Now, if you don’t like door knobs, you have no reason to be reading this blog … but perhaps you have just run out of inspiration for new knob themes in your house, or you now have an extra door, but can’t source a matching handle to go with your other antique ones. Well, this door handle might be a little big for us to ship – but it is definitely one of the more interesting ones we have seen around!

It is actually a book. A Sherlock Holmes book, in a piece of intentional serendipity – and it opens the door to this person’s hot water service closet! While we can’t imagine it replacing the old twist handle, or even the lever handle, and it is arguably more or less secure than a traditional key-lock, it is definitely more ingenious.

It was a DIY job – and not being particularly mechanically minded (even when the mechanics involved are made of wood!), I think I will just copy the creator’s text to explain how it was made:

The mechanism turned out to be pretty simple - if you look closely on the back of the opened shelf, there is a piece of 20mm dowel the full height of the door. This dowel rides over and locks behind a little “ramp” fixed to the floor. To release it I made a miniature block and tackle with small yacht rigging pulleys. The shelf sits on two casters and opens quite smoothly and effortlessly.

For regular readers of our blog, you can imagine that this is a great way to dog or cat proof your door … without all that pesky training! And just imagine the amount of extra storage space you would have in your house, when every single door can have a giant shelf unit mounted to the front of it!

A recommendation, though – don’t pick anything too interesting for the ‘key’ book, if you want the door to remain secret. Don’t choose: My Naked Exploits, World’s Funniest Blonde Jokes, or even Earth’s bestselling book, The Holy Bible, for example!

Stay tuned for next week, when we show you how to build a stone slippery dip behind your secret door, and give you tips on lighting and decorating the secret laboratory that your shelf-door leads to!

          

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