Each time dictates its own styles, including in furniture design. However, in addition to beauty, many interior items should also have additional functionality: have drawers, drawers and shelves. And in some cases - hiding places, small safes disguised as ordinary bedside tables, chests of drawers or other pieces of furniture, as well as built into bookcases and wardrobes.

Secretary with curved legs, decorated with carvings

Their presence always had its own meaning: here it was possible to hide something that was not necessary for others to see. And, starting from the 18th century, in any rich house one could find a secretary, or in the Russian version, a desk where the owner kept especially valuable documents: bills, money, jewelry.

Various hiding places and secret drawers are often discovered inside antique furniture that has survived to this day.

Furniture with secrets - table and cabinet with additional drawers

In past centuries, in the homes of wealthy people, a mandatory part of the office was a table or a cabinet with secret drawers, which were used to store especially important documents, money, and jewelry, which made it possible to protect them from thieves. Later in France, a special table-cabinet was invented, called a secretary, because it was really possible to store various secret documents and small valuables in it.

The drawers were often equipped with secret locks and secret locking mechanisms

The popularity of secretaries and other furniture “delicacies” equipped with various secret spaces was not accidental. Their design has its advantages that they do not have regular tables and cabinets, and features unique to such products.

They are no less relevant today: valuable papers, expensive jewelry, important correspondence and documentation are stored in stylized safes and hiding places. Among the obvious advantages of such furniture are:

• storage of valuables without access to them by strangers;
• their arrangement in different furniture elements;
• the possibility of making secret storage facilities with your own hands.

Among the factors characteristic of furniture with a secret, the design features of such products are highlighted, making it possible to prepare places for storing a specific type of valuables. As a rule, if hiding places are specially equipped, they are equipped with secret locks, and today - with an electronic security system.

Today, the furniture market offers products not only for personal use, but also for enterprises and organizations. In addition, it can be made to order according to individual drawings.

To open this table you need to place a special magnet in the right place, there are no more handles or levers

Hiding places in ordinary furniture

Hiding places are often installed under furniture - in the empty space between the legs

Antique furniture is a storehouse of secrets and mysteries. Old cabinetmakers turned furniture elements into real works of art. Today's craftsmen make modern furniture in the old style, helping to create special interior and supplement it with hidden elements.

Hiding places in antique furniture

Purchasing special tables, cabinets and bedside tables with hiding places is quite expensive. But this does not mean that especially important documents and jewelry will remain on the shelf in the closet.

Option for a hiding place in the house on a bookshelf

Ready-made furniture with hidden niches

Wall mirrors and specially designed paintings can also make great hiding places.

Available today various types ordinary furniture equipped with secret spaces. Secret places can be located in any part of it, and they can be equipped either by the owners themselves, or by ordering their production by craftsmen, secret places can be located:

A secret drawer or safe disguised as an outlet

Do-it-yourself or custom-made caches

Custom-made desk stash

There is not always a need to buy expensive exclusive furniture equipped with secret places. Can be used budget option, having ordered required element furniture interior design to specialists according to their own drawings. Or a home craftsman can try to create and equip it with his own hands.

These can be equipped secret places under or inside countertops, in the doors of cabinets and bedside tables, as well as shelves and drawers on which locks can be installed.

Of interest are small “turnkey” niches equipped in the depths of the desk drawers with a secret.

An interesting option for hiding in a chest of drawers

Hollow furniture legs and stands

A simple hiding place in furniture - in the hollow legs of a chair

A hiding place arranged in these pieces of furniture is considered a classic. Making it is quite simple: you need to drill a hole of the selected size inside the furniture element. It is assumed that only one person will know about such a “secret” - the one who made it.

It is clear that the place for storing valuables equipped here does not imply a large number of them, which must be remembered to be disguised in a convenient way.

Advice. You need to make holes very carefully and not overdo it with their diameter, so as not to weaken the structure and lead to its breakage.

Stash inside the chair seat

Hides in boxes

The double bottom drawer is a true classic that still works today

Traditionally, hiding places are located in drawers of a desk or chest of drawers, where a “second bottom” can be made. For its equipment, take the same material from which the furniture itself is made, of the same size, secure it:

• Velcro;
• magnetic strips in a plastic frame;
• other convenient ways.

