Some homes hold secrets and conceal more space than meets the eye. A door hidden in plain view that leads to a secret room isn't just the stuff of movie sets and spy novels, says Steve Humble, president and founder of the decade-old Creative Home Engineering firm, based in Gilbert, Arizona.

"I am a mechanical engineer by trade, and when I started this business, a majority of the openings to secret rooms we designed were fun by nature, leading to the kids' playroom or a home theater," Humble says of his business that has become an industry leader in the construction of secret rooms. "But, today, a majority of the secret rooms we design address home security, whether it's a safe room for people or valuables."

Secret openings can be concealed within a fireplace, a wall bookcase unit, cupboard or cabinet. The first of Humble's trade secrets to an ensconced enclosure in a home is to utilize the "dead" space in a home. Whether it's a passageway underneath a staircase or a doorway that leads to space originally designated as part of a furnace room, closet or crawl space, Humble says the key to having a secret room is that visitors don't even know one exists within the home.

While a homeowner can retrofit a secret room into an existing house renovation, Humble says it's easier to conceal contents in new home construction. Often designated on architectural plans as a home's mechanical room or closet, builders won't even know about a secret room installation.

"When we take a job, we build the opening to certain specifications, so it can be installed at the very end of construction -- after all the workers have left -- so the space remains a secret," Humble says. "Some woodworkers think they can add a hinge to a piece of carpentry, but a quality secret door is a very precise machine that must maintain extremely tight tolerances."

A secret entrance must pull double duty. It must not look like a gateway to a secret space, but when opened, it shouldn't warp, rub, sag or drag. If improperly installed, the secret will be out on the concealed space. An opening can become obvious, especially when heavy books are added to a bookshelf's secret door, or if humidity and temperature fluctuations aren't taken into account.

Humble says a portion of his firm's business is repairing and replacing sub-standard secret doors built by woodworkers with the best of intentions. "Creative Home Engineering secret doors contain hidden cavities with custom hinges and steel structural supports to keep the door strong and rigid," he says. "Our secret passageway doors come pre-hung in their own frames, which simply slide into a specified opening."

While some might consider having a secret passageway in the home as a sign of status, Humble says the average homeowner can "step through the looking glass," with a full-length wall-hanging mirror that is really an opening to a secret room. Creative Home Engineering sells a specially engineered mirrored doorway for $2,500, and it can be easily installed as the entrance to a secret room.

Humble says customized secret spaces average about $7,500, with a typical concealed bookcase opening costing between $10,000 and $12,000. Of course, as more security measures are taken, the costs also escalate.

A vault or panic room door can feature a heavy-duty locking system that provides a strong resistance to forced entry, as well as the ability to interface with an existing home security system.

"When it comes to protecting your most important assets -- including your family -- concealment is the first line of defense against intruders," Humble says. "Doors can be plated for ballistic protection and can feature a locking system that has retracting 1-inch diameter stainless steel shear pins. The secret room might even contain a surveillance system inside, so inhabitants can monitor what is happening throughout the rest of the house."

Secret switches to open the door to the hidden room can run the gamut from biometric access control devices -- - like fingerprint and iris recognition scanners -- to more whimsical keys. "Secret doors can be opened with a remote, but secret switches add to the personalization of the space," Humble says. "I've done a secret switch where specific notes need to be played on a piano to open the door. A car collector's secret switch involved turning the steering wheel of a die-cast model corvette."

As serious as some of these concealed rooms are, there's no hiding the intrigue that also goes along with having a secret passageway. "A concealed room can also be a great place to house fun secrets, like wrapping and storing holiday gifts," Humble says. "But no matter how a concealed room is used, the secret is safe with me."

Hide and Seek

-- Creative Home Engineering, HiddenPassageway.com, 480-470-5718

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Let your home be a drama-free scene for teens by creating a special space for the young adults in your life.

Dubbed the "teen lounge," this space should be one in which young people can be comfortable and keep company with friends, says M. Elodie Froment, vice president of product development for Pottery Barn Teen (or PBteen), based in San Francisco.

