Creating A Hidden Room With A Secret Floor Door!

Welcome to The Pit of Doom if you've been following this series long enough you know that this six-year-old house has an unfinished basement that technically can't really ever be finished cuz it's not deep enough with footings and today we're going to build a secret door so in the last episode if you guys seen we did all the flooring in the house except for this section we need to do something here and if you remember if you're the old school OG follower what we did this abandoned house the guy built this kind of makeshift little closet that had a secret door in it to walk down well it wasn't really secret but down crawl down into this basement that had a chicken Coupe and all this weird stuff so after putting our brains together of where we could actually hide this access that has the furnace the water heater access to all the plumbing Electrical uh we decided that we would have to keep it here so my vision here is we're going to create a hidden door I'm going to have to fill in all this OSB stuff that is excess essentially will create our little almost like window seill kind of thing and I got Hardware that'll have a hidden latch uh hidden hinges and uh hopefully if we keep our fingers crossed we'll be able to match the Grain and the pattern of our flooring that it wouldn't be that discernable but first thing we need to do right now is to start filling in this OSB section I ripped a little extra section here we'll throw in our hangers put our 2x sixes in place and hopefully we can move the sucker all the way up to here so this is not an obnoxiously big door [Music] this has to be the nicest piece of flooring in this entire house probably the only piece of flooring that doesn't squeeze that's super solid I was especially excited to find out that my uh 233 seconds uh OSB actually matches my 3/4 in planks here so that's a good day uh we got to throw some particle board as you can see I got a 3/8 quar particle board going around so we'll throw that here and then we'll figure out we're going to do that end cuz uh I got to make this thing somewhat square if we want this door to [Music] work so we have about a 3/4 in gap perimeter around here then we have our subflooring or planks and then we have our 38 sheet on top now the way I'm kind of processing this in my head by the way I'm shooting from the hip here so there's I've never done something like this before it has to be weight bearing load bearing it has to be able to withstand wood movement in order for it to open and close appropriately so there's a lot of things that can go wrong so this is a cool experiment that I am uh kind of dicing it up as I'm going so what I think I'm going to do I'm going to treat it like a rough and opening for a door right so like a prehung door will have your uh Sills and all that stuff jams all the way around so I think I'm going to make my own door jam completely around with solid wood create a casing around it so the casing sits in this 3/4 in Perimeter on top and then we'll fill in any gaps uh in order to a flush surface on top for this particle board that's what I got that's what I got so far so let's see if it works I was going to use brad nails just like regular door jams but I thought we're going to need some extra girth here so pocket holes all the way around I know this area is not going to be square because I already measured all these joist are doing whatever they want to do over the course of 60 years so we're going to have to do some shimming and that's um that'll definitely be fun guys we need to start taking better care of our lawn and that is why the sponsors of today's video is Sunday Sunday is a lawn care plan with simple friendly powerful ingredients backed by Nature no harsh chemicals no unwanted chemicals ingredients you can trust mystery free ingredients simply connect your Sunday pouch to your garden host and start spraying and the great part about these pouches there is zero pesticides we all know that Lawns are not all 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[Music] afterwards okay uh dry fit it's going to be the most most nerve-wracking dve fit I've ever done in my life but let's Cowboy Up The Point here is we want it to sit flush with our sub with the subflooring so let me put this on like a hula hoop and then we can put the particle board after [Music] that as you can see it's not square and I don't want to lose my Square here so cuz I also need this to be straight here so the door can follow the Contour of the flooring so a lot going on [Applause] here all right she's snug as a bug in a rug uh the nice thing is I don't have to use any kind of shims cuz I was nervous that it's going to compromise any kind of strength and I need all the strength that I can get for this thing to Bear throw some screws in there and then we'll start working on the door on second that I'm not too thrilled about this uh what do you want to call it window still door frame it's not perfectly Square um it's off it's getting squished this way and I need it get squished just a little bit that way what's important today is uh to get ahead of gluing up for the door so I think I'm going to start working on the door once it's set and glue and driving overnight I'll then have time to jump back over here I'm thinking you using this thick 2x2 boards gluing them up it have to be this kind of dimensional lumber for the thickness keep in mind this is a big spacing here these are just 3/4 in boards so we need the beefy the girthy to it we're going to let this puppy dry overnight trim it to size and then pray for the best all right I couldn't sleep last night um worried about this whole door situation um things are not lining up the boards I just kind of mock them up right here to see how the flow is going to go the most important part to me is that these joints these lines right here they line perfectly parallel uh to my opening here's the problem as you can see this part is overlapping way too much so that would mean I would have to cut right into my flooring which the problem with that is it's going to be way too noticeable that there's a door there and my goal is to make sure this is as much hidden and concealed as absolutely possible so what I'm going to have to do is take out my casing that I just build here put