Early hidden rooms were often connected with underground tunnels.
It's hard to deny the shiver of excitement and the pull of curiosity we feel when we hear about secret rooms. History is full of the intrigue: Ancient Egyptians built fake treasure rooms, and Catholic priests in the 1600s often escaped persecution hidden in priest holes. Castles contained secret rooms for romantic trysts and secret flights. In modern times, terrified people hid from the Nazis, drank at speakeasies or escaped from slavery. You can build a modern version with a touch of ingenuity and a little planning.
Instructions
1. Find a suitable area in your home. The more elaborate your home, the more likely you are to have an existing room you can simply modify to secret the door or a room you can section off secretly. A fruit closet under the porch or a wall full of closets can easily be modified. In some instances you can simply remove a wall and rebuild it. Choose an area without windows unless you are prepared to frame over it outside.
2. Draw a sketch of your ideas. For instance, with a wall composed of closets -- one for each room on either side of the wall -- a drawing might show both closets extended farther into the room but the width of the closets decreased to create a secret room in the middle. You may eliminate the entries entirely to make the whole area hidden. Keep in mind that if measurements don't seem to "match" to someone looking around, the room isn't very secret. Thus, a room built out into existing space with nothing on the other side of the wall to account for it isn't very subtle.
3. Use a hammer, prybar and saw as needed to take out the wall covering on a non-load-bearing wall, if necessary, to build your hidden room. Expanding a closet or borrowing space from two adjoining closets requires this demolition. Check that you won't be cutting any wiring or plumbing before beginning.
4. Remove any insulation inside the wall and cut or pull out wall studs that frame the wall. Work carefully to avoid damaging adjacent walls during the wall removal.
5. Measure and mark the walls, floor and ceiling to indicate the size of the secret room, whether extending closets outward, borrowing from existing closets or sectioning off a room. When building the room inside another, a narrow hidden room is generally the best idea.
6. Build regular wood-framed stud walls to encompass the secret room. Measure the length of wall needed. Cut two 2-by-4 board plates to this length. Cut additional 2-by-4s, one for each 16 inches of wall, to measure the floor-to-ceiling room height with 3 inches subtracted to account for the thickness of the ceiling and floor plates.
7. Mark the two ceiling and floor plates every 16 inches. Leave an opening, between marks, wide enough to accommodate your hidden room door. Check with the specifications for a prebuilt secret door or make it the size you want and build your own hidden door.
8. A bookcase just might conceal a hidden room.
Attach one plate, nailing through the wide side of the board into the end of the floor-to-ceiling length boards to attach the studs in a T-shape construction. Continue across the wall, securing boards as studs. Outline the door opening with studs on either side and span the opening with a horizontal 2-by-4 cut to size and nailed at the appropriate height. Finish by attaching the opposite plate board to the other end of the studs.
9. Raise the wall into place. Check for plumbness, then nail through the bottom plate into the floor and through the top plate into the ceiling. Note that at this point, it looks like a normal room.
10. Insulate the wall thoroughly to help keep the room truly secret. Special soundproofing or acoustical batt insulation products install simply. Cut to size and push in place between studs to create a snug friction fit.
11. Cover the outside of the wall and the interior inside the hidden room with your desired wall covering. Drywall or solid wood are particularly suitable choices, with rigidity and a feeling of permanence not offered by paneling.
12. Install a hidden door. Follow the manufacturer's installation instructions for purchased secret entries. Alternatively, build your own. A false wall suits a secret entry through the back of a closet, for instance, while a bookcase in the bedroom or living room is ideal.
13. Construct as fancy or simple of a bookshelf as you desire. Use 2-by-4s or 2-by-6s to build the outer frame that measures the same diameter as the door opening. Nail through the outside edges into shelves, lining the interior of the bookcase frame. Cover the back with paneling, drywall or a desired product. Attach hidden door hinges, according to the product directions, and hang the door.
14. Trim along the upper and lower edges of the walls if a gap shows. Cut wide trim to outline the bookcase shelf unit. Nail around the opening to finish the effect. Any gap created by the door clearance will look deliberate as part of the framing.
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