The Murphy Bed Project aka If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

If you have ever read the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, you are likely to understand much of what happened with this project.

Our original purpose in getting a Murphy Bed was to gain a furniture refinishing workspace inside our home for us to use when our unconditioned garage was too cold or too hot for finishing furniture. Living in Indiana gives us many months throughout the year when outdoor temps and conditions are simply not ideal for human comfort or for using finishing products. With a Murphy Bed we could have both an indoor workspace and a guest room—each available whenever it was most needed. 

Our project started with the purchase of a Create-A-Bed Adjustable Deluxe Murphy Bed Hardware Kit from Rockler. The kit came with all the hardware, a long and very detailed instruction booklet, and a step-by-step support video. While all of that was great and necessary, things did not end there. 

Here are some of the if you give a mouse a cookie additions . . . 

If you build a Murphy Bed, you are going to want to add bedside tables or cabinets and then probably some additional storage or shelves. So, we added more to the bed by extending each side to include a cabinet and shelves. 

When we had to remove the base trim on the wall where the bed would be mounted, we decided that this would be a good time to replace the rest of the trim throughout the room, including the trim around the window and the three door openings within the room. Then, we easily concluded that the three very plain 70+ year-old doors also needed to be replaced. If you replace doors, you really should replace the knobs and locksets as well. 

For guests to be comfortable using the Murphy Bed, we wanted to provide recessed outlets in the attached nightstands and touch control lights above the bed. 

Thankfully, the bedding we already had worked well. We finally finished it all up by adding a few things pretty to look at and a new tissue box cover. 

While the entire room project was more than we had initially planned, we are delighted with the outcome. 

🐭🍪

A Few Postscripts

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie sort of projects take longer and cost significantly more than whatever original project you had planned.

Three other things that have made our indoor workspace workable are the large spray screens that we built, a Festool CLEANTEC CT 15 E HEPA Dust Extractor, and the exhaust fan in the ensuite bathroom that helps with air circulation. Oh, did I forget to mention this bedroom has an ensuite bathroom??? As you might imagine, it also needed a few improvements.