What do you know about doors? Don’t you know any other kind of doors except the wooden one with a knob at one of its sides? Well, there’s another type much more interesting than all! I guess all of us have seen even for once in a lifetime that secret door which leads to ambiguous hidden rooms, lounges or even to secret tunnels, just after been discovered by chance, especially in movies! This is exactly what’s known as “Murphy door”.

What is a Murphy door?

First, we get to know well what the murphy door is, so simply without complicating, it’s a secret door consisting of some open bookshelves similar to which are found in libraries, also is often designed to be placed between staircases and seating nooks, how exciting it is! So far everything seems to be normal, until you push the shelves to find out a space hidden completely beyond! And what makes it harder to distinguish between murphy doors and normal bookshelves is when the whole wall is covered with them, as they all are usually designed in the same shape and color. Not to let anyone discover your secret door, it’d be better if you just designed it in the middle of a wall that contains many paintings and geometric figures, as to difficult to notice! This leads us to a very crucial point related to the door design itself, well what this means is that the shelves are not obligatory! You don’t have to make your door look exactly like a library, the most important thing is to be indistinguishable!

The Murphy Door 30 in. x 80 in. Flush Mount Assembled Pool Cue Door
Cherry Natural Stained Left-Hand Inswing
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The Murphy Door 30 in. x 80 in. Flush Mount Assembled
Oak Natural Stained Right-Hand Outswing Solid Core Interior Bookcase Door
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The Murphy Door 36 in. x 80 in. Flush Mount Assembled
Cherry Natural Stained Left-Hand Outswing Solid Core Interior Bookcase Door
Click Here For Latest Prices on Home Depot

The Murphy Door 32 in. x 80 in. Flush Mount Assembled
Pool Cue Door Paint Grade White Left-Hand Inswing, White Painted
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The Murphy Door 32 in. x 80 in. Flush Mount Assembled
Pool Cue Door Paint Grade Black Right-Hand Inswing, Black Painted
Click Here For Latest Prices in Home Depot

How To Install A Murphy Door

How to measure Murphy doors?

Let us be familiar with the common way to measure the size of any door including the Murphy doors as well. The whole process from beginning to end is pretty easy, and we can say that the whole thing lies in measuring the width and height of your door. You won’t need many tools but just a measuring tape, paper, pen and a printer!
You have to know the width of the door using the tape, start from the left side to the right one. But, notice that you don’t have to measure the weatherstripping or any other element, only the door.

Do the same thing to get the height, start measuring from the top corner to the bottom one, this also shall not include measuring the door sweep. Put in consideration that the door opening might not be a perfect rectangle, which will force you to measure from more than one spot, just to make sure that the values are precise.

Use your tape to measure the door thickness, start with the lateral edges then measure the jamb (the bottom part). After that, make sure to measure the free space of the frame and to get its height and width similarly to what you’ve done before with the door body.

Here we come to the role of the printer, before replacing or installing new door, use your mobile camera to take a picture of the old one and print it, then you should write down all your door features. Once you’ve finished the diagram, hold it with you whenever you go choosing your door, which makes it easier for you to buy a perfectly suitable one.

How much does it cost to have a standard disguised Murphy door?

Right now you’re wondering how much it will cost you to buy one of these fascinating doors! Ok, to have a secret room with a door like that won’t be very cheap and it may be a little bit expensive, but if you don’t intent to spend too much money because of your limited budget, don’t worry there are other options, fortunately! The price of Murphy doors varies from one to the other, the cheapest simple door may cost you around $880 before adding taxes of shipping. But it will cost you much more, for about $2800 before tax and shipping, in case you wanna go for a higher quality and luxurious characteristics such as cherry wine racks and electromagnetic handles.

However, you could be paying much more money if you wanted to customize your own door or to request it from a grand company specialized in manufacturing and designing secret doors like Creative Home Engineering as the engineers there will shape you a door exactly similar to what you want, which made their products high demanded everywhere.

The most interesting about the doors of this great business is the details! Such as the “knock-Knock” locks that won’t open unless you knock in a particular pattern, and also there is another amazing feature which allows you to open the door only by spraying a fake detergent upon the doorknob.
This company also manufactures many different types of clandestine doors with various expenses as following:

o Swinging fireplace doors – $12000
o Mirror doors – $2500
o Clue rack doors – $7500
o Stone walls – $8500

The secret beyond the name “Murphy”

It’s very important to know why particularly it is called a Murphy door, and surely you’re also curious about it!
The whole story dates back to when William Lawrence Murphy, who had a crush on an opera singer, but he has never been able to invite her to visit him where he lived, as he was living in a department consisting of one room in San Francisco, that was because of the prevailing law at that time, as it wasn’t only acceptable but also a shame that a woman enters a man’s house! Murphy didn’t feel satisfied with the whole thing which pushed him to turn his house into a salon and to invent for the first time the foldable beds. It was his patent, and afterwards he went on introducing many astonishing designs of this beds which are known in the meantime as “Murphy beds”.

Now you may ask, what do Murphy beds have to do with Murphy doors then? Well, you’re right, but first you have to know what these beds are used for. The main purpose of this kind of beds is to save space in case of the tight floor such as apartments, mobile or small houses and even university dormitories, as it you can easily fold them back to the wall as they already didn’t exist! Just like Murphy doors, can’t be recognized or distinguished! It’s pretty obvious now why they are called “Murphy doors”, isn’t it!

Here are some convincing reasons to have a secret door:

Security Purposes

The greatest danger that threats you house when you and your family are away is being robbed by someone, especially if you often keep your precious belongings in! This shall convince you to buy one to protect your possessions such as:
o Watches
o Jewelry
o Licensed guns
o currency
o Precious Metals
o Personal or business Documents
o liquor

For complete peace of mind while at home or traveling, a secret passageway is stunningly beautiful yet conveniently functional.

A lot of clients tend to use secret doors as to create panic rooms in their houses escaping stress. Actually it’s very nice and comfortable having your personal refuge secretly behind an unknown door!

Decoration and Entertainment

Many clients buy secret doors for funny purposes, unlike others who keep their murphy doors as a top secret!

They may use the secret space as:

• Offices
• Hidden home theater
• Escape rooms
• Hidden home theater
• Game rooms
• Play rooms for their children
• Libraries
A hidden door provides an exciting alternative to a regular door for all your fun and exciting spaces.

Now to sum up, we’re going to count briefly all the information we’ve been discussing in this essay.

– First, we knew together what a Murphy door is, it’s just a regular door disguised in many forms such as: bookshelves, fake stone, pool clue racks..etc that hides behind it a secret room, tunnel or lounge.

– Second, we learned how to measure the width, height thickness and the doorway of murphy doors and other kinds using few equipment in order to get the values right as to make it easy for us choosing the right suitable door without confusing.

– We also had a look at the variety of doors prices ranging from very low expenses that starts for about $800, to the very high ones as it differs from one door to the other due to the diverse qualities and features.

– The Creative Home Engineering Inc was given as an example for being one of the most well-known manufacturers of secret doors around the world. This company offers a large group of models with various prices, in addition to the possibility of designing your own clandestine door.

– After that, the secret behind calling it “Murphy door” was revealed, I say secret because this information is not known among the majority. As mentioned above, it’s related to “Murphy beds” and the inventor William Lawrence Murphy.

– Then finally, the last part included 2 main uses of secret doors whether for security or even having fun.