask which mechanism they plan to use. Past that, the price follows bed size, the number of towers, drawers versus open shelves, species and finish, lighting and any new wiring. Most of these figures leave out the mattress, which Angi puts at $300 to $1,500.
What a Murphy Bed Drawing Should Show
Get these in writing before you pay a deposit:
- bed size, plus the mattress thickness and weight the mechanism is rated for
- fold direction, closed depth and height, and how far the open bed reaches into the room
- the mechanism's make and model, spring or piston, and how it's counterbalanced
- box material (plywood or particleboard), face panel style, species and finish
- towers, bridge, desk and drawers, each with its size
how it's fastened
Studs, blocking, floor- lights and outlets, and who does the wiring
- delivery, install, and removal and haul-off of the old bed
One desert note. A wide, flat face panel in solid wood shrinks across its width as it dries, and St. George air is dry most of the year. A frame-and-panel face, or veneer over a stable core, handles that better. The humidity and wood-movement numbers are on the entertainment centers page.