I grew up out in the country…in the “Wild, Wild West”…where locking the doors of your house was optional, and most often, it only done at night or when you had hyper-vigilant children. Of course, I was one of those kids who thought we should always lock our doors and protect what was ours. Needless to say, coming home to a locked door wasn’t always expected, and I can remember the antics of various family members as they tried to find some unorthodox way to enter our locked home because nobody happened to have a front door key with them.
Eventually, we started hiding a front door key outside somewhere…just like everyone else did, right? Some of our spare key hiding places included underneath a flower pot, inside one of those bulk-produced fake rocks, behind the mailbox on the side of the house, etc. But living in such a low-crime area made spare keys and even locking doors much more a matter of preference then than it is now.
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We clearly love all things vintage – hence our presence on this website! I just wish our country’s crime problems were “vintage” as well and more like the crimes we managed back then, but unfortunately, keeping our homes locked up tight and secure at all times is considered a necessity nowadays. But just because we lock our homes habitually now and it really is normal to do so, it doesn’t mean we don’t have some of the same vintage characteristics of human nature as we did back in the days of “vintage” crime. For example, we still manage to not have a front door key for some reason at any given time, and we wind up standing on the porch, shaking our heads in self-disgust with arms full of groceries while staring at a locked door…with no key to be found.
Sound familiar? Some of us just might happen to find ourselves in this predicament more often than others…ahem! Having a spare key hidden somewhere outside the home is still a great, “just in case” solution – much like it was years ago. However, these days we have to make sure the key hiding spot is much more creative and not easily discovered by anyone seeking to enter our homes for nefarious reasons. Right now, I happen to live next door to my best friend who is always home and rarely has a scatterbrained moment of facing a locked door without a key, so I am able to leave spare keys for my home and car with her.
But not too long ago, I was living in a different city…alone…with my closest loved one living 45 minutes away. And since I have a tendency to have scatterbrained moments, it was a necessity to have a key hiding outside my home where I could easily access it whenever I managed to lock myself out of my apartment…otherwise, it would have gotten very expensive to call locksmiths or apartment management to get me into my home every time I managed to forget my key.
However, the circle comes back around to safety measures, and I knew I had to be careful and creative in how and where I hid my spare key. After looking around my environment and putting some thought into it, I came up with the following ideas of where to hide the key in places where I could get to it easily and then re-hide later in a different spot, just to be safe. While these particular hiding spots no longer work for the home I live in now (and may not exactly work for you), it is very easy to follow the same principle while creating your own unique hiding spots that are a better fit for your particular environment.
Supplies:
- three small plastic waterproof bottles (I used medication bottles.)
- glue gun
- landscaping rocks
- beads
- gardening gems
- black spray paint
Step #1 – Choose your containers. As you can see, I just used old medication bottles. Anything small and plastic would work. If it is not be completely waterproof, simply wrap your key in a plastic bag, and it will be just fine!
Step #2 – Paint the lids. I chose to spray paint the white lids black just to ensure they don’t show up at night. White blank spots that might not be noticeable in the daytime could really stick out at night…hence the black paint.
Step #3 – Choose your “camouflage”. I made three different styles of camouflage that fit my yard landscaping and decorations at that time. I made three of them in order to rotate which one I used because I was using them far too frequently back then. I wanted to make sure I limited the chance of someone seeing my “hiding spot” revealed because I was using the same spot too often. I made one camouflaged with landscaping white rocks, one with green gardening gems, and one with decorative Mardi Gras beads. The gems and beads I use as decorative cover in my container plants, and they make perfect hiding areas – as you will soon see!
Step #4 – Hot glue camo materials to each lid. Make sure you don’t allow any of it hang too far over on the sides which could make it difficult or impossible to close the lids tightly.
Step #5 – Place a key (or keys!) in one of the bottles and hide them carefully in each respective spot.
Here is the “rock” camouflage on top of the ground…
And here is the rock bottle buried in the rocks…can you see where it is? Hopefully not since that’s the point! Ha!
Here is the gardening gem bottle sitting next to the plant…
And here you should NOT be able to tell where it is in the plant container…
Last but not least, here is the bead camouflaged bottle beside the plant…
And bam! Here it is hiding as only a New Orleans hidey-hole can hide…with plenty of bling!
And there you have it…three simple ways to disguise your key hiding spot for any key that needs to be hidden outside for your forgetful child, absent-minded spouse, or always-welcome mother!
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So how do you find it when you need it?!