diana writes, "living in a one bedroom flat in central london, i really needed an easy, convenient place to put overnight guests. this turned out to be the perfect solution: a horizontal, single murphy bed that projects out a mere 25 cm (10") from the wall.
closed
open!i started with a sultan landon slatted bed base, added swiveling wooden legs (with an extra screw hole for locking them in place when down) and a metal reinforcement along one end (one of those white steel narrow bars used for mounting wall shelves, which come (happily) in 200 cm (79") lengths).
i then mounted the whole thing with strong screws on two short wooden legs (with the base screwed into the floor) that could swivel up and down. the bed was finished by strapping on an ikea mattress - i chose the sultan enebakk because it had the best combination of thinness and comfort/firmness, but it is quite heavy so in retrospect i might now prefer a slightly less comfy foam mattress, just to make things a bit easier.
i then purchased a piece of plywood cut exactly to measure and applied it to the back of the bed base using heavy duty velcro tape (to allow for easy access to the inside of the base later on), mounted a wall shelf on top to hide the legs when they are pivoted in, and painted the whole thing the same color as the walls. the bed works great - and was much cheaper and actually is much slimmer and less intrusive than what i could have bought ready-made. most commercially available murphy beds cost over $2000 and are over 30 cm thick (some as thick as 45 cm), so i'm really happy with my ikea hack!"
