Extraordinary bedroom of Louis XIV in the palace at Versailles
Did you ever figure out how to make hidden spaces behind closed walls? This is more than storage. Hidden spaces are where you save stuff out of sight. My daughter-in-law Joanne reminded me how they have pretty kool storage ideas—turning unused wall space into a computer closet, housing an attic behind a bathroom mirror. Great storage in a 1/2 bath in the Woodcliff Lake house behind mirrors. And those areas are good for the large things. Small things can be tucked behind outlet/switch cover plates, behind bricks, in door panels,
inside drapery linings, behind decor and more. The movie “The Man in the Iron Mask” was on AMC (American Movie Channel) on Sunday past. The wooden panels tickled me to see them open allowing King Louis XIV to leave his mistress’ bed chamber undetected. Getting any ideas?
The most interesting hiding places are behind moving walls of a library or walls that open between rooms.
The Queen’s bedchamber.
Queen's bed chamber in the Versailles
There is a barely discernible ‘hidden door’ in the corner near the jewel cabinet by Schwerdfeger (1787) through which Marie Antoinette escaped the night of 5/6 October 1789 when the Paris mob stormed Versailles.
Secret room/hidden door
Hidden rooms and secret passageways are the stuff of legend. Only found in ancient castles and fantasy books, nobody actually has a hidden door in their house, right? Wrong. There is now an entire industry devoted to providing the slickest, most beautiful and subtle hideaways for adults who still have the dreams, and now the cash, to make fantasy a reality.
Would you like a secret store to stash your stuff? How creative can you be? A moving wall, bookcase, panel might work.
Peter, Thanks for your comment.
Harlan was clever with his little bitty about what he always wanted, secret rooms, passages and grottos.
It was helpful talking with you on Saturday, thank you. I do have an outline that I am working with, but it has been a long time since it was reviewed.
Oh, I love secret rooms! I wish my boring house had one! I do have a nice walk-in closet. I suppose I could pretend it’s my secret room. Love the photographs Gail.
Thanks Casey. My walk-in-closet has a secret passage to the plumbing in my shower. HA! Now how many have that one?
The best secret room I ever saw was in my college fraternity house. It was only used during initiation week and no one had a clue it was rthere until they were invited in. I had bedroom attic crawl spaces behind removeable wall panels when i was little, but they scared me. There just had to be monsters behind them!
Don’t you love these secrets spaces? What in the world did your fraternity do in there during initiation week? Never mind, don’t tell me, but it’s a good place to hide for those activities. Right? And, you never looked to see if there were monsters behind the wall panels? Did you ever get over being scared?
A secret room would be a good place to get away from a husband who has hubby interruptus! Or small children who like to pound away on keyboards while your trying to write :o)
Thanks for the comment Brenda. How about a secret room in back of a fireplace thru a log holder panel? Do you think that would work if you never told anyone? Of course you would only use it when no one could see you push the opening button, which would be hidden under molding. Want me to design one for you? When my youngest son was little I had to give up playing the piano for the same reason you have trouble writing.
I love this post, Gail! I’m facinated by secret rooms and hideaways. When I was a kid, we used to have a closet in the room in the basement that led to a space under the stairs. There were two ways to get in and out. One was the closet door in that bedroom and the other was a small cubby hole door that brought you into a room we called the rec room. My mom would stack things in front of the cubby hole door so we couldn’t play in there, but it just made it more of a secret place for us. I also used to play in our attic all the time since we had those same little cubby doors that made you feel like you were Gulliver and entering the world of the little people. I’d have tea parties with my dolls in there and imagine we were locked in a castle by an evil queen…okay, this is getting weird.
Now that I live in an 1840’s farm house, I love finding all the secret hiding places. Everytime we take down a wall to renovate a space, we find another door or make some kind of cool discovery. We found newspapers in one wall dated 1898. It was common to use newspaper as insulation back then. I also know there is a cubby door leading to where the old attic once was behind the wall at the top of the stairs. I can’t wait to take that wall down and have access to that space.
As for modern day secret hideouts, I have a brother in-law who had a house built a few years ago and he has what he calls his Batcave. It’s a secret room behind a book case that houses all of his collectables. It’s as large as my living room:-)
Oh kool, I want to see your house. I love those old houses. Have you found any ghosts though? Call in Julie our ghost hunter, she’ll find one for you. Maybe behind that last wall is where they hang out. Those old houses are full of surprises. Remember in the Civil War times those underground tunnels to help the slaves escape and during WWII to help the Jews escape. And Sing Sing to help the prisoners escape. The Bastille probably had escape hatches.
I would LOVE a secret room. I have dreams in which I am living in a house (not always the same house) and discover one. They are usually entered through the back of a closet or behind something like an appliance.
When I was a kid, they were play rooms, full of extravagant toys my parents would never have bought me. Now, I dream of everything from escape routes to lavish spa rooms.
When I build my log castle (yep, that’s my fantasy) I must definitely consider a secret room.
Toni that’s a “Me Too.” I got to build, well sort of, those storage spaces and pretend they were secret spaces. When I was a studying student of design, I designed these kinds of spaces that wowed my teachers. They did not discourage me, but then when I went to the Hispanic Museum in Harlem I found those nifty, neat same ideas done many centuries before I got here. I thought they stole my ideas. Alas, I was not original, but it is fun dreaming about secret spaces. I hope you get your fantasies to be real.