How to hide a wardrobe: 6 practical interior tips

Some pieces of furniture seem to have come straight out of a science fiction or spy movie: in fact, they are not at all what they seem. This cannot be said to be a modern invention—furniture with additional secret functions has been manufactured since ancient times. Various hiding places and secret drawers are often found inside antique furniture that has survived to this day. Tables, dressing tables, chests of drawers and cabinets created by ancient masters usually had a dual purpose: they were not only used, but also money, documents and jewelry were safely hidden in them from prying eyes and intruders, which was vital in those turbulent times.

In France, in the 18th century, they even began to produce a new type of furniture - secretaries. The name itself suggests that these interior items were intended to keep the owner’s secrets. As a rule, these were miniature bureaus with many visible and hidden shelves and drawers and a folding tabletop used as a desk.

The boxes were often equipped with secret locks and secret locking mechanisms. Among antique dealers and collectors of antiques, there are many legends about untold riches accidentally discovered after pressing some inconspicuous stud inside an antique secretary. Or how an antique secretary, having changed many owners, fell into the hands of an experienced specialist who was able to figure out the location of the hiding place, searched for a long time for a way to open it, and, of course, eventually discovered a secret drawer full of ancient treasures.

But even today, the romance of secrets and mysteries has not gone away - people still like to create unexpected and original places to store valuables. And for a number of reasons, the easiest way to do this is in furniture and other interior items. Some hiding places cannot be created without the help of a good furniture maker; in some cases, furniture is already sold with secret niches for storage, but there are also ways to reliably hide something inside the most ordinary furniture.

Hiding places in ordinary furniture

The simplest example is if you need to securely hide an envelope or a flat package, simply tape it to the bottom of the drawer on the bottom side. In most cases, even if someone goes through all the drawers of your desk, they will hardly think to look under them. For greater confidence, use the lowest drawer so that inspecting its bottom is also physically inconvenient.

The same principle applies to hiding places under the seats of chairs, however, in our opinion, this is less reliable: chairs are often lifted to be rearranged, and they can also accidentally fall. Therefore, there is a very high probability of quickly discovering such a cache, and it is better to use this original storage method for something not very valuable.

It is also quite common to store valuables in a piano. By its design, this musical instrument has a lot of free space inside, which can be perfectly used to place anything: from household supplies to important documents. Of course, provided that there is no professional musician living in your family who will not allow you to treat the instrument so frivolously.

Hiding places are often installed under furniture - in the empty space between the legs, which is covered by a decorative facade. Someone builds a convenient drawer there. Or you can simply find a flat box of suitable size, put valuables in it and put it away under the closet. You can also make the simplest double bottom inside a drawer yourself.

Moldings

Behind such an unusual word is hidden a decorative detail in the form of an applied convex strip. Used for decorating various surfaces: walls, doors, ceilings, etc. to give a neat, complete and expressive look. With the help of wall moldings, you can easily repeat the panels of the cabinet, as if dissolving it into the interior. You can also install original metal handles, which can easily be mistaken for wall decor. By the way, you can hide ordinary doors this way.

Important information! We warn you that installation locations and types of moldings must be selected at the design stage of a comprehensive renovation.

Ready-made furniture with hidden niches

Naturally, not all ready-made furniture can be used to store valuables - most often it is simply intended for the convenient placement of ordinary household items. For example, in an ottoman in the hallway it is very convenient to neatly lay out shoes, and in ottomans or banquettes in the bedroom or living room - those things that are often used in these rooms.

The same applies to storage under the bed - you won’t get a full-fledged hiding place from this place, but it is very convenient to remove items that are not needed at the moment.

Among the ready-made furniture intended for secret storage of valuables, special shelves and tabletops should be noted. From their appearance it is impossible to guess that there is a hiding place inside.

Wall mirrors and specially designed paintings can also make excellent hiding places that are almost impossible to discover. Also, real safes are sometimes disguised as paintings.

Another way to create a hiding place at home is to purchase a secret drawer or safe disguised as an outlet.

Behind the headboard

This option is especially suitable for those who do not want to see anything other than a comfortable bed in their minimalist bedroom. All you need to do is put a partition behind the headboard and make a dressing room behind it. Thanks to this, all things will be at hand, but will not catch your eye.

Source: housesdesign.ru

Important information! From the experience of the repair work we have carried out, it is most profitable to make a partition from plasterboard, the main thing is that the area of ​​the room allows it. This closet becomes almost a mini-wardrobe.

Do you need repairs?

We have already renovated more than 500 apartments, we will be happy to help you too

Find out the cost of repairs

Do-it-yourself or custom-made caches

It is very popular to place caches made from books on bookshelves. This does not require any special skills or expensive materials - the main thing is to choose the spines of the books in such a way that they look harmonious among the other publications on the shelf and do not attract attention to themselves.

You can try creating your own simple secret storage spaces inside or under countertops.

