Hidden Door: anyone made one, installed one?

[ToughButterCup]

We are in last minute re-design territory. Very gently Debbie almost managed to slide the term 'hidden door' past me. Almost. She's losing her touch.

To cover my OhFGSness, and lying a little too easily through my teeth, I said, that would be no problem.

Well it is a problem. Loads on YooChube, though. 

 

The design brief is to incorporate (hide) the door in a simple set of shelves; the aperture is more than wide enough to allow a wheelchair through.

 

Ideas? Horror stories? Anyone made one, perhaps?

[ProDave]

This is going to be a good thread.

 

So a set of bookshelves, and when you remove the "special" book, the shelf opens to reveal a door.  @Onoff will design the actuators for you.

 

P.S This must be the most inventive idea to get the council tax band down, hide half the house from view so he values it as a small house......

[lizzie]

Following.......likely to  be nearly as good as the tiling thread??

[TerryE]

They look good on films, etc., but I suspect that making one in real life will be troublesome. 

 

A lot of firedoor-rated sliding door gears will be heavy duty enough to carry a light book case, but if you want it to carry non-trivial capacity then you will need a bottom rail as well or some form of casters if you are rolling over a hard surface such as tiles.   There are also lots of fun details such as the wall to the side of the case will have skirting and the door will need to clear this, plus you will have a top rail to the side that you will need to hide somehow if you want the door to be "hidden".

 

The sliding case will not only need to slide, carry its load but also have extra racking stiffness to say structurally sound during opening and closing.

 

So entirely doable IMO, but the devil is going to be in the detail and it is going to involve a lot of work.  There is also the safety issue as well -- you need to be sure than said door can't come off the mount and flatten said person in the wheelchair. 

 

This is one where if you don't want to say "no" to your nearest and dearest, then you "future facilitate" the project by having an simple opening and leaving the wall to one side clean with the suggestion that "we do the door itself a year after we've completed the house, moved in and done the million and one other jobs that really need doing".  

Edited December 23, 2018 by TerryE

[TerryE]

1 hour ago, recoveringacademic said:

Almost. She's losing her touch. 

 

So Debbie doesn't track and monitor your threads then.  ??  In the Jan's case, it's more case of involvement / genuine interest in the content than any Stalinist control, but I still need to remember that anything that I say might be read and picked up

[Tennentslager]

I think a sliding door that goes up (or down) will work best...do you have the room above to facilitate this.

[TerryE]

1 hour ago, Tennentslager said:

I think a sliding door that goes up (or down) will work best...do you have the room above to facilitate this.

 

Uaarrgh, health and safety again: counterweights, safety sensors and cut outs, etc.  Now there is a risk of your wheelchair owner getting "terminator"ed.

 

You can get some flush mounting rotating door mounts that typically pivot ⅓ ⅔ but the total door would end up about 1½ m wide if you want the opening to be wheelchair accessible.

Edited December 23, 2018 by TerryE

[Construction Channel]

I'm fairly sure you will beat me to it but I am hoping to do a similar thing. 

 

Plan so far is to have it work similar to a van side door. E.g go in first then across. It will have a top and mid rail on the wall and ceiling and if I'm feeling really flamboyant it may get a brass track embedded in the floor. Otherwise it will just run on the tiles until It "needs" a track on the floor. 

Further plans involve soft closers at either end, possibly actuators to make it automatic but I'm still trying to work out a manual override system so I can't get locked in, and it would be really nice if I could actually use the fob and locking mechanism off a van sliding door so I could lock it off the fob but that may not be part of the first prototype. 

 

Hth Ed

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

 

check that lot out, 

[Onoff]

Star Trek...small compressor...

[willbish]

Significantly cheaper than Risinger but still effective

 

https://www.instructables.com/id/Hidden-Room-Bookcase-Secret-Door/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

[Ferdinand]

Here is the first version of that video, with different examples:

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqWcywqoGE

 

And here is a video of the Scooby Doo door from Grand Designs, which is good but does not meet your need. WHat is interesting is that the bearing is a £7 effort that might be in any Lazy Susan.

 

https://metro.co.uk/video/fbia-embed/1334563/

 

I think the takeaway is to work from the other end .. come up with something really simple that does what you want to avoid the techno-health-and-safety-thunderbird-2-as-heavy-as-an-elephant-buggeration that we are at risk of chasing up our own posteriors, then design the rest of the wall to hide or distract from it. At its simplest the concept would be to decorate the wall with a row of doors, one of which opens - but to do the same with shelf units or mirrors or panels or cladding or trompe l'oeil or a bit of this. 

 

AN example would be a lightweight shelf unit on a slab door on 3 concealed hinges that  rotates away from the shelf unit to avoid clearance issues, then build 1 or 2 identical shelf units to one side of it. Use a simpler roller closure to keep it simple. OR if there are elements that have to show, then put the same elements on the similar things that camouflage the door.

