Learn » Design Ideas & Inspirations » 27 Hidden Door Ideas That Make You Want to Build a Secret Room Today

If you’ve seen the Oscar-winning movie Parasite and you still remember the secret door in the mansion’s kitchen that opened to the basement, you probably felt thrilled every time the hidden door opened.

How’d you like to build an escape room like that in your home, only in your case, it’d be to relax, have fun with friends, stay safe during a disaster or an emergency, or get some undisturbed alone time after a long day. Either way, every home needs a space like that, and the best way for it to remain hidden is to get an appropriate, inconspicuous door for the space.

We’ve scouted for mindblowing hidden doors that people have built in the past and brought to you a short list of 27 interesting hidden door ideas that you can use to build a secret room in your home. Let’s play hide and seek now, shall we?

Hidden Door Ideas For Your Home

How you conceal the door to your hidden room is very important to keep it hidden from plain sight, and noticeably enough to find it when you need to use it. Depending on where you have adequate space, you can choose one or many of the following ways to build a secret room and an appropriate hidden door to blanket it.

1. Doubly Safe Room with a Wooden Door

Ever heard of a safe within a safe? Well, you can now build a secret safe room in the basement to keep your family safe from violent storms and tornadoes. You can create a secret room in your basement and cover it with a false wall with woodwork, such as wooden panels that when moved give away the threshold to the room.

Since this safe room is below the ground, it can’t be blown away and has a secure locking system. If you have a large family and think this space won’t be enough? You can have an additional room inside the safe room with an actual safe to store valuables and supplies so you can take everything you hold dear and enter the room in case of an emergency. Now the room is doubly safe, don’t you think?

2. Clandestine Closet

You can turn the whole wing of a floor-to-ceiling closet door into a hidden door guarding a secret room. The middle of the wing rests on a secret set of hinges, that move quietly when you apply pressure at the right spots, leading you to a secret room behind it.

3. Foyer Mirror

As you enter your beautiful home and spot a gorgeous mirror right in the foyer, you get a heartwarming feeling of how palatial your home looks. This unsuspecting mirror can be your hidden gateway to a secret room no one will dream of. You can build the doorframe right behind the drywall and put up another layer of drywall over the door, cut a hole in it and align it with the dimensions of the mirror, and screw in a few sliders to hang the mirror on the drywall. So sleek, that no one will notice you’re using the mirror as your hidden door.

4. Behind the Bookcase

This is one of the most common hidden doors and secret rooms you’ve seen, a lot of times in movies and in real life as well. One wall in the space has an open shelving with a stacked bookcase. The bookcase has one book attached to a string that connects to the gate latch on the other side of the unit for the hidden door to open. The book is glued to a piece of wood on a hinge and it tilts back into place once the bookcase door is closed.

5. Hidden Away Bar

Back in the 1920s, during America’s prohibition, it was illegal to sell or manufacture alcohol. Bars got creative and built hidden rooms called speakeasies to serve alcohol. These concealed rooms are hidden by walls and massive cabinets. If you want to have a mini bar tucked away from the kitchen, you can build a large cabinet on either side of the bar (inside the bar, and in the kitchen) with wheels that rotate on the bottom. Every time you want to enter the bar, you can simply wheel away the cabinets on both sides and get inside.

6. Kitchen Island – A Portal To a New Land

Now this might come off as a surprise, but it can knock your socks off. To the innocent onlooker, the kitchen island looks normal, and like an everyday item. But, when you push the cupboard on the side, and gently slide the countertop of the island, you see a stairway to a portal below the ground.

The cupboard becomes a mini door leading you to the stairway. You can install motion-based lighting, to save power and also get light when you need to. This underground secret door can direct you to a wine cellar you can build downstairs, to enjoy your drinks in peace.

7. A Fun Fireplace Slide

In the front of the frame of the fireplace, install a black panel. When you open it, you see an opening to a slide. As you get down the slide shrieking joyfully, you find a beautiful playroom for you and your children. You can spend quality time with your children while giving them a delightful surprise. If you are child-free and still love this idea, you can get down the slide and arrive at a glossy mini-bar. The choice is up to you entirely.