another floor joist going across bring the section in which would cause this opening to be the width of two or exactly two uh wooden planks now I'm okay with it overlapping here a little bit because that will actually the lid basically closes over it some of the flooring will make it even better so take the casing off put a new floor joist on and then hopefully I can tighten this thing up the downfall is I'm going to have to basically reconfigure my pole casing but uh I think that's the least of my problems all right I think I got it I feel so much better now now this is just a mockup just to make sure everything's working right I added another uh rafter or joist floor joist down below here so it's running across and then I shorten my uh window sill doorway thing and then this is all just mocked up right now but it lines up perfectly as you can see I trimmed off this little lip there and that transition is going flawlessly I got a little lip on here but uh like I said that's going to be fine cuz by the time the lid closes it'll overlap it and it should be just fine so feel pretty good about this let's start working on this door that's finally dried overnight so our door is fully dried the nice thing is I'll have to cut it down even smaller which is great it's better that way than you know going completely opposite way it's too small but I I think I'm going to pause on the door for a second because the trick is going to be to installed completely leveled you don't want too many surfaces here so I'm going to put OSB right here and then particle board filled up everywhere to match the same plane and then I can install my door to be completely flush with the top of the particle board that might be my best chance for uh a bunch of uh so if you've gotten to this point you're like what are you doing is that your way of covering this hole up no I'm going to do that trick that guys in framing do they'll like sheet a wall and then to cut out the window they'll just use a router and it looks super [Music] cool one perfect cut so I took the liberty and cleaned up my door so it's ready now here's the hard part I got these uh concealed hinges I'll link them in I got a sneeze coming up pass pass okay we're good we're back in business I got these concealable hinges heavy duty there's two of them they advertise them that they could be adjusted in like three different directions they mount uh on the edge here so I'm going to have to figure out how to route that through cuz there's like three different tiers annoying no template and the instructions are in Chinese like legitimately in Chinese then once I get it mounted over there the second problem is going to go get it mounted here and lined up perfectly and have it drop down to the direction that I needed inch and a half there's a lot of moving Parts here so I'm going to need to um put on my thinking cap here and focus [Music] oh my God I'm like at the Splash Zone at a sawdust Factory so that's the first tier now I got to do the second tier which is deeper I don't like this design I mean I wish this would have been fine if they gave me a little template but doing this all freehand sucks oh that's a nice tight fit that's what she said hey that's not bad for freehanding it at all especially with different layers in it I'm not tapping it all the way just cuz I don't want to get stuck and then only have one to get all the other ones in but and this one's already kind of snug oh there it is but uh what is that like 30 minutes per per hole but all in all not terrible a little sawdust can't hurt you right all right guys I'll save you guys the misery of actually watching me do the rest of these three holes so uh let me do this real quick a few moments later that St could not be more true I think I'm done breathing all the sawdust I got the sucker all done check this out got these all done got those all done now we're going to try to mount this thing hopefully there's no tears cuz that's a lot of [Music] work put a little stop block right there just so this thing doesn't fall through oh oh that's gorgeous it's actually dead nuts flush with this subing this side's a little bit low um but there's Flex in these hinges so I'm going to have to put a stopper uh completely or a backer piece completely around so you could safely stand on this and not put any pressure on the hinges and only really use the hinges for pressure when it comes to opening and closing this thing so it still needs a few minor micro adjustments but I think that comes into play when we start running the floor so what I'm going to do next is I'm going to start running my flooring as much as I can to this section here to make sure I can manipulate anything I need to on that door before we start actually gluing down the flooring to that sticking door and as to mention I got a killer hardware for the handle and it's concealable as well freaking excited to show you [Music] for the most part everything is leveled there's still going to be maybe tiny bit like a 16th of an inch more just cuz you know I don't I didn't plane this super well I just use my hand planer uh I got my little Stoppers behind here uh kind of like a door jam stopper so you can actually put weight on it and not hinder the hinges that are in the back there so it's super sturdy my only debate here right now is and I don't know I'm stuck between a rock in a hard place where what pattern are we doing here right so we could continue everything the way it's going like this that means I would make a cut right there and then it would flow through or because there would be you know obviously a cut all the way around well the size don't matter cuz they're going to line up with the horizontal sides um or do we just leave a full sheet completely across like which one would be far more noticeable I don't know um I think what I'll do is uh maybe I got some scrap pieces I can cut and just kind of mock it up and kind of go from there you know I'm glad I did this mockup because this stands out so much more um I don't know just kind maybe I'm cuz I'm staring at it directly and I'm looking for it but I feel like that's only two planks by the time we add a third plank is just going to look too unnatural so what we're going to do is continue this pattern as much as we can uh in fact ooh I think this would be cool instead