Other, more complex projects are made to order from a good craftsman. This applies to secret drawers or special secret niches for storing various furniture inside.

For example, the photo below shows a very interesting idea for arranging a convenient hiding place in the headboard.

And in a country house, you can even make a secret door disguised as a bookcase, or arrange a convenient hidden storage system inside the steps of a wooden staircase.

Each time dictates its own styles, including in furniture design. However, in addition to beauty, many interior items should also have additional functionality: have drawers, drawers and shelves. And in some cases - hiding places, small safes disguised as ordinary bedside tables, chests of drawers or other pieces of furniture, as well as built into bookcases and wardrobes.

Secretary with curved legs, decorated with carvings

Their presence always had its own meaning: here it was possible to hide something that was not necessary for others to see. And, starting from the 18th century, in any rich house one could find a secretary, or in the Russian version, a desk where the owner kept especially valuable documents: bills, money, jewelry.

Various hiding places and secret drawers are often discovered inside antique furniture that has survived to this day.

Curtains

This is an ingenious method because it is economical, simple and stylish (if you choose the right curtains). Behind stylish fabrics you can hide a variety of shelves and hangers. And you won’t have to waste valuable centimeters on doors, and the storage area will be larger.

By the way, curtains give the room a special coziness, but a lot depends on the style. For example, a loft style is hard and cold, so adding coziness to it with curtains is not always a wise decision.

You also need to be careful with minimalism. But classic, Provence, art deco and other similar styles are great for using different models of curtains.

Furniture with a secret: advantages and features

Furniture with secrets - table and cabinet with additional drawers

In past centuries, in the homes of wealthy people, a mandatory part of the office was a table or a cabinet with secret drawers, which were used to store especially important documents, money, and jewelry, which made it possible to protect them from thieves. Later in France, a special table-cabinet was invented, called a secretary, because it was really possible to store various secret documents and small valuables in it.

The drawers were often equipped with secret locks and secret locking mechanisms

The popularity of secretaries and other furniture “delicacies” equipped with various secret spaces was not accidental. Their design has its advantages that ordinary tables and cabinets do not have, and features that are unique only to such products.

They are no less relevant today: valuable papers, expensive jewelry, important correspondence and documentation are stored in stylized safes and hiding places. Among the obvious advantages of such furniture are:

• storage of valuables without access to them by strangers;
• their arrangement in different furniture elements;
• the possibility of making secret storage facilities with your own hands.

How to protect your home from thieves: TOP 5 best methods

To protect your property, you can use various methods that will allow you to deceive intruders.

Alarm disguised as a hiding place

It won’t be difficult to scare away intruders who managed to get into the house if you prepare a cunning trap for them.

An excellent option would be an alarm disguised as a hiding place.

When the thief opens it, a sound signal will sound, and information about the break-in will be sent to the security agency’s control panel. The criminal will rush to leave the apartment before the security arrives and will not have time to take valuables with him.

Safes

If money or jewelry could not be found quickly, the attacker will take equipment or expensive clothing with him. In order not to lose all your valuables, you need to set up a fake safe.

For example, place a small amount of money under a stack of laundry or in a desk drawer in a special hiding place.

The main thing is to make the burglar believe that this is really family savings. Of course, a small amount will go into someone else’s pocket, but you will be able to save your main capital.

Smart plugs with timer

Smart sockets with a timer that will turn lights and appliances on and off at a certain time, imitate the presence of the owners in the house. The devices are placed in different rooms, lamps, a TV, and a music player are programmed and connected to them . In online stores, smart sockets are sold for 400-600 rubles; their efficiency is many times higher than the most expensive locks.

Now there are models that allow you to program up to 10 on-off switches per day regularly and at random times. If the owner of the apartment has programmed the TV to turn on at 18.00 and turn it off at 22.00-20.00, then the “floating time mode” will allow the equipment to start working from 17.50 to 18.30 and stop between 22.10 and 23.50.

Hiding places in ordinary furniture

Hiding places are often installed under furniture - in the empty space between the legs

Antique furniture is a storehouse of secrets and mysteries. Old cabinetmakers turned furniture elements into real works of art. Today's craftsmen make modern furniture in the old style, helping to create a special interior and complement it with hidden elements.

Hiding places in antique furniture

Purchasing special tables, cabinets and bedside tables with hiding places is quite expensive. But this does not mean that especially important documents and jewelry will remain on the shelf in the closet.

Option for a hiding place in the house on a bookshelf

Design secrets for designing “invisibility”

• Design advice is important to create a positive aesthetic impression.
• The texture and color scheme must match the wall option.
• It is possible to decorate the door and wall with decorative panels.
• It is convenient to camouflage doors before painting by using rectangular panels.
• The radical difference between the two sides of the canvas is applied depending on the difference in the interior of adjacent rooms.
• A special design technique is the complete opposite of the door decoration and wall material.

