17 intriguing ideas for jib doors and secret entrances
Concealed doors, secret rooms, covert hideaways: past their overt clandestineness, there is something especially thrilling about what lies beyond them. Guessing their contents is a game sure to make your imagination run wild; each camouflaged door or mysterious portal brimming with the potential of a tantalising story.
Before diving into our favourite secret doors, jibs and hideaways from the House & Garden archive, however, let us refresh our memory on a their purpose. A jib door is one that is ‘flush-mounted’ into the wall (usually sans hardware), rendering it invisible. Oftentimes, these jib doors have a trompe l'œil effect, masquerading, for example, as a bookcase, which allows them to blend in seamlessly with their surroundings.
Our favourite secret doors, jibs and hideaways from the House & Garden archive
Sarah Hogan1/16In this London flat, the large set of bookshelves in the dining room incorporates jib doors that open into an office, while another set conceals a little desk and set of shelves for a different study.
Chris Horwood2/16Behind the jib door in Nina Campbell's bedroom is a walk in dressing room, hung with pictures.
Michael Sinclair3/16Mia Reay's 'Ainu' wallpaper covers a jib door in Rita Konig's garden room. It leads to a coat cupboard, which Rita added a rail into. ‘I was about to spend a fortune on cupboards, which I just couldn’t afford so this was a good solution,’ says Rita, who had the wallpaper wrapped around the jib door so you now barely spot it.
Ruth Ribeaucourt4/16To avoid disruption in the entrance hall of their 18th-century house on the wild Brittany coast, Jean-Baptiste Martin and Vincent Farelly of paper company Antoinette Poisson have created a jib door into a small bathroom. The entrance hall has been hand painted by Vincent in patterns inspired by the natural world.
Simon Upton5/16In the hallway of this Robert Kime project, a jib door is clad in two styles of De Gournay wallpaper.
Christopher Horwood6/16In our editor Hatta Byng's Yorkshire house, the master bathroom en suite is accessed via a jib door from the bedroom. Wrapped in De Gournay’s hand-painted ‘Earlham’ chinoiserie wallpaper, in custom colours, it keeps continuity to the lovely pattern in the bedroom and works well with Drummonds’ ‘The Wye’ bath, painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Yellow Ground’.
Michael Sinclair7/16In this glamorous London flat, Zuber’s handblocked ‘Paysage Italien’ wallpaper helps expand the sense of space in this compact hallway, with panelling below in ‘Mole’s Breath’ by Farrow & Ball. A jib door designed by Aida, with a bronze handle from Joseph Giles, leads to the bathroom. The sisal carpet is from Sinclair Till.
Davide Lovatti8/16A jib door opens into the bathroom at Tara Craig's London flat. The door is lined in the same fabric that covers the walls of the bedroom it opens out from - Marialida’s ‘Urbino’ cotton.
Alexander James9/16Entering the primary bedroom through the jib door in the hallway of this pied-à-terre in Notting Hill, you are greeted by riotous pops of colour.
Simon Brown10/16A jib door opens into the kitchen in this elegant and airy London apartment by Hugh Henry.
James McDonald11/16The ground floor sitting room of this glorious riverside house designed by Kate Guiness is painted in Papers and Paints' ‘Empire Red’. The jib door that connects to another house is hiding on the left beside the fireplace. A handmade shell mirror by Katherine Lloyd hangs above the chimneypiece. The ottoman is by Kate Guinness Design.
Boz Gagovski12/16The door to the bathroom in Lucy Mayer's London flat is a jib door on this side, papered in a reproduction of a Henri Rousseau's 1891 painting Surprised! The painting can be seen in the National Gallery and was reproduced by Andrew Martin.
Paul Massey13/16Interior designer Lesley Cooke designed an elegant and graceful dining room informed by chinoiserie for her clients in this old Gloucestershire rectory. The wallpaper in the dining room is by De Gournay, on celadon silk background, which has made its way onto the jib door leading out.
SImon Upton14/16Michael S. Smith's New York penthouse oozes old world charm. Here, a panelled jib door blends into its surroundings, noticeable only for its antique porcelain handle.
Courtesy of Serena Eller15/16Hidden behind this mirrored cube in the bedroom of an Italian diplomat's pied-à-terre in Rome is the master bathroom.
Courtesy of Serena Eller16/16A view of the bathroom within the mirrored cube.
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