Beehive Wall Beds
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IKEA does not sell a murphy bed. Here is what people find instead.
"Murphy bed IKEA," "queen murphy bed IKEA" and "wall bed IKEA" are searched in Utah every month, and the honest answer is short: IKEA does not sell one. Here is what you actually find when you look, why the hack projects exist, and what a real wall bed costs at each step up from there.
The short answer
IKEA does not make or sell a murphy bed. If you search for one you will land on three things: IKEA sofa beds and daybeds, blog posts and videos about turning an IKEA wardrobe into a wall bed, and third-party retailers hoping the word IKEA brings you to a flat-pack bed of their own.
None of those is a murphy bed from IKEA. Knowing that saves an afternoon.
What you actually find at IKEA
Sofa beds. A couch that unfolds into a bed. Cheap, easy to carry home, and the mattress is a thin pad on a metal frame. Fine for a few nights a year.
Daybeds. A twin frame that doubles as seating and often pulls out to a wider bed. The frame takes the floor permanently, so the room never gets its space back.
Wardrobes. This is where the hack comes from. A tall wardrobe frame is the right size and shape to look like a murphy bed cabinet, and it is far cheaper than one.
Why the hack trend exists
The gap between a few hundred dollar wardrobe and a four thousand dollar wall bed is wide enough that people try to bridge it themselves. The usual project is a Pax wardrobe frame, a murphy bed mechanism kit bought elsewhere, a plywood platform for the mattress, and a weekend.
Some of those projects turn out well. The people who do them well tend to add a plywood back and reinforced sides, anchor into studs with lag bolts, and spec a mechanism for the real weight of the mattress. The ones that go badly skip one of those steps.
The issue is not the brand. It is that a wardrobe is engineered to hold clothes on a floor, and a murphy bed cabinet is engineered to carry a mattress and a spring or piston mechanism while bolted to a wall and opened a few hundred times a year. Those are different jobs. A wardrobe box can be made to do the second one, but by the time it is reinforced and fitted with a decent mechanism, the money and the weekend start to look like a flat-pack bed that was built for the job.
The honest alternatives, at each price
The 2026 Utah price ladder runs like this, installed:
- A sofa bed or daybed, a few hundred dollars. The right answer if guests come once or twice a year and the room has no other job.
- A flat-pack murphy bed, $400 to $1,500 plus install. Costco, Wayfair, Home Depot, Walmart and Amazon all list them. Particleboard or MDF cabinet, lighter mechanism, standard sizes. The Costco and Wayfair pages go into what you get. This is what the Pax hack is trying to be.
- A real wood cabinet chest bed, $1,400 to $2,800. A low chest that pulls out into a bed. No wall anchoring, thinner mattress, real wood.
- A shipped real wood murphy bed, $3,700 to $5,100 plus install. Solid wood cabinet, piston mechanism, standard widths, you or an installer assemble it.
- A custom cabinet bed built and installed locally, $4,400 to $6,500. Built to your wall, matched to your house, installed by a crew, with a free design visit first. Side cabinets, a desk or a sofa take it to $6,500 to $10,000.
Which one for your room
The question is how many nights a year the bed is used and whether the room has a second job. Once a year with no other use, buy the sofa bed. A dozen nights a year in a room that is otherwise an office or a basement living space, a flat-pack bed is workable and we will install it. Weekly use, a mattress people actually sleep well on, or a bed that has to look like it belongs with the house, and you are in the real wood or custom rows.
If you already started a wardrobe project and want a second opinion on the anchoring or the mechanism, send photos. Otherwise send the room, we reply the same business day with a range and a visit time. Send it here.
Questions people ask
Does IKEA sell murphy beds?
No. IKEA sells sofa beds, daybeds and wardrobes, and the "IKEA murphy bed" results online are mostly do-it-yourself projects that combine an IKEA wardrobe with a mechanism kit from someone else.
What is the IKEA Pax murphy bed hack?
A project where a Pax wardrobe frame is used as the cabinet and a separately bought murphy bed mechanism is bolted inside it. The frame was designed to hold clothes, so the project depends on reinforcing it and anchoring it properly.
What is the cheapest real murphy bed in Utah?
A flat-pack cabinet bed from Costco, Wayfair, Home Depot, Walmart or Amazon, $400 to $1,500, plus a few hundred dollars for installation if you do not do it yourself.
Is an IKEA sofa bed a good alternative?
For a room that hosts guests a few nights a year, a sofa bed is the cheapest workable answer. The mattress is thin and the seating is compromised, which is why people who host more often end up looking at a wall bed.