Recessed Key Nook

[ars_lurker]

I will be delivering this one today. Have a friend that wanted a key nook. He couldnt find one he liked so we made this one up. I used cheaper wood since it was going to be painted.

Ran into trouble on the door though. I used stub tennon and groove joinery on the door rails and stiles. I glued up the door but when it was time to unclamp it, it twisted. So, I made another, same deal. I changed the wood to maple and no problem.

Case and trim are BORG poplar. Door is BORG soft maple. Finished with 2 coats of Zinser oil-based cover stain primer. Then 2-3 coats of Sherwin Williams latex semi-gloss on top.

Cabinet knob is brushed nickel from the bins at the store. Ironicly, we had to buy a small, cheap key hook to get the brushed nickel-looking hooks.

I installed an old-work outlet box into the side and there is a hole in the shelf to allow the phone charger cords to pass down to the outlet. When the door is closed, it creates a 1/4" lip for the shelf so phones and pagers don't vibrate off onto the floor.

I am pretty happy with how it turned out. As with anything you make from scratch, you find things you could do better if you made another.

Thanks for looking.
Mike

[dbhost]

It looks great, but please explain something to clear up my ignorance here...

What does it do?

It looks like a box, with a mail slot kind of thing, some hooks for keys, and I am assuming the little shelf below is for cell phones / etc...

If I have that right, this would be mounted somewhere near the front, or garage doors? Come in the door, unload, and keep going into the house right?

[ars_lurker]

Sorry, I will attempt to explain...

I sized this so you can cut out the drywall between two studs in a wall and this is then mounted between them. It is 3.5" deep so when you add the stud depth plus 1/2" for drywall, it should fit in the cavity without hitting the other side of the wall. When the door is shut, the trim stands about 5/8" proud of the wall. I believe he is going to install it in his foyer between the garage and the main house.

Envelopes go in the top holder. Phones, pagers, etc can sit on the shelf. Power cords for the phones go through a 3/4" hole in the shelf and can plug into the outlet mounted behind the door. Keys go on the hooks. There is a 1/4" lip on the bottom compartment to keep change and misc stuff from falling out when you open the door. When the door is closed, the top of the door acts as the lip for the phone shelf.

[LCHIEN]

It looks great, but please explain something to clear up my ignorance here...

What does it do?

It looks like a box, with a mail slot kind of thing, some hooks for keys, and I am assuming the little shelf below is for cell phones / etc...

If I have that right, this would be mounted somewhere near the front, or garage doors? Come in the door, unload, and keep going into the house right?

Right, come in, park the keys and keep going.

mail slots at the top, key chain storage at the bottom. When you come in the house, put the keys in the box.
1. keeps people from forgetting where the keys are
2 keeps tables or furniture from getting scratched up when you put the keys on it everyday (yes it does that!)
3. Allows families with multiple vehicles to put the keys in a common place in case vehicles need to be moved/shuffled ( a common problem in houses with more than 2 drivers and/or cars, and with newer cars requiring non-reproducible electronic keys and fobs).

[JR]

Very cool! Excellent design and implementation.

JR

[dbhost]

sweet idea. Never seen one before...

[Pappy]

Cool idea. Could also be used to keep a flashlight for emergencies so you aren't fumbling around in the dark to figure out where it was left.

[lrogers]

That is a very slick idea that was well executed. Now that I've seen this, I'm surprised more house don't have them.

[SARGE..g-47]

Great idea and you did a nice job on it...