Pictured here is a stylish Murphy Bed solution for a guest room.

The built in cabinetry pictured on the left can feature either top hanging or shelving with drawers located underneath.

Pictured on the right, no one would ever know there is a queen size wall bed tucked away behind those doors. This Murphy Bed can be pulled down when your guests are in town and when not needed tucked away…creating more space for a variety of purposes.

To the far right there’s a built in nightstand where you can place a decorative lamp for ambience or reading.

As you can see, selecting the right knobs really makes all the difference in this Murphy Bed design. These 3 inch chrome square knobs set against bright vanilla melamine really streamline this chic ultra modern look.

Excellent work Closet Factory Miami!

The hot new color this year is already on everyone’s lips and will be presented in future collections in fashion and interior design. Tangerine Tango, a “dramatic” combination of red and orange, was chosen as the defining shade for 2012 in a report released in December by Pantone Color Institute. It is well-known that Pantone Color Institute forecasts annually the color for the upcoming year based on indicators of the current year related to sociology-economic and global influences from fashion to art, music to film and interior design. If last year’s color was the pink-ish Honeysuckle Rose, this vibrant reddish orange shade will make a splash and will inspire people in creating modern homes, on runaways or the bedding on your wall bed (aka Murphy Bed).

If this color is too much for one room, try using Tangerine Tango as an accent color with pillows or a throw blanket that can be put on the foot of the wall bed when it is open. Place this color around the room as well to make the color pop. Purchase a vase or frame in that color or buy a piece of artwork with a hint of the color in the piece. Having Tangerine Tango around the room will certainly make a statement.

As space is becoming an ever valuable commodity, many clients are considering what to do with that extra bedroom. They want to have a place for friends or relatives to sleep but are tired of seeing a room only being used a few days every year. They dream of what they would do with the room if they didn’t need the bed. Could it be converted into an office? A workout room? A playroom for the kids? The question remains: “But where would our guests sleep when they came to visit if we made this room work for us?”

The answer is simple: have the guest room serve two purposes. Imagine if the there was a bed for guests AND it was an office. The room would be for guests on the occasional weekend or holiday visit but the other 350 days of the year it would be useful for you. Putting a wall bed in a room automatically leaves space open for the room to serve another purpose.

The style you choose depends on the purpose for the bed. Murphy Bed Lifestyles by Closet Factory has several options to choose from:

• Murphy Bed – This options a flat panel that acts as a platform. You can use any mattress that fits the size of the bed. This is a comfortable option for a night or two but in not generally recommended for guests who will be staying for long periods of time.
• Sico Bed – This option has a slated platform that acts as the base of the bed. Add your own mattress and you have a very comfortable option. This is one of the most popular selections for that reason.
• Roommaker – The third type of bed accommodates both a box spring and a mattress. This is a regular bed that can be hidden away. Many clients will choose this option if this bed is going to be used every night. The best application for this wall bed is a bed that is going to be used daily.

Once the bed is designed to be out of the way, the rest of the room can be designed to serve its second purpose. Office furniture can be built in very easily and give the room an open feel. Workout equipment can be used in the space as long as it can easily be moved out of the way when a guest needs to use the room. If a playroom is in order, shelves and bins can be designed to hold toys and books as the room serves a dual purpose.

No matter what option works best for you, an investment in a wall bed can make your guest room a much more efficient use of space. Now who wouldn’t want that?

“It was a successful day and a wonderful launch of the new Closet Factory Cleveland Showroom! On our invitation list were current and previous clients, design professionals, business associates, as well as family and friends. All loved our five Murphybed Lifestyles displays and the delicious food too!” - Kathy Pietrick, President of Closet Factory Cleveland

Congratulations Closet Factory Cleveland!

This September we participated in the Bellarmine University Designer Show House, which is a very successful annual fundraiser in Louisville.  The event was in an 80-year old building converted to condominiums in the Cherokee Triangle area of old Louisville, and three condos (selling for 500-900k) were used for the event.

We joined up with Joan Waddell, former Chair of the ASID chapter in Louisville, to design a multi-purpose room, a home office/guest suite. It featured a Murphy bed and with two reach-in closets, one was used for guest clothing and one for office supplies and files.