Ready-made furniture with hidden niches

Wall mirrors and specially designed paintings can also make great hiding places.

Today, various types of ordinary furniture equipped with secret spaces are produced. Secret places can be located in any part of it, and they can be equipped either by the owners themselves, or by ordering their production by craftsmen, secret places can be located:

on the back surface of tabletops;

The desktop can be equipped with pull-out shelves, the existence of which is not easy to guess

Piggy bank chairs or keepers of home secrets

You can make a box with a double bottom yourself

Original hiding places in the armrests of an old sofa

A secret drawer or safe disguised as an outlet

Do-it-yourself or custom-made caches

Custom-made desk stash

There is not always a need to buy expensive exclusive furniture equipped with secret places. You can use a budget option by ordering the desired element of the furniture interior to specialists based on your own drawings. Or a home craftsman can try to create and equip it with his own hands.

These can be equipped secret places under or inside countertops, in the doors of cabinets and bedside tables, as well as shelves and drawers on which locks can be installed.

Of interest are small “turnkey” niches equipped in the depths of the desk drawers with a secret.

An interesting option for hiding in a chest of drawers

Mirrors

Mirror doors are a universal technique that is suitable for both small and spacious rooms. Mirrors adjust the parameters of the room and visually enlarge it. You can install facades with a continuous mirror from floor to ceiling. So the room will visually become much larger and more spacious. And bulky furniture will seem to dissolve.

Designer Ksenia Demina, photographer Mikhail Chekalov

Hollow furniture legs and uprights

A simple hiding place in furniture - in the hollow legs of a chair

A hiding place arranged in these pieces of furniture is considered a classic. Making it is quite simple: you need to drill a hole of the selected size inside the furniture element. It is assumed that only one person will know about such a “secret” - the one who made it.

It is clear that the place for storing valuables equipped here does not imply a large number of them, which must be remembered to be disguised in a convenient way.

Advice. You need to make holes very carefully and not overdo it with their diameter, so as not to weaken the structure and lead to its breakage.

Podium

Why not ditch vertical storage in favor of horizontal storage? In apartments with high ceilings, we offer an interesting solution - a podium.

1. Firstly, a bed, sofa or work area looks good on it.
2. Secondly, you can disguise an entire dressing room on the podium. By the way, you can get things out from above (if the bed has a lifting mechanism) or from the side by organizing shelves, drawers and doors on the podium. The main thing is to provide comfortable access to the farthest corners of the podium (however, they may not be used).

Hides in boxes

The double bottom drawer is a true classic that still works today.

Traditionally, hiding places are located in drawers of a desk or chest of drawers, where a “second bottom” can be made. For its equipment, take the same material from which the furniture itself is made, of the same size, secure it:

• Velcro;
• magnetic strips in a plastic frame;
• other convenient ways.

You can put flat objects there:

• documentation;
• cash;
• photos;
• securities.

Hidden “treasures” must also be secured on the “second day”.

Hides in closets

Cabinets provide a wide field of activity for equipping secret places from thieves. Their large internal and external space allows you to hide a large number of items of various configurations.

Hiding places built into a regular closet

·pack in a bag and attach with Velcro to the bottom of the cabinet

Jewelry, art paintings

Pull-out panel in the closet, hidden from prying eyes

Attention! Before hiding a thing, you need to decide who may know about the existence of the cache and have access to it, so that if it is discovered by household members, you will not end up in a stupid position.

Video: how to make - The simplest cache

When you want to have a secret storage room at home, but don’t have enough money for a safe, which also requires special installation, you can build an invisible compartment in the wardrobe. It is better to make a hiding place in the closet at the stage of its assembly. In finished furniture, you can use the simplest techniques for creating secret cavities. First you need to decide from whom you intend to hide valuables. They make simple hiding places for children and their family, but to protect them from malicious strangers, you will need a “cunning” and intricate hiding place.

Double bottom drawer

Attach supports along the entire perimeter to the vertical walls of the box. They can be made from small wooden blocks. A plane made of the same material as the bottom of the box is laid on them. The distance between the false panel and the bottom should not be excessive, otherwise the small box will be noticeable compared to other boxes. Glue some trinket onto the false bottom that you can use to open the cache.

Short drawer with compartment at the back

Standard drawers on ball guides do not slide out completely due to the features of the fittings. If one of them is shorter than the others, no one will notice. In the space between the back wall of the cabinet and the drawer, arrange a hiding place - it could be some kind of box or something similar. Also, by analogy with a double bottom, you can make a false back wall of the box.

Hidden retractable cavities

They can be vertical and horizontal. For example, make one side of the cabinet support frame a drawer with a front cornice that is no different in appearance from other parts of the frame. In the likeness of a retractable vertical panel for shoes, make such a cabinet with a facade that imitates the vertical cornice of the partition between the sections of the cabinet. Install the cache on roller supports or hang it on ball guides. It is convenient to hide large items in such a cavity.