of cutting my line perfectly straight here where these natural transitions are maybe that's where we create our profile so basically this piece would be attached to this board so it' lift up about 2 in there and then this next piece would go well no that's going to lift up a whole giant thing so all right well we can't do natural transitions we'll just uh we'll just lay them as they go [Music] so we got our pieces all cut up we're going to have to glue it down now before we glue it down we need to cut off this lip right here cuz that's going to interfere with our door opening and closing and the lip on the last piece right here cuz that's going to that needs to go underneath so that's going to interfere well so that that's a that's a simple problem to fix I got a new nice blade on here start cutting it and then we'll start gluing [Music] it you know what am I doing I'm going to go use a table saw this is going to be so much quicker I'm cutting it by [Music] hand everything lines up good but this is where we start gluing this uh top down to the lid I'm happy how it looks uh but these reveals are nice and tight specifically back then and here and everybody knows would move so that's why I'm going to have to glue it down uh I was advised by the flooring experts that with flooring like this you could either float it or glow it down but you can't do both you have to commit to one and here unfortunately I have to do both there's no way to add it on so we're just going to hope for the best get a nice level of glue across flooring glue uh I might have to later on do maybe a bead around this section just so it doesn't starts moving I don't know I'm just trying to process this information as I'm going but nothing to it but to do it [Music] and just to make sure it doesn't move on me and we get good pressure we got some plates on the sucker these are what you would call my weird uncle that works out in the front yard starter set well that about does it we're going to let it dry overnight and then tomorrow we'll be able to start installing the hidden uh door handle latch and then I hope it works I'll see you in the morning she's dry we gave her a nice 48 hours to do its thing put a little temporary screw in here to lift it up that's a heavy door I need something to grab on with let's get some leverage in here okay so I got to make sure nothing's catching and snapping I'm mostly concerned about the backside here oh there's a little little noise there let me see so it seems that this backside needs a little bit more of a Gap this part is kind of okay I don't know why it's catching here I'm fearful well oh there's a little Flex right here in this in this huh interesting I wonder if we glue the section down again we don't want to glue too many things down here if that'll just keep it down and keep it from getting damaged so after opening closing at a bunch of times I think the problem is there's a an e this section right here is overlapping it by about an e of an inch so to keep it from touching this piece uh I'm going to have to trim that down Downfall with that is it's going to create larger reveals um this section is dead perfect I'm actually really surprised how it's kind of laying perfectly in it but uh this might need to have a little trael action [Music] so I trimmed off the back the good news is nothing's catching anymore uh and by trimming it off I cut off anything that was broken um the bad news is um why is this thing there it is the bad news is that the reveal it's more than I wanted it to have which sucks which really really sucks um I'm going to try adjusting these hinges so maybe it pushes inward a little bit but man that really blows I was really getting excited that this is going to be picture perfect [Music] so to make it a smoother close I tried off about half an inch maybe basically put a bevel right on this corner so it doesn't catch on this little lip here so so far we have a smooth opening and closing latch door the downfall and again we're going to celebrate the good things first uh the Lines line up perfectly here I have a I'm happy with this Gap here this is the only section I'm not happy with there's nothing we can do about it maybe a different kind of door hardware maybe but it's functioning it opens and closes smoothly it just has like a quarter in Groove there but you got to pick and choose your battles I know I'm going to get destroyed in the comment section about it's not really a hidden door but I think this is the best that at least I can do uh if you have any ideas make it even better let me know uh maybe Hardware you recommend but this is what I went with and I think next time I'll try something different but let's go and move on to the latch cuz we can't always use this stupid screw here so I picked up these hidden latches on Amazon so the idea is you bore this inside this is flush to the surface and then you just push this down flip it over and now you have a smooth little handle to pick up now I played around in my head with the idea of possibly taking existing flooring and CA gluing it on here but what I'm afraid of because how tight of a Precision these little Gap apps are I'm afraid it's going to get caught on something um it's not my skill set but stainless steel nonetheless will look relatively cool [Music] I'm not a fan of this I need to bore out a little bit more wider but there's not a whole lot of lippage on the side of this bracket so it's like an eighth at best on each side not my ideal fun time [Music] this is why I never got into fine woodworking I can't run a chisel to save my life and most of the time it's dull chisels I just don't have the patience to and the discipline to just go and sharpen them every single time I'm not cut out for that kind of life [Music] that's how it's supposed to move there we go smooth as butter I think we got it okay there's that press it in lift it up so I am discontent right now because this seems that it's it pops too much to the eye and maybe it's cuz it's stainless steel but Kyle and I are putting our thinking heads together and see if we should recess this and I'm sure everybody in the comment section is like yes do that um K made a good point in case somebody puts a rug out here you want to be able to not have a little hump to it so I'm going to try and sharpening one of my…