The Louisville Courier-Journal sent a photographer through all three participating condos, and shot most of the primary spaces.  They ran a few in the paper but posted them all on their web site.  We were fortunate in that they were so taken with our concept that the Murphy bed got featured with two shots. - Jerry Ostertag, owner of Closet Factory Louisville

No, there's not a prize here for you, just a special code for some other website.

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Bet your wondering what that is, right?  Well, in order for us to be listed on Technorati.com, we have to place a "Claim Token" on our blog.  So that's what that code is.  Sorry if it's annoying to you....

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an art lover.  I collect it, I make it, and I hang it everywhere!  For a while my house looked like a hap-hazard art gallery, with pictures placed wherever I could find some spare wall.  After my previous entry about clutter bugs, I took a look around my place and decided that perhaps I needed to take some of my own advice.

I went through taking down the many pieces I had in the strange places I had them until I was left with pure white bare walls.  It felt a bit awkward at first, but after the day went on, I began to enjoy what I call the "blank canvas".
My "blank canvas" was painfully apparent behind my large couch, where a wide open space continued to stare at me.  Although I'm a fan of large art, I don't have much - especially nothing in the right shape to fill that vacant space.  So what did I do?  I decided to fix it up with some nice cluster art.

Cluster art is a wonderful way to fill some space and display various images together.  I also love it because I don't have to stand there with a level making sure that everything is perfectly lined up.  With that said - I also didn't want to attack my wall, filling it with holes as I figured out what piece would go where - so I began this project by fanning my desired pieces out on the floor in front of the couch.

It took me a good 20 minutes, but after moving some pieces around, adding some, and changing out others, I finally had my desired arrangement.  This was the perfect way to fill such an oddly shaped space!  Most of my pieces were still on display - and the ones that aren't, well I know what I'm going to do with them now, I think I caught cluster fever!

My camera is elsewhere at the moment so I searched online and found some excellent examples of cluster art at it's best.  Here you go!

Twenty or thirty years ago, if you would have used “Murphy beds” and “style” in the same sentence, I probably would have thought you were crazy. 

I have to say that I’m not overly impressed with how the Murphy beds from 30 or more years ago look, even if I consider the styles and fashions of the day.  Most of the time the bed cabinet did not match the room and it stuck out like a sore thumb.  Come to think of it, that might have been part of the reason for the relative obscurity of wallbeds during the latter 20^th century. 

But times change, and with those changes has come a rebirth of sorts for the ubiquitous Murphy bed.

Today, the new Murphy bed is not only technologically improved but some companies are moving away from the old, non-customizable DIY kits and are now into creating what works (and looks!) best for their customer.

So, to give you an idea of how a Murphy bed can be stylized into a room, I’ve included a few pictures with this article.

For the first example, I have to say that having matte Lucite^© inserts on the doors enclosing the wardrobe closet to either side of the Murphy bed is one stylish way to put a bed into the room.  Plus, it still leaves plenty of space for other activities during the day.  Using crown moldings and raised panel doors give the unit a richer, more traditional kind of look and having it fit precisely from wall-to-wall gives it that truly custom built-in look that today’s homeowners really want.

This next example illustrates taking full advantage of the space in the room for dual purposes – home office by day and bedroom by night!  Check out how the style of the room is Timeless Modern and how the style of the Murphy bed fits right in, regardless of whether the bed is opened or closed.  In my opinion, the bed cabinet and the surrounding furniture blend in together beautifully making this a wonderful design.

If you don’t want to go the route of having extra cabinetry surrounding your new Murphy bed, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make it look great.

Creative choices like having the stain color on the wood of the cabinet match the wood flooring color, having the unit tall enough for the crown moulding to meet the ceiling, raised panel styled doors, and the right choice of door handles all combine to make this unit stylistically fit into this room as well as it does physically.

As soon as I saw this photograph, I knew that I had to share it! 

It is a simple and elegant design for a child’s room, utilizing decorative crown moulding mounted all the way to the ceiling to give the unit that much desired, built-in look.  The open shelving keeps the unit feeling light and airy. 

The small and large arched handles in brushed chrome add to the simplicity theme.  The star-shaped and knobs on the drawers are “oh-so-cute” and add a sense of fun for this kids.

By using a beautiful bright white melamine to hold the queen sized wall bed, it makes cleaning up after the little one much easier too.