15 February 2004

I slept late because the sun does not beat down on the windows here in the Sea-Cabin as it does in the Route 50 side of Big Pink. I have taken to calling the Sea Cabin because it is as small as a stateroom on a warship, and I look out on the swimming pool. it is a little bleak this time of the year but that will change. Yesterday was devoted to the final construction of the Murphy Bed, the gigantic construction that has occupied the better part of my last month's free time.

My project was the lineal descendent of one invented by William L. Murphy. Hhe lived in San Francisco at the turn of the century. The City by the Bay being expensive then, too, he lived in a one-room apartment that had a standard bed taking up most of the floor space. Because he wanted to entertain, he began experimenting with a folding bed, and applied for his first patent around 1900.

The first of the folding beds were manufactured in San Francisco. In 1918, William Murphy invented the pivot bed that pivoted on a doorjamb of a dressing closet, and then lowered into a sleeping position.

Popularity of the folding beds peaked in the 1920's and 1930's. Production was limited during World War II to replacement parts due to rationing of steel. After the war, production remained low because the returning GIs were offered low cost VA mortgages and single family homes began springing up all over the country. Individual homeowners were not interested in space saving products in this era because of their ability to buy larger homes relatively easy.

The market stayed soft through the 50s and 60s. But the oil embargoes, recession and high interest rates changed America's lifestyles, focusing attention once more on the problem which William L. Murphy wrestled with in 1900 - how to make the most of limited space. That is my problem.

The Condo market in Arlington is white-hot right now. I think I made 10% on the studio unit I bought just in the course of the last six months. Of course people would rather live in single-family homes here. But they all cost more than a half million even for something modest. The studio here cost as much as the first three-bedroom house I bought out in Fairfax twenty years ago.

The cabinet is done, bolted to the wall. The bookcase doors slide well and there are no obvious structural mistakes. Yesterday I began construction of the infernal mechanism of the bed itself. There were three major cardboard boxes containing brown angle-iron and assorted screws and bolts. The directions were a little better than those for the tall white bookcase-cabinet. I laid it out on the carpet and tried to figure out where everything went. It is double-bed sized, since that is what my mattress is, and one of the reasons I bought the contraption was to:

There were a variety of potential show-stoppers. The first was renting a drill to put six holes into the concrete floor of the unit. The Murphy bed is many things but it is all 19th century technology. It is heavy.

First step was to cut the carpet so the iron of the pedestal would have a close grip on the floor. Then mark the holes, and drill out of the hardwood to the concrete with the regular electric drill, then change the cord to the hammer-drill I acquired at the tool rental place, bit marked so that I didn't push right through to China.

Then the expansion anchors and bolts to tighten and the pedestal is in, then the frame, side-rails connected to the head and foot, then onto the pedestal it goes. I'm on my knees and in the cabinet and there is concrete dust everywhere. Then bolting legs and connecting rails turning wrenches and banging my knees on the iron.

I work the action and the frame actually raises and lowers, the legs popping up right on schedule as the arc comes through 45 degrees. Then I found my pliers and strained against the mighty springs, three on each side of the frame to  connect it firmly to the pedestal. I could have strained by back, or popped the knee out, or the spring could have let go and shattered my glasses.

I got them connected and became alarmed. With only the weight of the frame to counteract them, the tension of the springs would have rocketed the frame in the vertical with the power to knock me silly as it traveled inexorably into the vertical and beyond, through the dry-wall and into the external wall.

I then mounted the mattress foundations with long wood screws through the holes drilled in the frame. Still not enough weight, but closer to equilibrium. The springs creaked ominously as I work the movement. The idea that the emergency room may be part of the building process recedes a bit.

I install the headboard and discover I have installed the header assembly backwards. More work with wrenches. An hour later I am one screw short. The mattress head-rail needs one more bolt and one more nut and one more lock washer. So it is off to Home Depot, my bad knee aching from kneeling on the floor. I am really hoping that this is going to work, or I will have an 865 pound white melamine elephant in an apartment is so small I have to step outside to change my mind.

I find a nut that will work, and the usual eight things I do not need and will not use. But that is part of the ritual of going to the Depot, to be awash in great ideas and stunned with possibility.

But that is how I got into the idea of building the bed to begin with. Save the floorspace that would have been wasted under a conventional bed frame. Give myself a little breathing room.

So when I returned from the Home Depot and fitted the last bolt, reinstalled the foundation so that the mattress strap was properly anchored, I had the opportunity to go find a neighbor to help me drag the mattress from the fifth floor down to the first.

I thought about who I might tag with the honor. The woman who walks dogs down the hall? The gay guy around the corner? The anorexic jewelry store manager?

I like them all but I didn't want to be any deeper in obligation to them than I already was. So I went upstairs and ripped the bedclothes off the bed, wrenched the mattress up on its side, and dragged it out into the hallway. I punched the button on the elevator and tried to look like I was just taking my double mattress for a walk.

I crammed it into the car when it arrived and thankfully there was no one inside to force aside, since the mattress was too long to fit diagonally. I had to bend it in. I dragged it out onto the polished marble floor of the lobby and slide it toward the corridor. I said "Hi!" to the lady who sits at the concierge desk. She smiled as I slid by. Just another resident of Big Pink with their bed out for a walk.

I dragged it up the three steps out of the lobby. It was a little heavier going on the carpet than it had been on the smooth stone, but I made it. The dog looked at me curiously as I heaved it into the hallway. I leaned it against the wall and placed a carton of books on the frame to keep it in the lowered position, hoping the springs would not act like a catapult while my back was turned.

I got the mattress on the frame and scooted it up against the header, cascading the books onto the floor. I secured it to the foot with the knit-nylon strap. It stayed down with the weight of the mattress. I raised it up with one hand, the spring tension almost perfectly counter-balancing the weight.

I raised the bed to the vertical and it stayed there all by itself. I checked the clearance, and to my astonishment, the bookcase doors glided smoothly together and concealed the bed as if it were not there at all.

"I'll be damned" I said. "It actually works."

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is not in the cooking. It is in the eating. I would not know if the bed actually worked until I slept in it. So I cleaned up tools and made the bed and listened to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio. I was exhausted. I pulled the doors open and lowered the bed down slid under the covers. That is the last thing I remember until after seven-thirty this morning.

The gray morning light on the back of the building illuminated the slits between the panels of the Plantation shutters I had installed last week. I smiled there in the Murphy Bed, flat on my back. The damn thing does work.

Copyright 2004 Vic Socotra