How should I build a safe into my new home?

[unusedusername]

Given this thread http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/s...d.php?t=188599 I've become more aware to the real fact that I need a safe.

My in-laws are currently rebuilding a foreclosed on house for my wife and I to live in...

After the bulldozer is done knocking down the current structure (everything but the foundation is going away), what should I do to make sure the safe does not get away? I can basically put it anywhere even moving walls around, but I can't put it in, or modify the foundation.

What would your ideal safe be if you were in my situation?

[M47_Dragon]

Wow - if I was in your shoes (and money was no object), I would add a small interior room into the floorplan of the new house design and call that the gun room. Then I would get one of those fancy vault doors (as seen here: http://www.sportsmansteelsafes.com/defender.htm ) and have it professionally installed onto my gun room.

[Obviously a Plant]

This thread had some nice custom work:

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=151250&highlight=hide+your+guns

It reminded me that keeping things out of sight (sometimes really well) could be better than an expensive safe just standing in the bedroom.
I work with a lot diamond/carbide tools that make quick work of even hardened steel, and some of them run on batteries. I make a point of storing them far away from my other valuables, but I would rather have my guns be hard to find in the first place.

[unusedusername]

Oh, I've attached a proposed floorplan so that you can see what I've got to work with

[gravedigger]

I noticed that the wall that runs along bedroom #2 and the walk-in closet on the right side of the house is 16' 11" in length. I also noticed that there is only one (planned) window in that wall, at the front corner of the house. This makes it very easy to build a false wall into the back of the walk-in closet.

A burglar is not going to stop to think about whether the length of the bedroom's interior wall (with the window) and the length of the closet's inside left wall add up to the length of the exterior wall dimension of 16' 11", so if you build in an 12" deep x 7' 3" wide (or less) safe into the back wall of the closet and conceal it correctly, a burglar won't even know it is there unless he either walks around to look at the length of the tub and then compares that to the inside LEFT closet wall length (which would be 12" shorter,) OR he takes the time to physically measure the outside wall and then add up the measurements of the bedroom depth PLUS the closet depth, which would then show a 12" difference. On the fashion theory that fat people should wear vertical stripes to look thinner, you could use vertical striped wallpaper in the bathroom and horizontal wood stripping in the closet. This will give the optical illusion of the bathroom wall being narrower and the closet wall being wider, making detection of the rear wall safe compartment nearly impossible to the casual observer.

Line ALL of your closets with nice wood panels and trim, or cedar stripping or whatever, so that the "safe" closet doesn't seem unusual. Make sure that the panels that cover the safe are built SOLIDLY, so they don't rattle or give away their ability to (slide sideways or up or down, or be removed, or hinge out, or whatever you decide.)

If you really want to protect your guns, get a $400.00 safe like the ones they sell at Home Depot, and bolt one of them to the walls in that small hall closet to the right of the bathroom sink. Burglars will see THAT (empty) safe and waste their time trying to break into IT, and not even bother looking for your concealed gun safe in the other closet. Stack a few 3' metal pipes inside, so if they shake it, they'll hear the "guns" clanking around inside. In this way, they will not think about looking for more valuable bootie.

To protect your wife and kids, put a sign right on the front door: "Kids! The guns in this safe are not toys. If you want to see them or show them to your friends, ask DADDY to open the safe for you. MOMMY does not have the combination!"

Make sure you home is alarmed with a loud siren or something, so that even if they THINK they can get into the safe before the cops arrive, that is ALL the time they will have. Also, install a concealed video recording device in that hall closet above the safe to catch the faces of the burglars, in case they decide to return later with tools to open the hall closet safe. Get one that looks like a smoke detector and mount it on the wall. Google "spy cameras."