Small hiding place idea - a box within a box

You can put flat objects there:

• documents;
• cash;
• photos;
• securities.

Hidden “treasures” must also be secured on the “second day”.

Drawers with secrets for regular cabinets

Hides in closets

Secret drawers, securely hidden in the most ordinary-looking bookshelves

Cabinets provide a wide field of activity for equipping secret places from thieves. Their large internal and external space allows you to hide a large number of items of various configurations.

Hiding places built into a regular closet

Cache location	What can you hide?	How to secure
Under the bottom of the cabinet, in the far corner	Jewelry, small valuable items	· Fold into a box of a suitable size and place on the floor; ·pack in a bag and attach with Velcro to the bottom of the cabinet
Behind the back wall	Documents, securities. Jewelry, art paintings	Secure in bags and attach with tape or glue
For inner surface mirrors	Only flat objects	Use tape
At the bottom of the cabinet - the formation of a second bottom	Any objects corresponding to the height of the second bottom	Fold into a niche, cover with the second bottom
In the far corner inside the closet, disguised as a shoe box	Items that fit the box	Place a drawer with a lid that locks with a key in a shoe box secured with screws to the floor of the closet, put a pair of shoes on top that no one uses, cover with a shoe box lid

Pull-out panel in the closet, hidden from prying eyes

Attention! Before hiding a thing, you need to decide who may know about the existence of the cache and have access to it, so that if it is discovered by household members, you will not end up in a stupid position.

Video: how to make - The simplest cache

The classic secretary is a chest of drawers with a door that folds down from top to bottom, behind which there are many secret drawers and compartments. At first, this furniture was considered ladies' furniture. The open door served as a table for writing love letters, and pearls and diamonds glimmered in the locked hiding places. However, the design turned out to be successful, and it was borrowed for more prosaic purposes: storing documents and writing instruments. Let's try to assemble a simple secretary with our own hands so that markers, disks and folders with papers can finally find their permanent place.

Let's make a very simple secretary

Preparing for work

Our secretary will have the simplest device, but in terms of convenience and functionality it will not be inferior to the factory one. To make it you will need the following materials:

• Ready table stands for folders made of plywood (sold in stationery stores) - 6 pcs.
• MDF blank for the top cover – 890x330x16 mm.
• MDF blank for the back cover – 890x325x16 mm.
• Wood glue.
• Screws.
• Sanding paper.
• Double sided tape.

The tools we will need are:

1. Jigsaw with blade for curved cutting.
2. Drill.
3. Screwdriver or screwdriver.

As we see in the picture, our module is mounted on an ordinary dining table with tabletop dimensions of 100x80 cm. The add-on for placing papers looks like a complex of interconnected horizontal and vertical stands, united by top and back covers made of MDF.

In a small apartment, it would be good to figure out how to make the secretary mobile. This condition is precisely included in our design. The trick is that our shelf module is removable, which means that if necessary, it can be quickly removed to any other place.

Marking and cutting MDF

First we cut out the top cover. To do this, we place the stand on the sheet with its side so that the back side of the future cover is flush with the horizontal shelf. The front side of the cover should protrude forward 1.5 cm beyond the horizontal shelf. Mark the position of the first part of the shelf.

Mark the outline of the lid

We turn the stand over and mark the position of the second, mirror part of the shelf.

Cutting out the top cover

We cut out the top cover with a jigsaw, installing a file in it for a curved cut. The pendulum stroke must be turned off during operation. The dimensions of the cover should be:

• Length – 890 mm,
• Width at the junction of horizontal supports – 320 mm,
• The width at the ends is 170 mm.

We cut out the back wall in the form of a rectangle, according to given dimensions— 890x325x16 mm.

Scheme of our secretary

We sand the finished lids and coat them with furniture varnish 2-3 times or cover them with self-adhesive film.

In the form small closet with drawers and shelves for storing papers, documents, books, stationery and a folding or retractable board that replaces the . The secretary is very close in structure to . It should also be noted that the term “secretary” is applied to many types of furniture that have several similar functions.

