Twin murphy beds: the kid's room, the small office, and two beds on one wall

A twin murphy bed is the smallest cabinet bed you can buy with a real mattress, and it solves rooms that a queen never will: the 9 by 10 foot kid's room, the office with one free wall, the basement nook under a window. Here are the dimensions, the layouts that work, and what the ladder says a twin costs.

Twin dimensions, vertical and horizontal

The mattress is a standard twin, 38 by 75 inches. A twin size murphy bed uses the same piston mechanism as a queen, scaled down, so it opens with one hand and a ten year old can close it.

Where a twin wins

The kid's room. A vertical twin wall bed on the short wall leaves the floor open for Legos, a desk and a dresser. When a friend sleeps over, the bed comes down and the floor is still mostly there because the open bed is only 45 inches wide. In a 10 by 10 room a queen would eat the whole floor; a twin leaves half of it.

Two kids, one room. Two horizontal twin murphy beds stacked on one wall, bunk-bed style, each on its own mechanism. The lower cabinet sits at the floor and the upper cabinet above it, so the stack is about 92 inches tall and needs a 9 foot ceiling to be comfortable. Each bed folds down on its own, which means one kid can sleep while the other's bed stays closed. A 9 foot basement in a newer Lehi or Saratoga Springs home is the typical spot.

The small home office. A twin murphy bed with desk puts a desk surface on a 45 inch wide cabinet. That is narrow enough to fit beside a closet door in most bedrooms, and the desk stays level when the bed comes down. See the murphy bed with desk page for how the desk mechanism works.

Under a window. A horizontal twin is only 46 inches tall, so it sits under a standard basement window or a soffit and still gives a full-length bed. This is the answer in a lot of older Utah ramblers where the free wall has a window halfway up it.

The guest room that is really a closet. A 7 foot wide alcove or a deep closet with the doors off fits a horizontal twin almost exactly.

When to go bigger

A twin is for one person, and a tall adult will feel the 75 inch length. If the room is for two guests or a couple, look at a full for narrow rooms, dimensions on the sizes page, or the queen murphy bed for anything 11 feet deep or more. A twin XL, 80 inches long, is a special order that adds about 5 inches of cabinet height on a vertical and width on a horizontal.

What a twin costs on the ladder

The 2026 Utah ladder does not give twins much of a discount. The cabinet is smaller, but the mechanism, the finishing and the half-day install are the same as a queen.

• Flat-pack twin from Wayfair, Home Depot or Amazon: $400 to $1,500 plus a few hundred to install.
• Shipped real-wood twin from a national builder: $3,700 to $5,100 plus install.
• Custom twin, built and installed locally: $4,400 to $6,500.
• Twin with desk or side cabinets: $6,500 to $10,000.

Two stacked twins are two beds and two mechanisms, so budget roughly double a single cabinet, less the shared finishing. The full ladder with what moves the number is on the cost page.

Three things to check in a kid's room

1. Ceiling fan. A vertical twin swings down 81 inches from the wall. A fan over the middle of a small room is in the path more often than people expect.
2. Closet doors. Bifold and sliding doors near the bed wall need to clear the open cabinet. We measure this on the visit.
3. Who closes it. A twin on pistons is light enough for a child to lift, but the mattress has to be the weight we spec for. A 14 inch pillow top is too heavy for the mechanism and too thick for the cabinet.

Send the room through the estimate form, with the wall width, ceiling height and who is sleeping there, and we reply the same business day with the layout that fits.