“Home is where the heart is,” as the popular phrase says. People’s homes are usually their sanctuaries. Nothing beats going out or traveling to have fun, but nothing beats arriving home after being worn out from a great evening or a trip. Homes are somewhere we fully express ourselves, fill all the nooks and crannies with stuff we love, decorate it to whatever taste (whether tasteful or tacky) we have. People can even walk around naked in their houses if they wish. It is where people sleep, eat, drink and… other stuff! Everyone knows their homes inside and out, understanding every nook and cranny they have. But that is not always the case. At they very least, guests to others’ houses think that what they see on the surface is the total area of a home or apartment. However, what you see is not always not what you get! Especially in older homes. There is the possibility of old basements that have been boarded up, in the UK for example, plenty of houses still have filled in air raid shelters at the end of their garden dating back to World War II! In today’s age where people need some down time to get away from the highly connected insanity of modern life, there are plenty of hidden man caves or his and hers rooms. While most of these contain a TV or comfy sofa, some people go to the wall with their secret rooms. Here are some that have gone off the deep end!

15. Hide and Seek Cars!

It is important to keep cars safe, and for most a garage will do, but what if there is no garage or just a driveway leading up to the house? What better way to hide one’s automotive pride and joy then by taking use of a driveway and perhaps even channeling a little bit of the Caped Crusader at the same time? This bit of drive has got itself some serious street cred and Batcave cred by the owners installing its very own little garage for hiding a supercar. Built with a hydraulic system, this makeshift and imaginative garage space rises into place then tucks a car neatly out of site, neat!

14. Narnia IRL

For years the tale by C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, has captured the hearts and imaginations of children of all ages – and their parents before them. The successful and timeless series of books have also had the TV and more recently, the movie treatment beginning with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, making many kids wish their wardrobes would transport them to a fantasy realm. Well, this kid’s playroom is a literal transportation to Narnia, or a Narnia themed playroom. With the doorway through an actual wardrobe and plenty of Aslan pictures, whoever has this playroom must be a real Prince (or Princess) Caspian!

13. Secret Hotel Bar

One might be mistaken for being a tad annoyed when checking in to a hotel to find that there is no bar that exists in the establishment, but it seems some hotels like to play little tricks on their guests. Playing tricks is precisely what this hotel in Hawaii seems to like doing! The Modern Hotel in Waikiki might fool holidaymakers into thinking that they may have accidentally checked in to a dry hotel, but of course, the joke is on the guests. The hotel houses a huge bookshelf that may appear innocent at first, but the shelf turns around to reveal the hotel bar. So guests can grab the latest bestseller then grab a cocktail, what page turning service!

12. Harry’s Hidey Hole

A cupboard under the stairs is usually just that, a closet to quickly stash away various odds and ends, but the Harry Potter books and movies changed that. The now legendary stories by J.K. Rowling, begin with the wizard Harry, the black sheep of the family in the eyes of his aunt’s family, The Dursleys. They force Harry to sleep for first the eleven years of his life in a cupboard under the stairs. Although Harry’s life under the stairs was a form of mistreatment, some people must have thought that stuck under stairs might serve as a cozy little retreat. It certainly does appear like a great cubbyhole to flee from the distractions of the world, unless many people are going up and down the stairs above the room.

11. Unknown Housemate

It is one thing to have a room that occupants do not know about, but what if that room included its own occupant too? The highly unlikely scenario of having an extra person living in the house without the other occupant’s knowledge, is kind of creepy for the people who do not know, but also very convenient for the person squatting on the sly! This actually happened to a group of Ohio State University students who were sharing a house, which they originally believed was haunted after constantly hearing bumps and other noises. Eventually, they found behind a door in the basement that they had originally thought led to a maintenance cupboard. But instead, the students found a room with a double bed, textbooks, a TV and a guy named Jeremy in there! They eventually responded by changing the locks to evict the sneaky Jeremy that had probably been living there rent-free!

10. Singer Castle

Castles are synonymous with secret rooms and passages. In fact, many of those were built in case the lords/ladies of the castle had to hide from invaders, or priests hiding from Protestants. However, castles are usually buildings left over from Medieval Europe, though the odd one has sprouted up in America. One of them is Singer Castle in New York, a fort that seems built expressly for the purposes of building secret passageways. The castle has a secret passage behind paintings to spy on people and a dungeon. Someone was clearly paranoid when building this place, watch the portraits for moving eyes!