History of the secretary

The first one was made in 1730, and at that time it was classified exclusively as “ladies’,” and had the appearance of a small cabinet for storing papers with a folding board intended for writing letters. Over time, secretaries increased in size, they were equipped with a large number of drawers and began to be used primarily for storing business and private letters, papers, etc. A large number of drawers made it possible to conveniently organize papers, and complex systems locking, all kinds of locks and secret compartments ensured decent reliability of the secretaries.

In the Nissim de Camondo Museum, located in Paris, today you can see the secretaire of King Louis XV, which was recognized as a miracle of furniture art. Famous furniture makers of those times, Jean Henri Riesener and Jean Francois Eben, worked on it for several years in a row. The massive body of the secretary made of tortoiseshell plates is covered with floral patterns and scrolls made of hammered gilded bronze, silver and exotic woods. The secretary is equipped with a very complex and ingenious locking system, which cost the king almost a million francs.

It should be noted that secretaries could not only have large sizes; miniature secretaries were also produced. Thus, Napoleon was the owner of a small travel secretary, which when folded was quite small, but when unfolded it had a large number of drawers, which made it roomy and convenient. According to the recollections of historians, the emperor, even in a traveling carriage, could work with him with almost the same comfort as in his own Parisian one.

Secretaries were often used by doctors, as they made it possible to store a huge number of medical instruments, medicines, etc. The secretary was also an excellent place to store jewelry and family heirlooms.

Another interesting fact is that at one time I received so much widespread, that this entailed the emergence of thieves who specialized specifically in obtaining the contents of secretaries. The services of such “specialists” were often used by noble persons in order to find out some secret information, which could then be used for selfish purposes.

In the old days, secretaries were made mainly from expensive breeds. Modern manufacturers use secretaries as natural wood (inexpensive option are secretaries made of pine), as well as chipboard, MDF and laminated chipboard, which are finished with veneer or film having a pattern “like natural wood” or some other pattern.

Secretary in a modern interior

The modern market can offer you models of secretaries for almost any existing one, which makes it possible to choose a secretaire for any situation in a house or apartment. A very convenient and useful secretary for small apartments, since it helps to economically use such valuable living space. Most often, the secretary is placed in the library area, office or children's room.

In a children's room, a secretary, as a rule, serves as a workplace for a schoolchild: a lowering shelf is used as a shelf, and when lowered, it automatically opens access to books and notebooks. When choosing a secretary for a child's room, be sure to pay attention to the strength of the folding shelf fastenings, since the safety of your child directly depends on this. By the way, it is not recommended to overload the lowering shelf of the secretary with a large number of items, because in the end it is not intended for heavy loads at all, but is simply a place for work.

In addition, the secretary can be one of the constituent elements of the wall, in which case it is usually supplemented with a mezzanine on top. Secretaries can also be found in the office. For example, there are special filing and accounting secretaries.

In general, a secretary is absolutely individual approach to the organization working area. After all, it can store not only books, papers and documents, but also many various devices that you need to do one thing or another. In addition, the secretary can be made to order, having previously discussed the style and size you need - from small portable to huge roomy.

Secretary with a secret

So what is the secret of the secretary? Probably the whole point is that he knows how to keep secrets, and every person, as you know, has the right to his own, even a small secret. After all, any self-respecting secretary should have a secret compartment that is accessible only to its owner.

For clear example You can remember the secretary, which is located in Ufa, the Memorial House-Museum named after. S.T. Aksakova. This secretary has multi-colored wood painting, covered with gesso, and curved legs, which is very typical for. Presumably the secretary was made in the middle of the 18th century in France. What is unusual about this piece of furniture? Yes, because it has so many “secrets”, and some of them are so clever that they have not yet been solved. To this day, as noted, it is unknown what is hidden in some of the drawers of this secretary.

When a child grows beyond the age of plush toys and wooden rocking chairs, growing up is not a reason to send old favorites “into exile.” But it’s worth thinking about refurbishment of the nursery. For example, a horse can be easily turned into a compact, fun secretary for a teenager. A little ingenuity, a few boards and screws, reliable tool and love for your rapidly growing child - that's what you need for this.

