How to Measure for a Murphy Bed

Why the ceiling comes first

A vertical wall bed rotates a queen mattress through ninety degrees. The height it needs is therefore the mattress length plus the frame plus the cabinet top, and no amount of room layout changes that arithmetic. It is the one constraint with no workaround, which is why it belongs at the top of the list rather than at the bottom where most guides put it.

Read row three as the escape route. A horizontal bed is 64 inches tall instead of 83 or more, so it clears a low ceiling and fits under a window - and it costs you 84 inches of wall instead of 65. That trade is the whole field in the best horizontal Murphy beds.

The extension number, and the tape on the floor

69.43 inches is 5 ft 9 in. Most people, told that a wall bed “folds away”, do not picture almost eight feet of bed appearing from a 23.5-inch cabinet - and then it appears across the only route to the bathroom.

Tape it out. Run a line on the floor at the extension figure, add a second line 36 inches beyond it, and live with both lines for a day before ordering. It is the single most useful five minutes in this entire purchase, and it is also how you discover that the bed will open onto a radiator or a floor vent.

Where a maker publishes nothing, do not guess. AMERLIFE states no open extension for the horizontal queen - a horizontal queen projects roughly the mattress width, so measure before ordering and ask the seller to confirm. The capacity figures across the category are compared in how much weight a Murphy bed can hold.

The seventh number: the mattress window

Strictly this is not a room measurement, and it is the one people get wrong after everything else has gone right. A wall bed holds its mattress against the frame with straps when it folds, so the mattress has to be inside a published window of thickness and weight.

Bestar's Key West states 8 to 12 inches and 60 to 90 lb. AMERLIFE states 8 to 12 inches, recommends memory foam, innerspring or hybrid, and advises against latex - latex is dense and heavy for its thickness, and a folding bed cares about mattress weight in a way a platform bed does not. Bestar’s horizontal Claremont 80W caps the mattress at 10 inches and 70 lb.

Measure the mattress you already own before assuming it will do. The shortlist that fits these windows is in the best Murphy bed mattresses.

What to do once the numbers pass

If all six clear, the remaining decisions are about use rather than fit: whether the bed is a guest bed or your own bed, whether the wall also has to be a desk or a sofa, and who is doing the install. Those are answered in the best Murphy beds for daily use, the best Murphy bed desk combos and how Murphy beds work.

And if the extension line on the floor is simply too long for the room, that is a real answer rather than a failure. The comparison worth reading at that point is Murphy bed vs sleeper sofa, because a sofa bed’s open depth is 37 to 72 inches rather than 93 - and the measuring equivalent for that format is how to measure for a sleeper sofa.

If all six numbers clear, the next document to read is the install order rather than another buying guide: how to install a Murphy bed picks up where this page stops, starting with locating the studs you marked in step six.

Once the room measures up, the mattress brings two constraints of its own - the depth window in Murphy bed mattress thickness and the exact platform size in what size mattress fits a Murphy bed. And if the space you are measuring is a motorhome rather than a room, the wall and payload figures that rule most of this category out are in Murphy beds for RVs and campers.