Build a Murphy Bed With IKEA PAX Frames in 9 Steps for 40% More Floor Space

Why a 236cm PAX frame and not a 201cm one

The taller PAX frame at 236cm gives clearance for the mattress thickness plus the pivot mechanism without the foot end crowding the ceiling when the bed is down. A standard queen mattress at 25cm to 30cm depth needs that headroom inside the cabinet box. The 201cm frame fits an EU single at a push, but the geometry fights you on anything wider, because the mattress sits proud of the door line and the front panel will not close flush.

Two PAX frames bolted side by side give a 100cm or 150cm internal width depending on the units you pick. For a 140cm IKEA mattress you want the 150cm pair with a packing strip, since the bed frame itself eats 4cm to 6cm on each side once you account for the timber bearers. Run the back panels out and replace them with 18mm birch ply, because the supplied hardboard backing will not take the dynamic load of a mattress swinging through 90 degrees twice a day.

The wall is the whole job

Everything that matters about this build is the fixing into the structure behind the plasterboard. A PAX carcass weighs little; a queen mattress and a folded sleeper add 40kg to 60kg of swinging mass, and the moment arm at full extension is brutal.

Step by step through the 9 stages

Step one is locating studs or, on a masonry wall, marking out for resin-anchored M10 bolts. A stud detector reading and a 3mm pilot to confirm beats trusting the beep. On timber-frame walls at 400mm or 600mm centres you fix a horizontal 47mm by 100mm batten across at least three studs, lag-bolted with M8 coach screws at every stud crossing.

Step two builds the furring frame the PAX units screw into, so the load transfers to that batten and never to the wall lining. Step three is assembling both PAX carcasses flat on the floor with the birch ply backs fitted, then standing them and clamping them together before the connecting bolts go in.

Step four mounts the murphy mechanism. The widely used option is a Murphy bed hardware kit with gas-piston or torsion-spring counterbalance; the spring rating has to match your combined mattress and frame weight, typically two springs per side for a queen. Step five fits the bed frame itself, a simple timber ladder of 45mm by 70mm rails with cross slats at 80mm gaps, sized 2cm under the internal cabinet width.

Step six attaches the pivot brackets to both the bed frame and the floor-fixed base plate. This base plate is the second structural fixing and takes resin anchors into the slab or coach screws into a joist. Step seven hangs the front panel, which is a PAX door or a flush birch panel that disguises the unit as a wardrobe when closed. Step eight is the legs, a folding pair that drops to the floor as the bed comes down and carries the foot-end load so the pivot is not holding the whole moment alone.

Step nine is the balance trim. With the mattress in, you adjust spring tension or piston preload until the bed holds at 45 degrees without drifting either way. That neutral-balance check is the single test that tells you the counterbalance is right. A bed that slams shut or creeps open has the wrong spring count.

What it does to the floor plan

A fixed queen bed with 60cm walk-around clearance claims roughly 4.5 square metres of a bedroom or studio. Folded flat against the wall, the PAX murphy build occupies the depth of the cabinet, around 40cm, freeing the floor for the daytime use the room actually needs. In a 12 square metre studio that swing is close to 40 percent of usable floor returned between waking and sleeping.

That reclaimed strip is where the rest of a small-room scheme earns its keep. A window seat built across the now-clear wall under the glazing gives storage in the base and a reading perch above; standard kitchen base cabinets at 720mm height make a cheap carcass for one, topped with a 28mm board and a foam cushion. The point of the murphy bed is that the seat and the bed never compete for the same square metre, because only one is deployed at a time.

Karndean parquet under a swinging bed

Karndean Art Select parquet in a herringbone lay handles the foot traffic and the folding legs better than engineered timber, because the LVT wear layer at 0.55mm shrugs off the point loads where the legs land. Lay it as a floating or fully bonded floor across the whole room before the murphy base plate goes down, then drill the base-plate anchors straight through the plank into the slab.

The drilled penetration matters here. Karndean recommends their own adhesive for bonded installs, and a base plate fixed through a floating floor will pin that section, so the expansion gap at the room perimeter has to absorb the rest. Where the folding legs contact the floor, a pair of felt-faced glides spread the load and stop the legs scuffing the parquet wear layer over months of deployment. The herringbone pattern hides the small misalignments a busy small room collects far better than a plank lay running in one direction.

Finishing the room around it

A brushed brass tap fitting in an ensuite or kitchenette ties to brass pivot-bracket bolts left exposed on the murphy frame, and the brushed finish hides fingerprints that a polished lacquer shows within a week. Where the bed wall meets a tiled splashback, grout sealing with Lithofin after the tiles cure stops the grout line wicking moisture and discolouring along the run nearest the folding mechanism.

Damage-free gallery wall hanging belongs nowhere near the bed wall itself, because the dynamic load shakes adhesive strips loose within weeks; mount frames on the adjacent wall using Command strips rated 20 percent above the frame weight, or, for anything over 2kg, drive proper picture hooks. A reupholstered dining chair in a Romo weave finishes the daytime room as a desk or window-seat companion; stripping the old cover, replacing the foam, and stapling a fresh Romo linen-blend cover runs an afternoon per chair and lets the seating match the cushion fabric on the window seat without buying a matched set.

The one detail that resists every workaround is ceiling height. Below 240mm of clearance above the closed cabinet, the 236cm frame stops being viable, and no amount of spring tuning recovers the geometry. What does a 220cm ceiling leave you, beyond a horizontal wall bed that gives back floor but never the wall itself?