How to Make a Secret Room
Secret rooms are becoming more and more popular these days, and could even be considered a trend. Whether a new home is being designed, or an old one is being remodeled, secret rooms are now often included in design plans. The intended uses of these secret places are as varied as their location.
A True Multi-Purpose Room
Some secret rooms are not only hidden but reinforced for protection; these serve as panic rooms. Entire families can hide in these rooms if they are threatened by an intruder. Some secret rooms are small areas concealed under a staircase, often made as a child’s hideaway. Other secret rooms serve as getaway for adults.
No matter what the purpose of a secret room, the main aim is to make sure the secret room remains well, secret. You will need to make sure to carefully disguise the entrance.
Keeping Your Secret
The easiest way to do this is to use invisible hinges in a door that is made to look like part of the paneling, or some other type of wall section. Because the hinge is invisible, the faux paneling fits seamlessly into the adjacent wall without betraying the existence of a door. The Invisible Hinge by SOSS is a wonderful option that provides quality and durability.
Because these invisible hinges are extremely strong, they can be used to support another type of structure to hide the entrance to a secret room—a bookcase. A bookcase hinged along one side with several invisible hinges is an inventive way of disguising an entrance to a secret area. The invisible hinges hide the bookcase/wall seam as well as it hides the seam that is formed between a door and a wall.
Choices, Choices
Another option for concealing a secret room is a sliding wall or door. The sliding wall or door is supported by guides that can either go into the adjoining wall on either side or move in front or back of the wall along the same type of guides. This type of installation is much more time-intensive in addition to being much more difficult to install than the previous two choices.
Also, if the secret room serves as a panic room, a reinforced sliding door is more difficult to conceal, due to the increase in bulk from being reinforced.
Safe Haven or Man Cave
The size of the secret room should be dependent upon its intended use. A panic room should be fairly large considering that it may have to provide shelter for more than one person for a possible extended length of time.
A secret room that serves as a getaway for adults may be large as well, depending on how the person wants to get away. A writer might want to place a desk inside, and a dreamer might want a day couch for napping. Or maybe you need a true man cave, a place of no interruptions.
Secret rooms and their designs are as unique as the people who want to build them. The one thing they have in common is that their entrance and hopefully their existence will only remain known to a few.