Secret doors…..all my life I wanted a house with a hidden door. They aren’t just a lot of fun, but they are also a fantastic way to disguise a door and make a room or hallway more elegant or interesting.
Now I live in a house with three.
All our hidden doors are entirely bespoke, made by hand in Cambridgeshire. They can open inwards or outwards, include full depth shelves or ‘faux’ shelves with cut spines. They can be lockable, have integrated lighting, and include hardback or paperback titles of your choice.
if you have a windowless or very dark bathroom, a false window can be transformative. See below
As you come into this house there's a bookcase on the left which we built to house all the textbooks the couple were studying when they both read English at university. Sweet!
And behind the bookcase is a little utility area, and beyond that a downstairs loo, (which the house hadn't had before). Very satisfying on so many fronts.
This door is strictly for children...
...on the other side is a designated lego zone, on a platform above the playroom. The children call it Narnia!
This door opens into a playroom.
It has vertical lighting up the edges of the shelves. Lighting books this way is a little more complicated, but avoids jagged shadows which can happen if you light shelves from the top.
There is just a brick wall behind this "window". But it makes the tiny shower room feel twice the size. The light settings offer cool 'morning' sun, warm 'evening' sun, and a low wavelength colour that won't wake you up if you nip in during the night.
This pair of doors has ceramic knobs and has been designed to look like a cupboard in a spare room. On opening it is a treat to find a bathroom on the other side.
Can you spot it? Full books in this one. Dark colours make books sing and help to disguise TV screens.
This old wooden door sits between the music room of the main house and the hall of a rented annexe on the other side. It isn't in use, but has to stay, in case the annexe is needed as a granny flat in the future. This was the view when you entered the room. It felt like a dark corridor, and this unused corner became the natural resting place for unloved piles of paperwork and clutter. My lovely client had huge enthusiasm for the secret door concept but her budget was too restricted for a bespoke faux-book-case.
The solution. The door sized mirror was bought off-the-shelf online. The room was suddenly full of reflected light and seemed bigger. There was room to put a cabinet and a chair in the corner, and the view on entering the room was completely transformed.
In fact my client loved it so much we did it on the other side too - suddenly the tenant's tiny hall had a useful full length mirror and felt much more private without a 'spare' door looming in the wall. Secret door, anyone?