A friend of mine finally took me up on my suggestion after his apartment was burglarized for the third time. He used to shut his windows and curtains and lock up everything. I told him to leave the windows open and leave the curtains open wide. Place two cardboard boxes on the floor in view of the windows. Cut two LARGE holes in the sides of the boxes. Cut off the tops of the boxes, and drape an old towel over each box. Cut out the rear wall of the box. Plug a single night light into two wall outlets, and place the boxes against the wall so that the night lights are inside of the boxes. Now hang a small laminated sign on the front door:

"Please knock softly. Loud noises disturb the snakes. Thank you."

At last report, he was never burglarized again.

"A wink is as good as a nod, to a blind man."

[1923mack]

If I was building a "new" home I would definitely build a gun room. Wall, floor and roof would all be reinforced concrete (block would be my second choice). Secure vault door from some company. This would allow one to display ones guns rather than just locking them up in a safe. Concrete wallls and roof are really not that hard to construct. There are rental systems for walls that are relatively cheap to rent. There is a weight factor, so slab on grade home, or extra foundations to the dirt on raised flooring homes. Hiding the entry point is an excellent idea.

[djleisure]

I noticed that the wall that runs along bedroom #2 and the walk-in closet on the right side of the house is 16' 11" in length. I also noticed that there is only one (planned) window in that wall, at the front corner of the house. This makes it very easy to build a false wall into the back of the walk-in closet.

A burglar is not going to stop to think about whether the length of the bedroom's interior wall (with the window) and the length of the closet's inside left wall add up to the length of the exterior wall dimension of 16' 11", so if you build in an 12" deep x 7' 3" wide (or less) safe into the back wall of the closet and conceal it correctly, a burglar won't even know it is there unless he either walks around to look at the length of the tub and then compares that to the inside LEFT closet wall length (which would be 12" shorter,) OR he takes the time to physically measure the outside wall and then add up the measurements of the bedroom depth PLUS the closet depth, which would then show a 12" difference. On the fashion theory that fat people should wear vertical stripes to look thinner, you could use vertical striped wallpaper in the bathroom and horizontal wood stripping in the closet. This will give the optical illusion of the bathroom wall being narrower and the closet wall being wider, making detection of the rear wall safe compartment nearly impossible to the casual observer.

Line ALL of your closets with nice wood panels and trim, or cedar stripping or whatever, so that the "safe" closet doesn't seem unusual. Make sure that the panels that cover the safe are built SOLIDLY, so they don't rattle or give away their ability to (slide sideways or up or down, or be removed, or hinge out, or whatever you decide.)

If you really want to protect your guns, get a $400.00 safe like the ones they sell at Home Depot, and bolt one of them to the walls in that small hall closet to the right of the bathroom sink. Burglars will see THAT (empty) safe and waste their time trying to break into IT, and not even bother looking for your concealed gun safe in the other closet. Stack a few 3' metal pipes inside, so if they shake it, they'll hear the "guns" clanking around inside. In this way, they will not think about looking for more valuable bootie.

To protect your wife and kids, put a sign right on the front door: "Kids! The guns in this safe are not toys. If you want to see them or show them to your friends, ask DADDY to open the safe for you. MOMMY does not have the combination!"

Make sure you home is alarmed with a loud siren or something, so that even if they THINK they can get into the safe before the cops arrive, that is ALL the time they will have. Also, install a concealed video recording device in that hall closet above the safe to catch the faces of the burglars, in case they decide to return later with tools to open the hall closet safe. Get one that looks like a smoke detector and mount it on the wall. Google "spy cameras."

A friend of mine finally took me up on my suggestion after his apartment was burglarized for the third time. He used to shut his windows and curtains and lock up everything. I told him to leave the windows open and leave the curtains open wide. Place two cardboard boxes on the floor in view of the windows. Cut two LARGE holes in the sides of the boxes. Cut off the tops of the boxes, and drape an old towel over each box. Cut out the rear wall of the box. Plug a single night light into two wall outlets, and place the boxes against the wall so that the night lights are inside of the boxes. Now hang a small laminated sign on the front door:

"Please knock softly. Loud noises disturb the snakes. Thank you."

