How to Hide Your Preps in Plain Sight

Sometimes it’s hard.  We have all this stuff – all these prepper gadgets and gizmos, and these are GOOD to have.  The problem hits when people can easily find them, or they know about them even if they are tucked away. Or what if we’ve really maxed out our storage items and are looking for places to hide more preparedness items?

In our basement, we have our family room which pretty much looks like any regular family room, but it has a western theme.  This also doubles as our guest room, which isn’t a problem,  there’s plenty of room in there.

The problem comes in when we show people the basement bathroom so that they can shower and use the toilet.  To get from our normal looking family room to our basement restroom, you walk through a good-sized storage room.  This storage room is stocked to the ceiling (literally) with either food or prepper tools.  Could I tell them that they have to share a bathroom (on the second floor) with our children or use the toilet on the main floor even if they are in the basement?  I probably could, but I part of me feels guilty about that.  And 99% of the time, these people are from out of town and won’t see us again ever or for a long time.

So everyone who stays overnight in our house sees our storage room.  But what if there was a way to hide (at least some of) our preparedness tools in plain sight?  Well, there is!

I love Cracker Barrel, but not for the reason you think.

Have any of you ever been to Cracker Barrel?  When my husband and I went there on our way back from Texas last month, I told him, ya know if everything ever goes crazy (like an EMP) and as a civilization, we end up living in a world without the rule of law (WROL) Cracker Barrel is the perfect place from which to scavenge.  He looked at me like I was crazy.

“Well,” I explained, “they have all these antiques on their walls.  These are the tools that people used one hundred plus years ago in order to survive.”  Most people don’t even think about it because they are decorations and really are quaint.  We can do much the same thing!

Inspiration from My Mom

My mom came over to my house a couple of weeks ago. While we were talking, she mentioned that it would look really nice if I hung something on the space between my cabinets and the ceiling. My kitchen has, for lack of a better term, a box built to connect the space between the cabinets and the ceiling which looks exactly like the rest of my walls. I already had an antique egg beater that hung on a rooster in my kitchen, but I thought, I could take it to the next level and find all sorts of (mostly) kitchen antiques to hang in my kitchen as decorations, but if need be, I could use them for real.  How could you and I apply this principle to other areas of our house?

Preparedness Devices as Decorations

Look for themes to create or take advantage of

Western

I mentioned earlier that our basement is decorated with a Western Theme.  When we were moving in, we decided to get two washtubs and washboard.  Instead of hiding them away in our storage room which is already full, we decided that they went with the theme of our basement, and I hung them on the wall.

What other things might fall within a Western theme?  How about items like old-fashioned irons, old-fashioned drills, a two-person saw, old-fashioned milk can or small milk jars, even wood stoves would fit nicely here.  We have two metal trash cans that we use as makeshift faraday cages. These are cans like many people would put ashes from fireplaces into, so they fit right in with our woodstove and western theme.

Kitchen Theme

I just purchased the items to put in our kitchen, so they aren’t hung yet, but what types of things could you display?  You could show off any old-fashioned version of these items – egg beaters, pastry blender, small meat grinder, potato masher, wooden meat tenderizing mallet, small hand grater, whisks or alternatives, coffee/spice grinder, egg separator,  kitchen books, and so many more things.

Laundry Theme

Do you have a nice laundry room?  What about decorating it with a washboard and washtubs?  You could do up a recipe for making your own laundry detergent up on antique looking paper and frame it and put it on the wall.  And while it’s not decoration, you could store a mop bucket in your laundry room.  People don’t need to know that you intend to use it to wring out clothes.

Incorporating Preparedness Items into the Rest of the House

Oil Lamps

We keep oil lamps around our house in various rooms.  These are antique but normal looking items which can easily be used as a decoration in your home or they can be used to light your home in a power outage.  One of the fun things about oil lamps is that they come in all shapes and sizes.  I have everything from an oil lamp which (with the chimney) is about two feet tall to an oil lamp which (with the chimney) is about eight inches tall.

Washbasin and pitcher  

We have two of these.  I had one out until we put out our fall decorations and the colors just didn’t go, but eventually, I want to have two washbasin holders with mirrors.  When my kids move out, I think those would be a great piece of decoration in two guest rooms.

Candles and Candle Holders

We are coming into fall which is so exciting for me – despite the fact that it was over 90 today in central Illinois!  Fall and winter are the seasons in our house where we have candles in every nook and cranny that you can imagine!  Not only do they add ambiance, but they also provide light and uplift the spirits.

Blankets

We keep extra blankets all over our house.  Our great room tends to be chilly in the winter, so keeping extra blankets out for ourselves or for guests just makes great sense.  Drape them over the back of a chair or keep a large basket with extra blankets nearby.

Boredom Busters

Most people don’t recognize boredom busters as a prep, but they are an integral part of prepping.  There’s no reason not to keep these in plain sight.  Games, CD’s, art supplies, and so many other things can be kept out in the open because they are everyday objects.  We even purchased a roll of white paper three feet wide and 50 feet long that we keep under our coffee table along with a long tray filled with crayons.  These are for younger children when they come over to our house, but we keep them out where everyone can see them.  Why?  Because who’s going to guess that they are preparedness items too?

Hiding In Plain Sight – Almost

So, there is a kissin’ cousin to hiding your preps out in the open and that is to hide your preps behind things.  So we have two behemoth 4×4 sets of cubbies in our family room.  I love using these for books decorations and even preparedness items.  We keep several oil lamps on top of these sets of cubbies.  It just makes sense that I keep lamp oil near the lamps, so I hide the lamp oil behind sets of books on one of our sets of shelves.  You could do this with so many different preparedness items.  If you choose to do this though, you need to keep a master list of where everything is and where you put it.

What About You?

Do you hide items in plain sight?  If so, what kinds of things do you keep out for everyone to see?  What other items could we keep out in the open that weren’t listed in this post?   I’d love to hear!  Leave a comment below and let us know.

Remember, knowledge isn’t just knowing something.  It’s living it!

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