Everybody who's read a Gothic novel, played a tabletop RPG, or otherwise enjoyed the cinematic and romantic has probably wanted a secret door to slip through at some point in their life. And when we moved into our house one person-old-enough-to-start-driving-years ago, I promised myself one. But even ignoring the lack of time to work on it, it's a difficult business. I had a couple of spots suitable for the exercise in our semi-finished upstairs, but it's an old (probably 1930) house where nothing's quite square or level and the dimensions are always a little off, so it's all custom work (I'm sure DIY hidden door kits are marvelous, but they're also on the expensive side and require better behaved architecture than I've got), and I'm ultimately a dreadful carpenter. But eventually, I got it.
So, hand-built bookcase in the little lounge/office space I have upstairs. The light blue paint matches most of the rest of the room, and the decorative weaving is something my grandmother made many years ago. The light at the top is covered with a decorative grille I 3d-printed. But what if we pull on the handles hidden around the corner?
The bookcase is fixed top and bottom to some yard-long drawer slides which let it go back and forth. There are also some casters which keep it from bending too far down. And farther back there are two more rooms (mostly storage right now, but we hope to recover them some day).