8. The Ultimate Man Cave

Adjacent to the flight of stairs in the living room, you can have an open shelf containing showpieces and souvenirs you’ve collected from around the world. This is a great fixture to act as a hidden door. You can link one item on the showcase to the door opening mechanism. When the particular item is pushed ever so slightly, it slides open and reveals a secret room – a man cave with the perfect setup – a projector, comfortable lounge chairs, air conditioning, fiber optic lighting, and even a mini refrigerator for a fun evening away, with your tribe.

9. An Escapade In the Attic

If you want to escape from the hustle and bustle of life and go somewhere peaceful, why look outside when you can look up? Create your escape room in the attic, with comfortable furniture, refreshments, power outlets, and charging cables to charge your gadgets and have fun! One of the walls of the attic can be your hidden door to your secret escape room!

10. Behind the Brick Wall

Have a brick wall wrapping around your fireplace? Use the busy pattern of bricks to your advantage and convert it into a hidden door that slides open to reveal a secret room. Use this room for storage space, to keep electronics that don’t have much use around the house.

11. Safe Under the Stairs

What if we told you you could simply lift a few stairs and create a hidden door/secret space right down there? Well, it’s possible. Before you install the last few steps near the final landing, you could install a hydraulic lift that would lift them and reveal a space to store shoes, sporting goods or a perfectly petite safe – the choice is yours!

12. A Whole Hidden Floor

How would you feel if you could enter a new secret floor every time you wanted to have some peaceful time with yourself? Do you have a floor with recess lighting on the ceiling panel? With hydraulic doors and some proactive planning, you can get a part of the ceiling panel lower down with a flight of stairs to take you to a secret floor above your normal ceiling. When the floor takes you upstairs, you can pull up the flight of stairs and it’d seem like you were never there in the first place.

13. What’s Cooking Behind the Pantry Door?

You find food in kitchens, who would guess you’ll have a secret way to the basement in the kitchen, behind the pantry? You can install a secondary door behind the pantry, that can slide open at the touch of a button and reveal a set of stairs leading you to the basement.

14. Library Ladder Leading Up to Leisure

If you’re a bookworm, your fantasy is to have floor-to-ceiling bookcases throughout the room, and a ladder that helps you reach books in any nook. What if we told you you could have a secret bookcase door inside the topmost bookshelf, and access it with a moveable ladder? Climb up to the highest bookshelf using the ladder. Pull a specific book that’s attached to the lever, and watch the bookshelf doors open to a secluded room. This hidden bookcase door and the secret room can be your reading nook, or you could also install computers, lamps, and workstations and make them your obscure workstations.

15. Home Office Behind a Slat Wall

Speaking of workstations, you don’t have to climb a whole lot of stairs every time. You can build a slat wall in your living room or any room you deem fit, and build a home office behind it, so neither external noises or happenings disturb your focused work bouts. You can gently push the wooden slat that acts as the hidden door and discreetly enter your workspace. This might take time to build, but is worth it.

16. Bathroom Leading to a Boisterous Space

If you’ve always wanted a lovely sanctuary for a bathroom that leads you elegantly to a pool, you’re in luck. You can use a bathroom cabinet door for a hidden door, which, when opened can lead you to a pool, or an infinity pool outside your home. Want to soak in the sun’s warmth while having immediate access to your shower products and clothing? What better way to walk through a hidden door to your favorite pool?

17. Convertible Apartment

These flexible places where you can hide or bring down any fixture or furniture you want and instantly make the space serve a whole new purpose are growing in demand now. If you have limited space and can’t quite figure out how to install a hidden door, you can increase your ceiling’s height, attach wooden slats or panels, and a bed and mattress, with a nightstand. Lower it if you want a quick nap, or let it roll up and turn your new hidden door.

18. Dedicated Gaming Room Behind the Closet

What do gamers love almost as much as the game they play? A sacred gaming zone with zero disturbances. Inside your coat closet or your wardrobe, get a large mirror that can act as your hidden door. Swivel the mirror door aside and you can enter your secret gaming room and furnish it with good lighting, comfortable furniture, game room decor, a high-quality gaming console, and a stand for snacks.

19. New Room Under the Floorboard

You can get your floorboard in any room to become a DIY hidden door and put a rug over it, so your secret space becomes unnoticeable. When you push the rug aside, pull the wooden panels from your floorboard, and flip it, you can enter your secret room. Depending on how much space you have underneath, you can have a large space to get down and relax in or a small nook where you keep the essentials for an emergency.

