What Are Jib Doors?

Add a touch of mystery and privacy to your home with jib doors. Once popular in european estates↗, they’ve made their way into american design. Jib doors are designed to blend in with their surroundings disguising the entrance to secret hideaway rooms.

Read on to learn more about jib doors and find inspiration for your own secret space.

How do jib doors work?

Jib doors provide a camouflage entrance to “secret” rooms. Unlike regular doors, these hidden doors don’t have any visible casing, framing, or hardware. Removing these features allows the jib door to stand flush with the wall.

^{Hidden powder room in a contemporary Austin kitchen.
Image Credit: Hugh Jefferson Randolph Architects↗ via Houzz↗}

^{Hidden door open to the powder room in a contemporary home.
Image Credit: Hugh Jefferson Randolph Architects↗ via Houzz↗}

How do you operate the door if there is no hardware?

Jib doors have concealed hardware and operation depends on what type of hardware is used. Home Steady↗ provides a quick overview of how to make your own jib doors using magnets to seal the door shut. Magnets can hold the door shut and allow it to be opened with a firm push. Don’t forget to include a handle to pull the door open from the hidden side!

If you’re building your own jib door you’ll want to use hidden hinges and push-to-close door latches or invisible closers.

Watch the video below to see what goes into building a hidden door. In the video, Austin based home builder, Matt Risinger↗, describes in detail how his team built the door and includes a review on the hardware that makes it easy to operate.

Jib Door Hideaways

What’s behind a jib door? Anything you want to hide or keep relatively private. Jib doors aren’t always completely invisible but for the most part they are discrete. You can use jib doors to conceal a private entrance to any type of room or hallway.

Hideaway Spaces

Guest room
Office
Safe room
Powder room
Closet
Butler’s pantry
Staircase

Fun fact: The Oval Office has two jib doors

Image Credit: White House Museum↗

Who Makes Jib Doors?

Architects and designers often work with skilled craftsmen to make custom jib doors. If you’re handy you can try to DIY a jib door↗ for your home or if you’d prefer you can check out products from one of the vendors below.

Dayoris Doors↗

Indigo Doors↗

Hide-A-Way Doors↗

Jib Door Inspiration

^{Image Credit: Pinterest↗}

Jib Door Alternatives

Jib doors are great but murphy doors can be a great and functional alternative to jib doors. Like jib doors, murphy doors blend into their surroundings but they aren’t necessarily flush, in fact most jib doors are shelves making them perfect for added storage.

Take a look at this example of a great murphy door below. Home remodeler, Mina Starsiak Hawk↗, known for her HGTV series, Good Bones↗, installed this murphy door shelving unit in a laundry room. What’s behind the door? A hideaway office that no one would expect.

^{These laundry room shelves are actually a jib door.
Image Credit: HGTV Rock the Block↗ (screenshot)}

^{A little hideaway workspace behind the laundry room jib door.
Image Credit: HGTV Rock the Block ↗ (screenshot)}

Jib doors aren’t a thing of the past, in modern homes they can be used to provide privacy and to hideaway spaces that you prefer not to be visible. For homeowners who love a cool feature, jib doors make a fun and functional conversation piece.