Hidden doors and secret passages?
JerryC7410
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
This is my first post here. I was wondering if anyone knows some good resources for building hidden doors and secret passages in a house. It seems like this ancient practice has become a lost art. =)
I know there are some brilliant carpenters out there who could come up with something incredible.
What do you think about having a hidden room in your house? How large of a room could you hide in the floorplan? How well could you hide it?
If anybody knows of a solid book dealing with this, I’d like to know of it.
Replies
If anybody knows of a solid book dealing with this, I'd like to know of it.
Well, yeah, but Mr Hughes checked it out of the library in '65, and it's not been seen since . . . (Sorry, just had to say it . . . <g>)
How big a room? How big a plan? Who gets to review the plan? Are their "issues" with room labeling on the plan (tax or bathroom or utilities if a "bedroom")?
Now, lately, in the same vein as "Texas Basements" (a storage room above the garage in single-story houses), I've been seeing "Secret Room" on some upper-end plans, which is a finished room over, or in lieu of, a Play room (and, like the TB, built with storage trusses and a non-obvious stairwell/ladder).
Trickiest part about anyhting secret is keeping it that way. That means the doors can't be obvious, or leak light, or the like. They also have to be easy to use, or, they'll stand open--defeating the purpose.
Best way to hide an entire room, to my thinking, is to get to it vertically, going either up or down to it. Middling easy to tuck a room in an attic (in some plans); or in a basement for that matter. Or, building one or the other where they are not common (in my town, basements are so rare, no one would think to even look for one).
Cool topic.