Wayfair, Home Depot, Walmart and Amazon murphy beds: what $400 to $1,500 buys

"Wayfair murphy bed" is searched hundreds of times a month in Utah, with Home Depot, Walmart and Amazon close behind. All four list flat-pack murphy beds from $400 to $1,500 with mixed reviews. Here is what you are actually buying, how the install goes, who should buy one, and what to do if you already did.

What you are buying at this price

A $400 to $1,500 murphy bed is a flat-pack kit. Across the big online sellers, the product is the same category no matter whose logo is on the box:

• The cabinet is particleboard or MDF with a laminate or printed wood-look skin. Read the materials line in the listing. "Engineered wood" means exactly that, and "solid wood" on a flat-pack listing often refers to a few parts rather than the cabinet.
• The mechanism is a spring kit. Springs are tuned to a mattress weight range and need adjusting. They are louder than pistons and have a narrower tolerance for a heavy mattress.
• Sizes are standard, usually twin, full and queen. The cabinet is as wide and tall as it is, and the ceiling has to clear it.
• Finishes are a short list. White, grey, espresso, a wood print. Matching your trim or cabinets is luck.

Reviews on these listings are mixed, and the pattern behind them is consistent. The good ones describe a square cabinet, a careful anchor into studs and a mattress within the weight limit. The bad ones describe doors that do not line up, a bed that drops too fast, or a panel that cracked on assembly. The product is sensitive to the install in a way that a cabinet-shop bed is not.

Installation, in reality

Most listings say two people and a few hours. Along the Wasatch Front it is more often two people and a full day, for these reasons:

• Squaring the cabinet. Particleboard panels held with cam locks go together easily and go together crooked just as easily. Doors and the mechanism both depend on square.
• Finding studs. Utah drywall is often textured, and basement walls may be concrete behind a furred-out frame. Lags have to land in something solid.
• Setting the springs. The tension is adjusted with the mattress strapped in. Expect several rounds of open, close and adjust.
• Clearance. An 84 to 90 inch cabinet tipping upright needs a little room under the ceiling. Soffits and ducts in basements are where this bites.

Get all four right and the bed works. Miss one and you get the review you read before buying.

Who should buy one

• A guest room that hosts a handful of nights a year.
• A basement, a rental or a kids playroom where the budget stops well under $2,000 and the bed will be replaced before the house is.
• Anyone who wants a wall bed this week.
• Someone who is comfortable with cam-lock assembly and owns a stud finder and a drill.

For those rooms a flat-pack bed is a sensible answer, and the cost page says the same.

Who should not

• Anyone matching the bed to builder trim or existing cabinets.
• A room with a soffit, a low ceiling or a wall that is not plain drywall. A kit cannot be resized. A custom murphy bed is drawn around those things.
• Weekly use with a 10 to 12 inch mattress people want to sleep on.
• Anyone who wants a desk or a sofa that is part of the bed rather than a separate purchase.

Those rooms are better served on a higher rung of the ladder: a real wood chest bed at $1,400 to $2,800, a shipped real wood bed at $3,700 to $5,100 plus install, or a custom bed built and installed locally at $4,400 to $6,500.

Already bought one? We install them.

If the boxes are in the garage and the instructions are not inspiring, that is a common call. Installation of a bought cabinet bed along the Wasatch Front is a few hundred dollars, more with side cabinets or a desk. We assemble it square, anchor it into studs or concrete, set the mechanism to your mattress and adjust the doors, in about half a day.

Send a photo of the room and the listing or the box label, and we reply the same business day with an install price and a date. Send the room.