"Parents create this space so their house can become a 'destination home' for teenagers," Froment says. "This space gives parents the ability to interact with their teen children and friends."

The first step to creating an adolescent abode within the home requires communication. "Parents and children need to decide where the teen lounge will be located within a home," Froment says. "A family needs to have a dialogue about rules and expectations, as well as design tastes and preferences in this teen-specific space."

Preferably, a teen lounge is a semi-public place in the home's basement, a finished attic space or unused room in the house. The teen lounge should be a place to give young adults their space, but not be so private that parents can't check in on their activities.

Froment says the child's playroom can grow and evolve into a teen lounge, but not without clearing the childish chattel first. "A teen lounge should have a sophistication about it, so that means getting rid of the baby toys and child-sized furniture," she says. "This space should be one where teens can hang out and lounge around in a comfortable atmosphere."

A teen lounge can bring its A-game by having a pingpong or pool table, and/or be a blockbuster with a home theater to watch movies and listen to music. Above all, the teen lounge should be both collaborative and comfy. "Know what interests the teens will be pursuing -- homework, movies, games -- and design around that," Froment says. "Decide if you want the lounge to look feminine, masculine or have a unisex appeal, and that will dictate how the space comes together."

Painting the walls is the easiest way to create a mood in the space. A teen lounge can become instantly cool with a shade of blue or the space can be warm with deep, saturated color on the walls. White walls invite color through the use of artwork or large wall decals.

A cozy teen lounge starts from the ground up, so installing new carpeting or a plush area rug can create a warm feeling underfoot. "Having comfortable flooring is essential," Froment says. "Not only do teens tend to sprawl out on the floor, a colorful rug can set the tone for the entire room."

The seating setup can be one of the largest investments in the teen lounge. Froment says a sturdy sectional in an easy-to-clean, neutral microfiber or denim fabric is a thoroughly modern and modular choice. Teens can move pieces out of the way for an impromptu dance party or configure seating for some optimal screen time when watching a movie.

After the seating has been arranged, determining the size and placement of a television screen is the next step. Whether used for gaming or watching movies, the picture should be large enough to be easily visible from every seat in the room. A dynamic surround-sound system is also a bonus when listening to music or watching a movie.

A bright tip to set the mood in the space is to give some thought to the light fixtures. Whether you're hanging a vintage chandelier, sleek pendants or recessed can lights, have the lighting on a dimmer switch, so it can be turned down during a movie marathon. But, teens don't need to be in the dark when it comes to doing homework or reading, so invest in interesting lamps for task lighting.

While furniture can be in neutral tones, accessorize with textures and pops of color. Pillows, throws and draperies -- which are easily changed out -- can have atomic oranges, sea-glass blues and sherbet-lime greens that enliven a space. Have throw pillows for sectional seating, but also have large pillows for the floor or a sleepover.

"The teen lounge should reflect a youthful personality," Froment says. "While it should look put together, teen lounge decor decisions shouldn't be made from a parent's perspective." Froment says the room should be inviting and non-fussy, and can feature a repurposed trunk that doubles as a coffee table and storage, while old record album covers can be hung on walls.

Feeding teens is also an important part of having a lounge. "Have a place where you can set up a buffet of pizza boxes and bowls of snacks," Froment says. "After all, replenishing food is a great excuse for parents to check on what's happening in the teen lounge."

TEEN SCENE

Go to PBTeen.com and search, "teen lounge" for more ideas.

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A radiant heating system can take the chill off ceramic tile and the "brrrrrr" out of marble flooring.

Concrete, stone, tile and wood floors can be warmed by pipes that carry heated water or mats that conduct electricity, which are affixed to the subflooring. Rather than heating an area with conventional forced hot air, radiant floor-heating systems not only warm the surface on which people walk, but that heat is eventually absorbed and radiated a house's contents as well.

Prevalent in Europe, Americans are warming to the usage of radiant heating systems, says Mark Eatherton, executive director of the Radiant Professionals Alliance (RPA), based in Mokena, Illinois. "Radiant heat is an even heat, unlike a forced-air heating system, which can have pockets of warmed air," he says. "Technological advances and product innovations have stepped up interest in radiant heating."

