← All rooms

Inglewood · East Nashville · Built 1930

Secret Door

When our clients, a young family of three, moved into their renovated Tudor, they were completely in love with their space. But one thing was bothering them: the door from the living room into her office, awkwardly placed next to the fireplace.

It was just weird, and they couldn’t stop thinking about it. They came up with a wild idea: a built-in bookcase with a hidden door, and they hired us to make it happen. We drew up a full-wall library, called our carpenter, and got to work on the rest of the room.

The rest of the room started with a few of their favorite things: an heirloom lounger and chest, and a beloved large-scale painting. We selected a beautiful blue paint, added patterned drapery, and layered in secondhand finds: a West Elm sofa from Facebook Marketplace, vintage side tables, preloved lamps and more.

The highlight for me? Styling the shelves with the clients’ own books, objects, art, and plants.

We hope they’re snuggled up on the sofa right now, taking in their beautiful room, and barely remembering that there was ever a weird door at all.

The blue sitting room seen through an arched doorway: a framed ink calligraphy horse, a vintage tan leather lounger, floral drapery, a cream sofa, and a navy steamer trunk coffee table
The homeowner stepping through the bookcase wall’s hidden door, swung open beside the fireplace with its mounted TV
Open.
The same wall of powder blue built-ins beside the fireplace with the hidden door closed and completely invisible among the styled shelves
Closed.
A sunny corner with diamond-paned windows, floral drapery, a fiddle leaf fig in a woven basket, and a white lamp on a green iron side table beside the sofa
The full built-in wall with the hidden door open, the homeowner reaching for a shelf inside, the fireplace and leather recliner framing the room
A small hinged picture frame on the wall swung open to reveal the thermostat hidden behind it, beside framed botanical prints
← Back to all rooms

You may also like

A great room with a tufted leather sofa and an oatmeal sofa around an orange linen ottoman on a vintage rug The Great Room
A library with floor-to-ceiling walnut bookshelves built around tall windows, a wood writing table with a brass lamp, and a plaid-upholstered chair The Collector’s Townhome
A study with deep blue built-in bookshelves, a rust velvet wingback chair, and a vintage rug hung on the wall Their First House
A moody bedroom with deep green walls, a woven seagrass headboard, and rust velvet pillows Green Bedroom
A couple sharing tea and records in a dining room with a tulip table, mismatched chairs, a sputnik chandelier, a whitewashed stone fireplace, and a record console The Listening Room
A bright bedroom with a black metal bed, a striped lumbar pillow, a colorful gallery wall, a green glass lamp, and a mid-century nightstand For Color-Lovers
A caramel leather chesterfield sofa with velvet and kilim pillows beneath a large pink cowboy painting, beside a diamond-pane window and a pink kilim rug Pink & Leather
A dining room ringed with gold-rimmed plates on the wall, an antique oval table with mismatched chairs including botanical-print bentwood seats, and a woven pendant light The Keyes Home
A collected living room built around the clients’ green sofa and giant rug, with vintage tables and secondhand lighting Tea Towel Collection
A keeping room with an olive velvet sofa, a grid of six framed vintage prints and textiles, a taupe-painted ceiling, and hanging rugs beside an oak cabinet The Keeping Room
The family library: slate-blue built-in bookshelves on both walls, a wood desk with a chess set mid-game, a plaid spider-back chair, a brass chandelier, and the loft railing above Family Library