I'm not sure where the urge came from, but I always wanted a "hidden room" in my house.
Of course, it's very hard to actually hide a room
in a house if someone is looking for it. Unless it's extended under your yard from
the basement or very long and narrow on a windowless wall, it's pretty obvious where
a room should or shouldn't be. Don't know where this wish came from. Maybe
I read too many Hardy Boys Mysteries or watched too many Scooby Doo episodes.
So one day, about a month before my son was born, I was sitting in our basement TV room
with my wife, looking at the crappy walls and door leading into the laundry room,
wondering how I could fit more bookcases on the wall to house my books, when it struck
me that I had found a perfect candidate for a hidden bookcase door. My eight month pregnant
wife gaped at me when I came back from "getting a drink" with a crowbar and ripped down
the wall from the doorframe to the adjacent wall.
Here's a diagram of my family room so you get the basic idea:
It didn't take me long to rip out the wall. I had
formulated a basic idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted a normal bookcase that
could be pushed in. I would make it out of really cheap wood (turned out
to be MDF) and the whole thing would rest on a mortared layer of bricks because
we get water in the basement and we wouldn't want the water to warp the boards.
In order for the door to be truly disguised, it would have to be
connected to a similar bookcase which doesn't move, which is why I ripped out
the wall instead of just putting a bookcase over the doorway. Also, I have
a lot of books and actually needed the bookcase space. Originally I wanted
to be really cheesy and require a book to be pulled for it to open, but I nixed
this later on in the construction phase.
The third Phase would replace the wall of the Utility room
with book cases and another swinging bookcase that swings outwards instead of
in.
The first Phase started when I tore down the wall. It needed to end
before my son was born (yes we knew he'd be a son), which gave me a month.
Because we had a new baby coming, I had a very limited budget for this project.
So I ended up going with MDF for this project. Total cost of the MDF was
about $40. For the back of the bookcase I used 1/4 inch birch wainscoting.
Because MDF tends to bend and warp more than regular wood, and because part of
the bookcase would be swinging, I decided very early on that the shelves would
be fixed in place rather than adjustable. This helps make things more
sturdy because each shelf can anchor to the back.
I was particularly worried about a phenomenon called "racking" on the door,
where all the joints lose their ninety degree angle and the door sags. I
have no experience building bookcases, or doors, let alone a bookcase door.
So I added two elements to this design to keep the door in place.
1. I added wheels. Since this was a cement floor I did not care
about, I figured all the support I could give would help.
2. I added a diagonal crossbar in the back. More than anything I
think this was the most important part of the design (see below)
As it turned out, the wheels weren't necessary. I believe the crossbar
to be the most important part. That and the fact that each shelf is
screwed into the back as well. Also note the hinges, there are seven of
them, just simple but sturdy gate hinges. They cost about $7 each at Home
Depot. The cross board and the board the hinges are screwed into are pine.
I didn't want to add any extra weight to this door because it was already pretty
darn heavy. And would be much heavier once I added the books. Some
of the hinges ended up being for show, because they are obviously not holding
much weight. The most important hinges are the top (which is holding the
torque forces from the diagonal board) and the bottom one.
I so far have neglected to mention something about this design. A door
that open inwards is a special case door. The opening edge (the edge
opposite the hinges) has the be angled correctly so the door can clear the other
bookcase. Normally this doesn't matter much with a normal door because a
centimeter of space between the door and the jam will take care of the problem.
However, the bookcase door is eight inches thick, and the edge must be angled
properly so the door can swing open.
Here's how I calculated the angle I needed:
Note from the diagram a couple of things. The pivot point
of the bookcase is at the back of the bookcase. So the radius that
the front edge is swinging hasn't reached it's furthest point on the pivot
circle yet. When first opening the door, the outer edge will continue to
swing toward the door jam! Hence the need for the angled door jam.
What angle should we use? Well, remember a simple corollary from High
School Geometry: A Tangent to the circle is always perpendicular to the
Radius. If you make the angle of the door jam perpendicular to the radius
of the pivot point to the front left point of the door, the jam will never
connect with the door. Using this as a guide, it was simple to make the
angle calculations. We now have all the info we need to build!
I first mortared the bricks as a base, then bolted a 2x4 to
them, ripped down to match the size of the wheels I had picked for the door
(very cheap swivel wheels, again from Home Depot). Later I used a wet saw
to rip down a couple bricks, then using construction glue I glued them to the
kick-plate of the swinging door, effectively disguising the bottom of the door.
Then I erected the door. It may seem backwards, but I did
the door first so if I mis-measured I could modify the wall easily (in theory.
Luckily I'm actually pretty good with a ruler). Because this is my
basement, I didn't have to worry what I was going to hang it on, I simply put a
floor to ceiling 4 x 4 stud in. I anchored it to the floor and ceiling
joists with hefty metal L brackets. I wanted to make sure this looked as
nice a possible, so on the angled door and door jam boards I cut the edges flat.
This was probably the most challenging piece of woodworking in this project, and
I used a bunch of test boards until I got it right.
Once the door was in place and swinging, I put up the wall in a
similar manner. Then I added the shelves. That's when I discovered
my three minor "design flaws". The plan had been to bolt the shelves
through the ends for support, but I'd also planned to keep the shelves all at
the same level. This would mean that shelves to adjacent bookcases would
interfere with each other (you can't bolt in from the end if a shelf is already
there). This was the first flaw. So I added shelf supports under the
shelves that I could bolt interfered shelves to it. This added 30 extra
routed pieces to the shelf that I hadn't been expecting. Plus I had never
really routed little pieces without a router table before, so this added a lot
of extra pain, but I think they turned out nicely.
The second flaw was the fact that where the door meets the
bookcase is effectively 1.5 inches wide instead of 3/4 (because the board for
the door rests next to the board for the wall.) To make things match, I
needed to make ALL the supports double wide. Luckily this was not
difficult. The third flaw was uncorrectable, but turned out to be not so
bad in the end. Because the door support was angled inward, I should have
made one of the walls supports mirror this angle to give it a more symmetric
look. Alas, I had already spent a lot of time on this bookcase, and wasn't
willing to fix this problem. As it turned out, once books were in the
bookcase, you really didn't notice the angled supports unless you were really
looking. I noticed this flaw, but not ONE of my visitors noticed, even when
it was pointed out. This is either because your eye expects bookcases to
be a certain way, or the little paperbacks I put on the shelf effective
disguised it. I'll never know for sure.
The last item was to do the trim. The most important part
of disguising a door. Done correctly the trim makes the bookcase look as
though it has been there forever and blends right in. I again used
MDF left over pieces and my trusty router, and made a good frame. I then
used a popular twisted rope trim on top, to give the bookcases a classy look.
This completed phase one of my construction.
