I had always intended that the phone panel door should open and have a real telephone behind it, but I was unable to find a suitable phone for a long time. I also need the doors to be able to open wide, because my police box stands in a doorway, so I need to be able to get large things through it, like chairs, tables, daleks, etc. The other problem has been time...

The solution I've come up with is to make the box behind the phone panel removable, so I can take it off on those rare occasions when I need to get something really large through the doorway.

First I unscrewed the door and cut out the blanking plate behind it with a jigsaw. I attached some mouldings to the inside of the gap to stop the door from closing too far.

I built a box to cover the gap. I made it out of MDO - which is plywood covered in what looks like a paper veneer. The box has 1/4" flanges around the front edge that protrude about 1/4" from the edge of the box.

 

I cut a frame, and routed a corner off the inside to take the flanges that I made above. Now the box drops vertically into the frame. I had to sand and fill quite a lot behind the edge mouldings, because the door cross bars were slightly raised and I didn't want them to get in the way of the box.

 

So now the box hangs nicely in position! There's quite a lot of repainting to do.

And once it's plugged in I'll be able to use the phone!

The box will raise out of the slot when needed.

 

And here it is in place.