Also known as a fold-down, pull-down bed, or a wall bed, the most unique feature of a Murphy bed is that you can retract it from the regular horizontal placement when you’re not using it and store it standing vertically against a wall or concealed inside a cabinet or closet.
As convenient as Murphy beds can be when it comes to saving space, they certainly don’t come cheap. These beds can easily cost you more than $1,500, which brings about the question: why are Murphy beds so expensive?
To put it simply, the higher-than-average price tag of murphy beds is because they use premium construction materials, incorporate sophisticated lifting mechanisms, and require professional installation. Additionally, if you include bedding and extra features such as shelves or drawers, the final cost will go up.
My wife was all settled to get us one for guests but we didn’t totally agree mainly because of the cost. In today’s article, we’re discussing the reasons why Murphy beds are expensive. So keep reading if you’re looking for a more detailed answer.
Also, I’ll give you a couple of other options – that I personally took – in order to get one saving money.
1. Murphy Beds are Made Using Premium Wood
The first reason why Murphy beds are priced so high is their expensive construction material, which is mostly premium solid wood. Not only does this result in durable and beautiful beds, but also pricey ones.
Still, a lot of people don’t mind paying extra for the quality that fine wood, such as oak and mahogany, can offer. To them, a Murphy bed is more of a long-term investment, which makes it worth the money.
Besides the bed frame, any featured side shelves, cabinets, headboards, and so on are also made using premium hardwood plywood. All of these elements are then assembled with a smooth finish.
As such, each part of a Murphy bed offers the quality, look, and durability of premium solid wood. While this makes Murphy beds generally expensive, it also means they’re built to last for decades.
2. Murphy Beds Feature Advanced Lifting Hydraulics
Murphy beds are equipped with sophisticated hydraulics to serve as lifting mechanisms in their signature retraction feature. These systems allow you to easily pull down and raise your bed, solving the age-old issue that previously plagued the wall bed industry; effort.
A lot of people avoid buying fold-down beds because they worry that it’s going to be difficult to lift and pull down the bed every morning and night, especially if it’s a kid, an elder, or someone with a medical condition.
Luckily, the advanced hydraulic mechanisms incorporated in Murphy beds eliminated this problem. They make it possible for anyone to open or fold the bed with minimal effort. But as you can guess, this fix comes with a price.
3. Murphy Beds are Sizeable
While it’s true that Murphy beds offer convenient functionality when it comes to saving space, the bed itself tends to be rather large.
It’s to the point that if you take a quick survey of the sizes of appliances and other pieces of furniture around your house, you probably won’t find any that’s bigger than a Murphy bed, which is often even larger than a standard bed.
This fact contributes to the high pricing of Murphy beds, especially when you consider that all that size is made out of expensive materials.
4. Murphy Beds Require Professional Installation
With all its jazz, a Murphy bed requires an advanced set of skills to install it in place. The average person can rarely provide such a level of handiness, so professional help will probably be needed.
Of course, if you can get the job done on your own, you’ll save some good cash. Otherwise, be prepared to spend extra money on installation.
The exact cost of professional installation will depend on the average labor rate where you live and the complexity of the model you’re looking to set up.
Still, this comes with the advantage of having an experienced worker make sure that everything is intact and the bed is transitioning smoothly from the horizontal to the vertical position.
5. Bedding can Increase the Price
Another reason why Murphy beds are expensive is that they usually come with a mattress of their own. The mattress is probably the most important type of bedding you have to consider if you opt for a Murphy bed as it has to withstand being folded or lifted vertically every day for hours on end.
The included mattress can deal with such hassle. If you, however, choose to buy the bed only, you’ll still need to carefully pick a mattress that can stay upright for a long time. Not all mattresses on the market are designed to do that, especially ones with built-in springs.
Besides the mattress, you’ll need other beddings such as linens, duvets, and pillows that allow for easy folding of the bed. Ideally, you want items made of materials that attach firmly to the mattress. These items cost money, which adds up to the final price of a Murphy bed.
6. You May Want to Include Extra Features
Finally, a Murphy bed will cost you more money if you decide that you want extra features and accessories added to it.
You can ignore such accessories, but the task won’t be easy if you think of the amount of convenience that the many extra features have to offer. Not to mention, the aesthetic value of adding them.
Examples of these features and accessories include shelves, side drawers, cabinet wardrobes, and reading lamps. Each of the items will increase the final cost of your bed.
Here’s a video from Murphy Bed Studio’s Youtube channel showing the Top 7 Murphy Beds for 2022:
What are my options to have a Murphy bed and save money
This is exactly what I wondered so I did my research to convince my wife. And the answer was DIY! There are so many people building their own that it is insane and so cool.
Here below is the one that caught my eye (and over one million others) in Youtube. The overall cost was $100, yes! You are reading that correctly. This guy built a DIY Murphy Bed Without Expensive Hardware. Literally a Homemade Folding Bed under $100. Incredible.
We finally decided not to get one for now and are keeping an eye in second hand ones. However, it is very rare to find them.
Conclusion
There you have it, a detailed answer to the question: why are Murphy beds so expensive?
To sum up, it’s because they use premium construction materials, incorporate sophisticated lifting mechanisms, and require professional installation. Not to mention the saving space and the so convenient design. Additionally, if you include bedding and extra features such as shelves or drawers, the final cost will go up.
However, if you are good at DIY or know someone who is, you may be able to grab a bargain and build one exactly to your necessities and for, according to this video above, for under $100!