What materials are needed

In this case, the body frame is made of wood coniferous species. The semicircular body used 42 slats measuring 3.4 x 1.8 x 100 cm, as well as plywood 27 and 18 mm thick.

MDF is mainly used for the internal structure medium density. This gives two advantages at once: firstly, MDF with a thickness of 16 and 19 mm is sufficiently durable and works well in bending even at large sizes. Secondly, its surfaces are easy to paint. Sanding before applying paint, as a rule, is not required; only the edges, due to their high absorbency, require at least two treatments - “sandpaper” No. 100 and No. 180.

You will need a variety of screws: 4.0 x 45 mm; 4.0 x 20 mm; 3.5 x 50 mm; 3.5 x 25 mm; 3.5 x 16 mm.

You will need
cordless drill wood drill bits 3.5 and 6 mm Forstner drills 30 and 35 mm jigsaw miter box hammer chisel pencil and ruler tape carpentry and assembly glue* lighter MDF screws 19 and 16 mm plywood 27 and 18 mm lumber rubber cord rollers with guides belt for pens.

Frame

Strictly speaking, the secretary will inherit only the head and tail from his beloved wooden horse. Everything else will have to be built from scratch, using the drawing (see figure). The task will be greatly simplified if, in addition to an unnecessary toy, there is also a ready-made chest of drawers for small items that can be adapted for our purposes. No chest of drawers? Oh well. The drawers would work well from 16mm MDF, and the note board and both tabletops would be made from 19mm. Please note that the drawers of the chest of drawers are only 2-3 mm narrower than the corresponding recesses in the body. The outer edges of the drawers should be thoroughly rounded to make inserting the drawers easier.

Thrust rack

Before equipping your horse with many useful functions, you need to create primary ones for this design conditions.

1 . The length for the right stop rail on the outer cover panel should be measured to the nearest millimeter.
2 . Using a miter box, you need to cut the strip to length. The cuts should be carefully rounded.
Z. For the fastening strap screw, perform in the rail blind hole 0 35 mm, depth 10 mm.

Note board

A great idea is to equip your secretary with a board for notes. Moreover, it does not have to be magnetic at all: perhaps, laces as fasteners are an even more interesting option.

1 . A row of holes on the board is located at a distance of 15 mm from the edge. It is necessary to note the gap at the top...
2 ...and at the bottom edge and connect the marks using a ruler. In this case, you can immediately mark the holes.
3 . Repeating holes is easily done with a wood drill (6 mm). A rubber cord will be threaded through them later.

Surface treatment

Colored enamel will not only add color to the appearance of the secretary, but will also protect the MDF from moisture and scratches.

1 . The edges of the note board need to be sanded first. It is better to round them with a sanding block to improve the paint quality.
held on.
2 . After cleaning the surfaces from dust, you should cover the edges with “2 in 1” paint. This way you can do without a primer.
3 . After drying, all that remains is to sand the painted surfaces sanding paper No. 220 and apply another coat of paint.

Note board

A combination of screws and mounting adhesive will firmly secure the board into the secretary lid. A taut rubber cord will hold all the notes in place.

1 . Place a rubber cord (4 m) into the hole on the back of the board and secure with a knot. The ends should first be melted with a lighter.
2 . Pass the cord through all the holes; Finally, pull tight and secure the tension with a knot.
3 . Install a stop strip with a drilled blind hole over the screw of the fastening strap.

4 . For fixation, use three 4.0 x 45 mm screws. The heads should be “sunk” flush into the material.
5 . Pre-drill the center slab: approximately 10mm (1/2 the thickness of the slab) from the front edge and 60mm from the top and bottom edges.
6 . Apply a thick continuous strip of mounting glue to the thrust strip (ordinary wood glue will not work here).

7 . Place the note board in the lid and briefly press it firmly against the stop strip with glue.
8 . Through pre- drilled holes Screw the plate with two 3.5 x 50 mm screws.
9 . From the bottom of the horse body, carefully unscrew both upper wooden slats.

