How to Make Hidden Compartment Furniture

Born Undercover Spaces

By: Carol Beronich

Hiding places in antiquarian article of furniture were created out of necessity. In today'southward article of furniture they're interesting cubbies that are fun to create.

Before the days of banks and rubber deposit boxes, people often kept greenbacks and valuables hidden at home. So information technology was common exercise for cabinetmakers to incorporate subconscious compartments into piece of furniture.

You can find these hiding places in all kinds of furniture. A bedpost was a adept identify to hide money and other valuables. And desks with multiple cubbies were made too for those who wanted to hibernate their fortunes. Of course any piece of furniture with drawers or doors could exist made to tuck away valuables in a hidden drawer or disguised console.

Modernistic FURNITURE. Today y'all won't earn much interest on coin that's stowed away in a desk-bound or a bedpost. Only hush-hush hiding places in piece of furniture are heady to observe and fun to add to projects. Plus, with a little discretion, no one will always know their location.

WHERE TO HIDE IT. If you think about it, in any given piece of furniture there are usually "expressionless spaces." Like an inch or 2 behind a slice of molding or the space between the top of the drawers and the underside of the top. It's pretty easy to use these dead spaces to build in hiding places while you're designing the projection. Nonetheless, some cloak-and-dagger spaces can be disguised in plainly sight by using cleverly hidden panels or shortening deep or long spaces, like those in a drawer. Hither are few examples.

TOE-KICK DRAWERS. Toe-boot drawers can provide a lot of room to hibernate valuables. And they're easy to include in just about any cabinet that has an apron at the lesser, every bit y'all can meet in the main drawing.

To add together a toe-kick drawer to a project y'all're building, just brand a box for the drawer and mount it to the cabinet with drawer slides. The apron can be fastened to the drawer like a simulated front. The goal is to make the apron look similar it's one slice with the cabinet, then mating the apron to the chiffonier and minimizing gaps is important.

HOLLOW SPACES. Bedposts and pilasters are usually solid. But it'southward a simple matter as you're working on the project to cut a mortise in the peak of one of these parts to stash small items. Concealing the opening can exist washed with a finial or a cap. For more security, adding rare-earth magnets and screws volition keep the cap from coming loose and spilling the contents.

DROP-Downwardly TRAYS. If a dresser or cabinet has a rail but under the peak and above the drawers, there can be dead space behind the rail. This makes a perfect hiding place for a dropdown tray. The back of the tray can sit on a cleat while the front is held with magnets embedded in the desktop. To gain admission to the tray, a small finger hole can exist drilled in the lesser. Just pull the front down and slide information technology out of its hiding place later on removing the drawer.

DRAWERS. There are a number of places for clandestine compartments in drawers. Most of these hiding places are small, simply well hidden, and require that you lot pull out the drawer before you gain admission.

FALSE BACKS. A false drawer dorsum tin create a space behind the main drawer. The fake back of a drawer is prepare in dadoes on either side of the drawer box. A dewdrop of gum nether the false back keeps objects from sliding under information technology.

A plow button volition stop the drawer from fully extending. Using drawer slides that don't fully extend is another way to conceal the space at the back of the drawer.

Short drawers with a space behind them make good hiding places also. Making a drawer several inches shorter than the depth of the cabinet volition allow room for a hidden box behind a drawer. The drawer is removed completely and the small concealed box can exist pulled out for access. Once more, a modest pigsty in the side or front of the box let's you pull the box out from its cloak-and-dagger identify with 1 finger.

Simulated BOTTOM. On deeper drawers, it's easy to muffle a shallow hiding place with a false bottom. An extra set of grooves holds a sliding bottom that is held in place with a screw. A shallow notch cutting on the underside of the lesser just deep enough for a fingernail, makes it easier to slide the drawer out and reveal the infinite.

Undercover hiding places are not for every project you build. Only some furniture lends itself easily to this type of construction. I remember you'll notice that it's intriguing to search out areas for creating clandestine spaces in woodworking projects. And imagine the thrill of someone discovering that subconscious infinite y'all build into your next project.

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