Secret Spaces & Hidden Places

Hidden Gems In Your Home

Most homes have the usual rooms – kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and great rooms. Other homeowners are adding a little novelty to their abodes with more covert or confidential nooks, and these unadvertised areas may be hidden or secret. Hidden spaces may not be obvious but aren’t meant to be entirely unknown. Secret rooms integrated by interior designers, or spaces, on the other hand, are meant to remain undiscovered by either guests or intruders.

In the realm of the hidden are such delights as a game room or library whose entry is ensconced in a bookshelf or a seemingly seamless wall. These make for great entertainment centers as guests discover the surprise opening.

Wine cellars, too, can have hidden portals built by architects and designers. One may await behind a trap door that’s tiled to match the kitchen floor, while another may be reached by a descending stairway installed beneath a retracting kitchen island.

For the family that loves to decorate for every holiday, boxes of decorations can be stowed in an oversized, designated closet, accessed through an indiscernible wall panel, adequate, organized storage that is both easy to access and invisible.

When security is the issue, secret spaces curated by custom home builders provide safekeeping and perhaps a slight feeling of being clandestine. Small items may be tucked away in compact spaces that only the homeowner is aware of. Often these may have a hidden button or require a magnet to open or operate the door.

A small safe can be anchored below removable interior finishings like floorboards. Should larger items need protection, an entire walk-in safe may be the way to go, perhaps accessed behind an enormous mirror in the owner’s suite. There are innumerable ways to camouflage extra storage space behind closet shelves for valuable jewelry that needs to be retrieved for everyday wear. By flicking a switch here and pressing a disguised button there, a lock releases, and the trays of jewelry slides forth– safe from prying eyes.

There is always the option of a panic room, easily accessed for those desiring a safe place to hide, whether from crime or natural disaster. This undercover storage and security space can be entirely customized, the novelty of which will delight both the homeowner and the designer. A note of caution: be sure to use a trustworthy construction team, as they, too, will know the secret!