Retractable tabletop

Of course, even without a retractable tabletop, the secretary would not be bad. But the transforming table is much cooler than the usual one.
So let's try!

1 . The roller guide must be installed in the housing on both sides at the same height.
2 . Screws 4.0 x 20 mm must be screwed in strictly perpendicularly so that their heads are exactly flush.
3 . The tabletop is supported by two slats 10x10 mm thick. You will need to pre-drill the holes with a 3.5 mm drill.

4 . When screwing the slats, make sure that they are located exactly above the guides. Secure with 3.5 x 25 mm screws.
5 . To attach the counter parts of the guides to the tabletop, use three 3.6 x 16 mm screws.
6 . Insert the tabletop with the rollers first into the guides. In this case, no screw head should interfere.

7 . And this strip forms the façade of the tabletop. To attach the handle-belt, you will have to hollow out a notch in the middle of it on the back side.
8 . Temporarily fix the rail to the body to screw it to the end of the tabletop. Pre-drill holes for screws.
9 . Unscrew the rail from the body again - it is now attached to the tabletop at the correct height.

Wardrobe with drawers

The left side of the lid has enough space for a chest of drawers. A little trick with a cord will help prevent the drawers from falling out when tilted.

1 . Place the second tabletop (which is not located on the guides) on the installed slats.
2 . Measure the depth of the cabinet with drawers on the lid. Leave approximately 2.5 cm of free space at the top and bottom.
3 . Mark the cabinet body at a distance of approximately 10 mm (1/2 the thickness of the slab) from the edge. Leave about 50mm on the side.

4 . Drill holes according to the diameter of the screws (3.5 mm) so that the side plates do not subsequently crack when screwed in.
5 . Use a countersink to deepen the holes
6 . Before connecting the body parts with screws, apply a thin bead of waterproof wood glue to the contact surfaces.

7 . Similarly, connect the top board and the central parts with screws and glue.
8 . To screw the bottom, draw auxiliary lines. Spacer blocks will ensure precise perpendicularity of the drawer recesses.
9 . Glue and screw the back wall, like the rest of the parts. This plate ensures the perpendicularity of the body.

Final

As already mentioned, the drawers are also made of 19 mm thick MDF.

When gluing it is necessary high precision due to the lack of fixing screws. Simple adhesive tape will help you.

1 . Instead of furniture handles there will be holes in the drawers. To complete them accurately, make marks.

2 . Using a 30 mm Forstner drill, make holes for the handles in the drawer fronts.
3 . Now we need to glue the boxes. For fixation, use strong tape, which you will remove after the glue has dried.
4 . All edges of the drawers must be rounded using a sanding block. Don't forget to do this with inside boxes.

5 . The details of the chest of drawers are painted with “2 in 1” paint. The second layer is applied after drying and intermediate sanding.
6 . On the left (by analogy with the thrust strip), you need to make a blind hole with a diameter of 35 mm to recess the screw of the fastening belt.
7 . A second rubber cord stretched between the screwed-in hooks will prevent the drawers from falling out when the secretary lid is opened.

Furniture that retains the breath of old times gives our apartments a special flavor. In this section we will mainly talk about the secretary, but not about the one we all know as component modern furniture wall, but about how our ancestors imagined this piece of furniture many years ago. For the home handyman, who has some carpentry experience, is quite capable of making such desk along with the extension.

The shape of the table, the area of ​​the tabletop and the extension have small sizes. Therefore, the secretary will not take up much space in the room and can be placed somewhere near the wall, and maybe in front of the window.

In our design we will be dealing with shaped parts, small drawers, etc. To make them we will need pieces of plywood board or thick plywood.

The secretary shown in Fig. 20 should be considered only as one of the options. Your own taste and the material you have will tell you a variety of variations of this model. First, let's determine the main dimensions of our future structure. Table height – 75–78 cm (top edge height), extension height – at least 40 cm, tabletop width – 120–140 cm, depth – 60–80 cm. When manufacturing various parts, you must first draw up an accurate sketch of them. For curly sidewalls and corners, it is necessary to make templates in advance and transfer the shapes with a soft pencil to the material.