9. Secret Attic Room

Many of the fantastical stories told to kids revolve around something in the attic. A lost cuddly toy come to life or a secret room of wonders and sometimes, a kid punished by being locked in the attic. It is a part of the house that is often sat removed from the rest, so is it a source of mystery and maybe fear for many children. So to have a secret bedroom stowed in the attic would seem like something out of a book or movie. Just as this one that opens up from behind a bookshelf to invite friends over and freak them out, playing hide and seek, not telling them about the secret room!

8. Hidden Bathroom!

It is nice to have a bathroom that is all to yourself, and something that is very rare too. With a private bathroom, you would not have to worry about others taking forever in the shower, or even worse, sitting on the throne and debasing it with some terrible odors! Such nuisances must have occupied the mind of whoever thought up this secret retreat because what seems to be a bookshelf, pushes back to reveal a clandestine bathroom that the owner can escape to without the irritation of sharing it with other people and their smelly… stuff, forever in peace!

7. Slide To Your Room

How to reach a secret room? Most people would just fit a door, a sliding wall or even a staircase; all pretty standard methods of moving around in a house of course. However, for some people these useful techniques of transporting from here to there through a living space is annoying. So why not change things up a little, especially if you have kids? This room is ultra cool for every generation as it has a slide down into it. Yes, a slide! Channel your inner child by dropping down a floor and skidding across the surface, beats stairs and is a lot quicker!

6. A Secret Room With A Secret About The House

Housebuying can be tricky, expensive, take a long time and come with a lot of stress. It is one of the most stressful things a person can do, and that is if everything is above board. However, the drama increases vastly when buyers are screwed over, but a secret room came to one couple’s rescue. In 2005, Jason and Kerri Brown bought a new house and found a secret corridor behind a bookshelf and inside the corridor was a letter. The letter was titled: “you have found it!” and proceeded to tell the new owners that have found the communique. They should know that the writer (the previous owner) had moved out of the house due to a black mold infestation that affected their children’s health. Of course, the realtor never revealed this mold issue to the new owners, and the information led to the Browns suing their realtor.

5. Book Bolthole

For bookworms, there is nothing better for them than to bury themselves in a book and get lost in its unfolding story or information. However, the outside world always brings threats of distraction or interference with a reader’s odyssey into another world between the pages. There is no better remedy to tackle it than this secret room that is scuppered away in a library, stashed behind the rows of books. What better way to while away the hours than with one’s nose buried in a book – or a dozen – hidden away in a tiny reading room, dedicated just to reading?

4. Wily Wine Cellar

When it is wine o’clock, no one wants to mess around wondering if there are plenty of bottles left. It might also be helpful to stow away some bottles in case there is a greedy drinker on the premises. Forget about the wine rack in the kitchen and impress the neighbors, like the creator of this little recess has. Hidden behind a stylish looking brick wall with some wine decorations, is a push away from revealing an actual wine cellar. That should get some avid drinking buddies to pop their corks. Just make sure it is all filled when family and friends come round.

3. Staircase, Leading To A Staircase!

Many passageways begin with stairs. Hidden behind a bookshelf or an innocent looking wall, opened by dislodging a certain object or stone. Sometimes, they are a thin downwards line to a clandestine basement, or a curious/ominous spiral into enigma and adventure. Although a secret passageway like this is more than a little unique, a staircase that hides a secret room. The flight of stairs lifts up to reveal more stairs, but only a few that descend into a nice little retreat of a room. A pretty neat space that most will not guess is there and is under the stairs, in more of a secret agent sense than a mistreated Harry Potter sense!

2. Hidden Armory

Protecting our homes are as important to us as… well, our homes! It is kinda expensive setting up burglar alarm systems to keep the villains and brigands at bay, and many may opt for taking up arms to stave off the criminals. Yet finding a covert armory in your own house may raise questions as to how it got there, how paranoid the previous owner was, or how much of a psycho they were! A man bought a house and noticed some weird boards in the basement, revealing a room filled with ammunition, empty gun cases and even encountering a grenade in there!

1. Cozy Cinema

Unless you live in a mansion, you are unlikely to own a media room with a huge screen and massive chairs to slouch into, watching a huge movie marathon. However, the most ingenious of people can work around these little hiccups and grow creative with the limited space available. If there is enough room for a library, why not adapt some of those shelves into a cinema room (as movies themselves are adapted from books?) With this brilliant alteration, a bookshelf pushes back to reveal a little space to enjoy the silver screen without having to venture out to the cinema and endure the crowds!