Secret Hole in the Wall

In some houses the second floor has these shortened walls near the edge of the house because the roof angle.

Sometimes folks use these cubby spaces for storage. Not everyone likes the idea of an obvious little door.

This lady asked me to make a secret door to hide her Christmas ornaments, one that was fairly easy to access with a rare earth magnet wand.

Step 1: The Wainscotting

I made some simple moulding from store bought trim for the upper and lower track from store bought Aromatic Cedar.

The moulding allowed for a 3/8" inset to hold the boards in place.

Starting from the right side I inset the cedar boards one at a time making sure that the tongue was facing to the left. The last board to be permanently fixed into place on the right side of the cubby should line up fairly close to where the door space is.

On the first door panel piece has the back side half of the dado material removed so that when the piece is in place that the outer half of the dado/groove is still overlapping the tongue to the right.

The secret door is made up of two pieces, the one single piece with the lock bar and then the other part of the door that is made of three pieces that have been glued together.

The way it works is that the super strong wand magnet can control the lock arm through the front side of the material. Lift the lock bar and the first piece can be lifted and removed. Next, the larger door section can be slid over into the opening about an inch before being removed as well.

Step 2: The Lock Bar

In these pictures you can see the very simple lock bar and how it is pinned with a dowel to keep it held fast.

Little rare earth magnets help to hold the lock bar in place when in the locked and unlocked position (you wouldn't want the lock bar to keep falling into the locked position).

In the dark pic you can see the lock bar tab that keeps the lock bar in place when locked.

To allow the door panels to come in and out easily they must be cut a little shorter so they will lift out.

A set of hidden screws in the top track keep the middle section form being lifted up until that section has been moved over an inch first.

When it all in place you can tell a thing.

This might also have a practical application for those building a hot tub/jaccuzzi base so they can get to pumps/plumbing if needed..

Enjoy!