20. Gym in a Wall

Turn one of your compound walls or garage walls into a secret gym, and you can use a panel that looks undistinguishable from the wall as your hidden door. Get a doorknob that’s camouflaged in the wall’s color, or install a door mechanism that swings open when pushed. Better yet, get a keypad and a smart lock for your secret room. There you go! You have your own space to convert to a home gym free from distractions or noise in the house.

21. Basement Turned Wine Cellar

From any part of the house, you can access the basement if you plan, put up a hidden door in the cabinetry or wall, and make the connection beforehand. With that foolproof hidden door, you can escape anytime you want to the wine cellar and have a relaxing time all by yourself.

22. Garage’s Stone Wall to a Secret Door

Do you and your family go fishing or play outdoor games often? If you’re tired of having to take the sporting equipment to and from the house every time, and don’t have much space in the garage, you can convert one of the garage walls into a secret door that has enough space to hold frequently used equipment. It’s a huge space saver and a fun hidden door.

23. A Whole New Floor Inside a Cabinet

Similar to the cabinet-converted-hidden door we saw before, this cabinet when opened can be built to take you through two flights of stairs to an upstairs secret room you can use for emergencies. Install a skylight, adequate lighting, ventilation, workstation, furniture, and preferably a mini snack bar to keep you satiated until reinforcements arrive. The cabinet itself can be an inconspicuous door for the whole new floor you’ve hidden away.

24. Moveable Car Parking

Want more space for your newly bought car in the garage, but is the old stuff you previously hoarded taking up space? No problem. You can build a moveable, 2-story car parking unit and conceal it with a stone or wooden panel that looks exactly like your flooring. This way, when you push a button, the car parking unit rises from the floor, and after you park your car, it lowers itself and goes back to being an obscure part of your floor.

25. A New World Inside the Wardrobe

This is an age-old technique to create a secret space, but a golden one. Get an ornate, captivating wardrobe or dresser in your bedroom. When you open the interior door to the wardrobe, it reveals yet another door to you, and when you dare to open it, it takes you to a large lounge area, a huge room with a fireplace, big windows, a mini bar with proper bar countertops, stools, liquor cabinet and everything you’d want in a bar set right with it. You can create this amazing space, and use your wardrobe door to cover it up.

26. Hidden Door in the Hallway

If you have a long, lean hallway in your home, and want a secret room somewhere, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. Install wainscoting in the hallway, and turn one of the panels into a hidden door that takes you to a secret room.

27. Escape Room Under the Staircase

Just like Harry Potter’s room under the staircase, you can create your own with a door that resembles the wall supporting your staircase, and take a break from reality whenever you wish.

How to Make the Perfect Secret Room Door with Foyr Neo?

Given that your home’s floor plan is unique, how do you know which hidden door and secret room ideas will work in your space and which won’t? You figure it out by visualizing your home with your favorite hidden doors and ruling out the ones that don’t fit in. How can you visualize every space of the hidden room and door without leaving anything to chance, while still hiding it artfully? With an advanced tool like Foyr Neo.

After you get the floor plan, it’s time to act fast and get a sneak peek of what hidden doors will look like in different places you’ve been eyeing. Here’s what you can do:

Step 1: Sign up for Foyr Neo’s 14-day free trial.

Step 2: Go on to the Neo mood board and curate everything you’d love to have in your secret room.

Step 3: Create the floor plan of your room and where you’d like to place the hidden door on Neo.

Step 4: Choose from 60,000+ 3D decor materials and simply drag and drop them into the interior design.

Step 5: Get any material in any color scheme, texture, shape, or pattern and truly customize your doors. Experiment with outswing and inswing doors, different door hinges, and hide-a-way doors and figure out what works best for you.

Step 6: View the makeover in 2D and 3D, from all possible angles and lighting conditions, and see how inconspicuous your hidden doors are.

Step 7: Render your design in a few minutes and witness your hidden door and in all its glory.

That’s all it takes! With 24/7 support and live chat, we’re here to help you if you ever get stuck anywhere. You can find tutorials on how to design on Neo all over the internet, so you’re never truly alone when you design using Neo.

What are you waiting for? Start curating your mood board for your hidden door to your secret room, sign up for Foyr Neo’s 14-day free trial today.

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27 Hidden Door Ideas That Make You Want to Build a Secret Room Today