Making a Cedar Utility Cover With Hidden Towel Hooks

There is an ugly electrical meter on the back of my house, and unlike most people who get to tuck that stuff around a corner, mine sits right in the middle of the wall next to the pool. You see it the second you walk out back. A little while ago I built a cedar screen wall to hide all the pool equipment, and since that turned out looking pretty good, I figured I could use the same idea over here. The catch was that this one had to be different, because you cannot just bury a meter behind a wall and call it done.

The first job was cutting down cedar strips. Last time around I learned that buying 1x4s and ripping them into strips gave me much better results than buying 1x2s, which came out of the store looking wonky and twisted. The bigger difference on this project was the construction. The pool screen was a fixed panel held between two posts, but a cover over a meter has to come off completely if anyone ever needs full access, and it also has to open quickly for the day to day stuff. So instead of a panel, I needed a box with a working door.

The meter sticks out about nine inches from the wall, so the box had to come off the wall by about that much and then have a door across the front. That door opening was 36 inches wide, and for a while I went back and forth on whether it should be one door or two. Cedar is light enough that the weight was never going to be the problem, so I kept it simple. I started with a basic frame that mounts to the wall, with a 2×4 running across the bottom of the front so I could work around the utility lines that drop down in that spot.

While the door frame was still light and easy to handle, I went ahead and set the hinges so I could get the screw holes in exactly the right place, then pulled the door back off to finish it on its own. Hanging the main frame was the heavier part. I put it on a couple of L brackets, which meant drilling into brick, and if you do not own a hammer drill, do yourself a favor and buy one or rent one. It makes that job about ten times easier. I notched the side so the wires could pass through, measured it out, and got it pretty close on the first try.

Then I had to deal with sag. The wall frame was fine because gravity just holds it down against the top piece, but the door is a box held by hinges on one side, and anything built like that wants to droop on the far side over time. If you have ever owned an old wooden gate, you know exactly the look I am talking about. The fix was a simple diagonal brace running corner to corner. I also added three pieces across the inside of the frame at the top, middle, and bottom. Those were mostly there to attach the slats to, but each one also ties into the diagonal, so they pull double duty.

With the structure sorted, the slats went on the same way they did on the pool screen. I set a strip in place, tacked it with a couple of brad nails to hold it, then drove short screws from the back through the cross pieces and into the front of each slat, so none of the fasteners show from the outside. A half inch spacer between each board kept the gaps even. Then it was just line up, spacer, brad, move down, repeat, a whole bunch of times. Somewhere in there I realized I had forgotten to buy a latch, which is a very normal thing to discover at the worst possible moment.

That could have been the end of it, but we have a pool and a pile of kids, which means we are always short on places to hang wet towels. I could have screwed some coat hooks to the front and moved on, but the cover looked clean and I did not want to ruin it. What I really wanted was a hidden hook, something with a tiny nub on the front that you flick with a finger so it rotates out, holds a towel, then folds back flat when you are done. I only had a rough idea in my head, so I opened up Autodesk Fusion to actually work it out. Most of my projects start there because it lets me solve problems on the screen before I waste any material in the shop. If you have ever wanted to model your own ideas but did not know where to start, I put together a course called Fusion for Makers that walks you through it from zero, with no modeling experience needed.

For the parts themselves I printed in ASA, which was a new filament for me. It is supposed to hold up well against heat, water, and UV, so it seemed like the right pick for something living next to a pool all summer. I ran a quarter inch dowel through the hinge point, dropped each hook into the gap between two slats, and held it in place with some tiny screws. The bump out on the front came out really small, which was exactly what I was after. You give it a flick and you have got a towel hanger. Flick it again and it basically disappears.

The best surprise came from the screws. Depending on how tight I drove them, they compressed the dowel against the wood, which let me dial in how loose or stiff each hook swings. I left them a touch tight so a hook would not flop down on its own, which felt like the smart move. After that it was just printing five or six more and installing the rest. A couple of things will need attention down the road. Wasps love any little gap they can crawl into, so I will be opening this up now and then to check for nests, and since wet towels on wood is a slow problem even with cedar, I plan to hit it with a coat of urethane about once a season.

And that is the whole thing. What used to be the ugliest spot on the back of the house now looks like it belongs there, it still opens up the second I need to reach the meter, and it can come off completely if it ever has to. On top of that, it quietly solved our towel problem. It was cheap, it went together in not much time, and just about anyone could build a version of it at home.

Thanks for following along with this one. Now, go make something awesome!