Using radiant heat to create a warmer home isn't new. The ancient Romans built hypocausts, which were floors raised on tile piers that were heated from beneath. Used initially for bathhouses about 100 B.C., hypocausts were a common feature of stone houses in colder parts of the Roman Empire.

While today's radiant heating systems are much more sophisticated, they operate on the same physical principles of energy transference -- the movement of heat from warm objects to colder ones. The Radiant Professionals Alliance is a trade organization of 250 members that primarily works with hydronic (water) radiant floor-heating systems. Cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) tubing is a long-lasting, flexible pipe that carries heated water beneath the floor's surface and doesn't corrode.

A boiler system heats the water, which is pumped through tubes in a closed-loop hydronic radiant floor system. Eatherton says a hydronic radiant system is easier to install during new construction, as opposed to retrofitting a system into an existing home. "A hydronic radiant floor-heating system must be specially designed for each house, but minimally, you want at least one linear foot of tubing per square footage in the home," he says. "When compared to forced-air heating systems, energy cost savings with radiant heat can average between 15 percent to 50 percent, depending on a home's location and how well it is built and insulated."

A qualified plumber should be contracted to install a hydronic system with industry-estimated costs between $8 to $10 per square foot for new construction. Loops of PEX tubing can be embedded in a concrete basement or placed between the floor joists in upper floors. Above-ground applications using radiant floor heating should have double the amount of insulation in walls and attics to maximize the warming effect. When the system is first turned on, floors may take a day to warm up to 75 degrees, but, once warmed, the heat is easily maintained.

A detraction is that a radiant floor heating system might be considered a redundancy, since duct work for air conditioning is often standard in home construction. But, Eatherton says, industry manufacturers are working to perfect radiant cooling systems coupled with air circulation.

If a homeowner wants to take the chill off the floor in a small area, an electric heated-floor system under stone or tile can be a creature comfort and is a preferable retrofit in an existing home. Electric mats or rolls are constructed of coils of heat resistance wires that are joined to a supporting material. These heating mats are designed to operate like an electric blanket under the floor. Bathroom floors can achieve a comfortable temperature in less than an hour and can be controlled by a programmable thermostat.

STEP Warmfloor is an innovative hybrid of an electric floor-warming system designed to heat an entire house. Manufactured by Electro Plastics Inc. near St. Louis, the product is a low-voltage polymer radiant heating system, which has thin wires that warm plastic, then radiates the heat at a temperature that is self-regulating.

"STEP Warmfloor's system cannot overheat because the black carbons in the plastic are semi-conductive to a maximum temperature of 85 degrees," says Monica Irgens, president of the company. "Our product runs on AC, using a 24-volt transformer, or DC current, such as a solar- or wind-powered source."

An electrician should connect the system to the power source, and Irgens estimates the installation of STEP Warmfloor to cost between $11 and $15 per square foot.

Radiant heating systems are heating up outside homes, too. Called "snowmelt" systems, these radiant heat assemblies are embedded under sidewalks and driveways. These systems work by heating snow-covered surfaces to 38-degrees, at which temperature, the precipitation evaporates.

A radiant heating system is an effective way to clear a snow-covered pathway without tearing up decorative concrete, stone or brick. Snowmelt systems can be both electrical or hydronic, with anti-freeze added to circulating water. Irgens says the STEP Warmfloor product can also be installed under rooftops, to prevent ice dams from forming near roof overhangs and gutters.

Educated consumers are turning up the heat on radiant heating systems, not only because of long-term energy savings, but because of the warmth they provide. "Radiant heat is like a blanket of comfort inside the home that you can only experience," Eatherton says. "When you step inside a home that has radiant heat, your body immediately senses a total, encompassing warmth."

Warm Up

-- STEP Warmfloor, Warmfloor.com, 877-783-7832 or 877-STEPTEC

-- Radiant Professionals Alliance, RadiantProfessionalsAlliance.org, 877-427-6601

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