Secret doors: The design solution hiding in plain sight

A home can be many things – so why not fun?

A secret door to an additional room or extra storage space is the ultimate custom inclusion and far from boring.

In an era when square metres cost record sums, using every available inch is not just smart, it’s essential.

Ram Hardware Products in Brisbane and New Zealand has been creating hidden doors for 10 years, but demand has taken off in the past two months.

Styled as a piece of a bookshelf that swings open, the covert doors start at $ 2150 and are custom-made.

“Hidden or concealed doors have always had a certain intrigue to them, but we’ve recently seen a huge increase in the demand,” RHP sales manager Keri Sainty says.

“A lot of it is social media trends. People see it online and say, ‘Wow, that’s amazing. I want one’. It is pretty easy to do and it’s opened up a whole new world for them. I tell them, ‘If your joiner can build a bookshelf, a beautiful bookshelf, they can turn it into an invisible door.’ ”

Here are two renovation projects with secret doors to use for inspiration.

Grant House, by Austin Maynard Architects

The kitchen of this inner-city Melbourne home has a mysterious and stylish spin on an underground cellar.

It is one of many head-turning moments within the Fitzroy North terrace transformation. Austin Maynard Architects designed a kitchen bench that slides, like a “train carriage”, to reveal a cellar below.

A mountable metal plate provides ventilation, and the owner can park his exercise bike in the cavern, which is deep enough to step down into.

Grant House is a narrow dwelling, and Austin Maynard director Mark Austin says he and his team considered how to create access to the cellar without taking away floor space.

“It is much like a train carriage,” Austin says of the mechanism. “There’s essentially a table over the top, which is the island bench, and then a block of storage.

“The block of storage under the table is on wheels, and it slides along a track, which is recessed into the floor so that it doesn’t move side-to-side. And as you push the block of storage away, it reveals an opening in the floor down to the cellar.”

Austin says his studio integrates secret doors in projects when a seamless finish is required.

“It reduces the amount of visual clutter in the room, and makes everything appear as though it is one surface,” he says.

“The architraves, door handle, lock, door stop and the hinges, all of those things detract from the presentation, so if you can remove them by concealing them, it’s great.”

Cape Paterson townhouse, Burns McCrave Design

The owners of this playfully renovated property in Gippsland engaged Carolyn Burns-McCrave, interior designer and founder of Burns McCrave Design, to create a jovial seaside escape.

Two doors are camouflaged within a curvaceous timber wall in the entryway.

“One of my beliefs with a holiday house is that you need to feel like you’re living a lot lighter than in your own home, and so that means less things and less clutter around you,” Burns-McCrave says.

“When I was designing this space, I was focused on keeping things interesting but still streamlined, and my clients had requested a lot of storage.”

The doors mask understair and wine storage, in “one sinuous curve” of vertical Porta timber batons.

“It wasn’t just a cupboard. Under the stairs are all the electronics for the house – the messy stuff that you don’t want to see – and a big room fitted out with shelves for beach items.

“I knew it was going to be important that I use that space judiciously. A great way to expand space is to keep a continuous visual rhythm and be really careful about where you break it up.

“For me, secret doors were an absolute no-brainer there.”

Burns-McCrave says they are useful for squirrelling away non-essential belongings.

“I think we’re all trying to live more simply,” she says, “and part of that, for lot of people, is trying to not have quite so much stuff. If you can hide it away, that’s one step towards that. “