Rice. 20. Secretary

Now some instructions for making a secretary. The table consists of two sidewalls, which are also the supporting legs of the table top, frame drawers and strengthening the structure of a thick rail placed in the rear lower third of the table. We connect the frame and tabletop to the sidewalls using dowels in the same way as the crossbars, which act as special legs. We connect the rear support strip to the sidewalls using cuts and, after gluing, also with screws. In accordance with the specified width of the drawers, we insert shutter strips between the slats. To the extension, consisting of sidewalls, top board and back wall, we add various drawers on both sides. Since our design uses different material, it is recommended to paint the secretary, preferably in two brown tones that go well with each other.

The picture below shows how without special tool you can make the specified shapes for the secretary from the available material. First, use a hacksaw to make the marked cuts before starting to carve. Then, using a chisel, we hollow out part of the material (on both sides), and then make oblique cuts. We finish the grooves and roundings with a rasp.

Screen in everyday life

It seems that the screen in the middle of the room has finally gone out of fashion. However, screens can be used in our everyday life. They allow you to partition or close something.

Our first recommendation concerns a screen, with which you can equip a convenient workplace. Two workstations in a narrow children's room, equipped with a side to the window, give two children the opportunity to study without distraction. The partition can be made from old material you have. If we are building a new partition, it is recommended to make a frame from slats (2 cm thick and 6–7 cm wide), interconnected at the ends with an overlap. If construction is proposed large sizes, it is necessary to provide transverse rigid fastening, especially if we (as indicated in Fig. 21) also want to equip small shelves on the partitions.

Rice. 21. Screen

We carefully sheathe the frame on both sides with TDVP. We make small shelves from pieces of boards 12–15 cm wide, nailed together at right angles. The shelves should be positioned in such a way that they are supported by transverse connections, which are secured with screws screwed into the other side of the partition. Since the shelves are not opposite each other, you can hang a tear-off calendar or attach a writing board on the screw heads on the other side.

At certain intervals we screw in small hooks. We attach lamps to the top of our structure to provide the necessary lighting. In order for the partition to have a strong support, support bars are used as legs (as can be seen from the figure).

Another option for using a screen is shown in the figure below. The screen can be used by placing it in front of the crib to protect from light and noise. It is also useful in the garden to temporarily fence off, for example, a swimming pool. To do this, we build frames approximately 180 cm high, which are upholstered on one side with any padded material. The upholstery can be mats, straw matting, awnings, burlap (which, by the way, can be painted in a very original way) or even cardboard, which can be covered with wallpaper. The frames form a screen using plug hinges.

To use the screen on outdoors At the bottom of each frame we attach two long pins that stick into the ground. By using tent pegs (as indicated in the right picture below), the screen is installed so firmly that no wind will blow it away.

Multi-purpose lockers

As we noted earlier, when furnishing apartments, one often has to deal with the fact that the furniture available for sale does not quite correspond to the size of the premises. Often a section of the wall remains unoccupied, although it could be rationally filled with some piece of furniture. One solution to this problem is a homemade cabinet with shelves. This locker is extremely useful thing. It can be used, for example, to design youth room, corner of the room or as a TV stand. His appearance must, of course, be in harmony with all the other furniture in the room.

It is advisable to use parts of a well-preserved old cabinet as a material. If you plan to paint the cabinet in advance, this greatly simplifies its manufacture, since nails and screws are used to connect the parts; however, you should always recess their heads. The holes must be filled with wood putty and the surface must be sanded after setting. sandpaper. If we want to do without nails and screws, the individual parts can be connected using wooden dowels.

The dimensions of the locker are determined by specific conditions. For our example, they are as follows: width – 90 cm, height – 75 cm and depth – 40 cm. The frame of the cabinet consists of two side walls, a shelf (bottom shelf), a lid, a back wall and a base. To connect the polyc to the side walls, it is best to use a closed finger joint. To do this, the floor must be between the walls, the lid must be on the side walls (see Fig. 22 bottom left). Rear wall fits into the recess, which is located inside, on the side walls. We use TDVP or plywood boards as the material for this.