 

I quite like the idea of misdirection ... put the door exactly where a hidden door would be expected, but do something else that makes people lunge at another thing that looks like a hidden door but is really a piece of wall. 

 

i also like complete concealment in plain sight. I think it was GD that had a hidden door in a row of tall kitchen cabinets at the same face level .. the key was an opening built out 600mm proud of the wall behind.

 

Or use an an element with a different point of interest that is a door as well. E.g. Place a door sized mirror at the back of your shelf unit to reflect a forest print or a window or another shelf unit to make it look as if there is another false room behind the mirror to create fake space. They think it is a not quite perfect visual device due to the shelves, then the mirror turns out to be a door as well so that there is actually a real room there.

 

ANd do the unexpected. THere  is a hidden door in this wall of windows on the first FLW Usonian HOuse:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_and_Katherine_Jacobs_First_House#/media/File%3AJacobs_First_House_-_back_02.jpg

 

Which one opens?

 

Actually I beliveve it is all of them.

 

F

Edited December 23, 2018 by Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

Oh what have I done, what have I done? Gone and opened my big mouth. ?

Right, well, floor plans and piccies next, then.........

 

But first, a Problem Statement

 

I am not getting younger. We both anticipate confinement to a wheelchair at some stage, it's doesn't stretch credibility to expect that infirm close relatives might also want to stay at home with us. The house has been designed  with this in mind: to that end the downstairs area has been built to facilitate  easy access for  a  gurney. A downstairs office area doubles as  a bedroom. A wet room will be constructed in the adjacent room. Folding doors, set in a floor and ceiling track, will form a privacy screen to the rest of the house.

 

Design, build and fit a door which

• enables easy and BR compliant access to the wet room.
• does not interfere with the other door that also gives access to the wetroom
• uses readily available parts
• is designed to be as simple as possible
• is close to invisible from the living area
• has  an easy to operate spring push mechanism to assist door opening
• does not lock shut, but does remain positively closed
• can be built mostly with DIY tools, and employ expert help at appropriate times

The door can easily be fitted late-on in the build process because access to the downstairs wetroom can be made from the second door.

 

Better dig into the Building Regs first then eh?

Piccies later this week.

Edited December 23, 2018 by recoveringacademic
grammar

[ProDave]

This sounds like an "after completion" job to me.

 

Built the (presumably) timber stud internal wall with the required door opening in it, then after taking careful measurements and pictures, plasterboard over the opening (what opening)

 

Then  later on with no building inspector to criticise, build the hidden door.

 

My "after completion" list is getting bigger all the time. 

[ToughButterCup]

12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

[...]

Built the (presumably) timber stud internal wall with the required door opening in it, then after taking careful measurements and pictures, plasterboard over the opening (what opening)

[...]

 

Opening is already there. And it's Durisol. Nice meaty concrete to fix to....

Yes, I can see that it's a later on project so what's left of my brain is already whirring  away about build-up-to-it projects

[Russell griffiths]

I can’t see any building regs issue apart from the width. 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

40 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

Oh what have I done, what have I done? Gone and opened my big mouth. ?

 

YOu have created an instant hidden door design hinterland ?.

 

IT does sound like a LATER thing, but could be really simple in principle. IT could just be a slab faced bifold with a puh-donk spring thing to nudge the central hinge open, and a couple of magnet plates to keep it closed until prodded.

 

Then decorate or ornament as required.

 

Or a different custom concept may be what you want.

 

F

Edited December 23, 2018 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

If I am reading it correctly this is 2 doors into one bathroom which must be "accessible"

 

I believe only 1 door needs to comply.

 

Our downstairs loo, and provision for downstairs bathroom has 2 doors, one from the hall, and one out to the garage.  BC have already confirmed that only the door from  the hall needs to meet the "accessible" requirements, the one from the garage does not.

[Ed Davies]

My niece has a hidden door from her bedroom into her en-suite. It's in a wall of shelves where just one section swings out like a normal door. If you didn't know it was there you just wouldn't notice it, no tracks on the floor or ceiling or anything like that. Sorry, quite a few years since I looked at it (she was five or six then, now at university) so no idea of the hinges or whatever.

 

[mvincentd]

On 23/12/2018 at 16:48, Russell griffiths said:

I can’t see any building regs issue apart from the width.

....doesnt a disabled bathroom door have to open outwards (to mitigate someone slumped inside blocking its opening inward)?

[PeterW]

All of this becomes irrelevant if it’s not the only loo on the ground floor.... 

 

But I’m so looking forward to this - it needs a proper sound effect though when it opens ..!!

[TerryE]

On 24/12/2018 at 18:23, mvincentd said:

doesn't a disabled bathroom door have to open outwards (to mitigate someone slumped inside blocking its opening inward)?

 

Or it can slide, of course. And IIRC, you don't need a wheelchair-accessible bathroom in a new build, just a toilet.