Murphy Bed Buying On A Whim!

There is no Eldin here. I'm not talking about Murphy Brown. I'm talking about a fancy, fold on down, hide it when you want to Murphy Bed!

I did my research and I found an amazing deal!
When you hear the words "amazing deal" you should automatically be able to guess...
CRAIGSLIST!

Murphy bed questions of the day (in list form, of course):

1. Who would want to buy a murphy bed that they are not even sure they can use? 
2. Who would want to buy a murphy bed when the earliest they will possibly use it would be 2 years from now?
3. Who would want to buy a murphy bed when they know that they are going to have to transport the ginormous piece of furniture at least twice? 
4. Who would want to store that gigantic piece of furniture in their garage for a year while selling their house?

Well... a little drum roll action would be nice. 

The answer, my friends (my friends being my sister and my husband... the only people who read this blog) is ME! Laura Ross Spencer. I am the one. It is I.

Look how happy I am in the photo below! That girl in black (me) looks like someone who just answered, "I would" to those last four questions.

*The photo is obviously from the opening ceremony of the Sister Sister Olympics! More on that another day.

It all started with the research. It always does. I very rarely do my decorating in the spur of the moment.

First, I did the fun stuff. I google imaged pictures of murphy beds. I found some fantastic options like the ones below.

Snazzy! I think I am mainly drawn to the floating shelves in this one.

Hello, office. What do you store in that massive cabinet? Maybe a turbo strength printer?

Sneaky, Sneaky. Super sneaky.

Ohhhhh la la! These colors will stop me in my tracks on any google image search.

I love the idea of adding some funky patterns to it.

Looks a little DIY! Definitely not a Laura DIY... this one is a bit more legitimate looking.

Next, I started checking out how I would DIY a murphy bed for $500 or less. The answer is simple. I would not DIY a murphy bed for $500 or less. The hardware alone is whopping $300 and that is just for the metal part... no wood or framing included. The other part of the problem is that I have no idea how to build furniture. 

There may have been a little pouting to myself for a second. But I was over it quickly because I turned to my best pal, Senor CRAIGSLIST.

I couldn't figure out how to put a tilde on the word senor so I added a sombrero instead. Hope you don't

mind.

The first item that popped up in my Charlotte Craigslist was a photoless ad for a "brand new" murphy bed for $400. It seemed too good to be true. So, I emailed asking for photos. I got a quick, polite response with these two photos of a beautiful, brand new murphy bed.

Whoa! The next step popped into my head before I could start hyperventilating about what a good deal this was. 

Step 5ish: Convince husband to answer "I would" to the questions at the beginning of this post.

I called and told him about it. He automatically said that it made no sense. He was right. It didn't. So I forwarded the photos along... he became slightly more interested. Finally, I convinced him that it would definitely be worth it if we could get it for even cheaper than the $400 it was listed for. 

So I replied to mr craigslist murphy bed telling him that I think he was selling it for a very fair deal but it made no sense for us to buy it unless it was an out of this world deal and I offered $200. He wrote back and said $300 would take that nifty little bed away. He didn't actually use the term nifty but I think we all know that he should have. 

The next day the Home Depot rental truck was in our possession and that bed was to be mine. We met him at a condo building. He was a Realtor and had sold the last unit in the building. All of the units came with Murphy Brown beds but this particular buyer decided she didn't want it. So it was his job to get rid of the bed quickly.

We set to work unbolting it from the floor. Scott and Mr Realtor were working hard getting that thing unbolted. I was busy entertaining my sweet, little baby with things like opening and closing the door.

A few hours and lots of hard work (by my kind, kind husband) later that bed now resides in our once again unparkable garage.