At last report, he was never burglarized again.

"A wink is as good as a nod, to a blind man."

Holy crap. That is all VERY well thought out. You win!

[uzigalil]

if I was building a house i would build a wine cellar/basement

I would build a gun room that is block walls surrounded by dirt all the way around and on top except the front. The front would have a safe door on it.
This room would be secluded in my wine cellar by the help of one of these companies.

http://www.hiddendoors.com/galleryThumb.asp?category=13

http://www.hiddenpassageway.com/

this would satisfy my security and fire concerns

[sb_pete]

Given the amount of space you have, I would simply eliminate the closet in the the "Family" room, reinforce that wall and use a vault door entrance from "Bedroom 2." If it is possible to extend out the wall in that area, you would have some more space in both the vault and in "Bedroom 2." Given that you don't have a window facing that way in the "Living" room, it will be next to impossible to notice the spatial discrepancy for anyone inside the house, especially given all the visual chaff created by the walls around the laundry area and the water heater/ furnace closet. I like Gravedigger's idea of a dummy safe too. Not sure where to put it, but maybe there is some space in the "Family" room. Rather than filling it with pipes, I would just make sure it is bolted down and maybe stick a cheap shotgun and some non-essential valuables in there (the kind of stuff that would otherwise just be in a filing cabinet). Perhaps you would even want to create a replacement normal closet on the other side of the "Family" room opposite of the master bath?

As for covering the entrance, a false book shelf sounds like a great idea, but if that is too expensive, a false vanity mirror could work well also. You could also just put a regular closet style door over it for basic cheap cover so it is not visible through the windows at least.

Hope that helps
-Pete

[Dangerous1]

I would so as far as to make a "safe room" on the left side of Bedroom #2's closet. So it's between the closet and the bathtub. Build a wall with a heavy door to cut the 7'3" closet in half or a bit less. Just enough to slide a nice sized safe in and up towards back of the house. When they make the frame of the house, instead of a stud every 16" just line the whole frame of that area with studs to build a solid wall. Just leave cut outs for outlets.

[hooookup]

find a good location, tear out the concrete and throw up some forms. a couple #5 dowels @ 8" oc each way epoxied into the existing concrete using Hilti Hit RE 500-SD. secure some 5/8" all thread dowels into the footing. make sure to get all threads with a 90 degree standard hook on the bottom. secure under the rebar. place some 4000psi concrete, mechanical vibrator to consolidate and your golden. thats what i would do if i was securing a safe to the foundation.

[gravedigger]

Imagine ... some bad guy gets into your home and gets the drop on you. You assume the "Wimp" persona and BEG him to NOT lock you in your closet like your dad did when you were a kid... "Please mister, take anything you want, just don't lock me in my closet like my dad used to do! It is so scary in there!!" After the BG locks you in your closet, and while making just enough crying and wimpering sounds to be convincing, you retrieve your fully automatic 60 caliber belt fed unit, release the door from the inside and proceed to cut your home in half at waist level! Oh, we haven't talked about the pre-dug body disposal sites with the tipping plywood rapid dirt fill-in assembly yet ... hold off until we cover that.

[unusedusername]

Sorry for the delay, I was away from the internet for a while.

This thread had some nice custom work:

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/s...hide+your+guns

It reminded me that keeping things out of sight (sometimes really well) could be better than an expensive safe just standing in the bedroom.
I work with a lot diamond/carbide tools that make quick work of even hardened steel, and some of them run on batteries. I make a point of storing them far away from my other valuables, but I would rather have my guns be hard to find in the first place.

Wow. That is GREAT! I showed those pictures to my father in law who is building the house and he said he can make something like that. That will work really well I think!

I noticed that the wall that runs along bedroom #2 and the walk-in closet on the right side of the house is 16' 11" in length. I also noticed that there is only one (planned) window in that wall, at the front corner of the house. This makes it very easy to build a false wall into the back of the walk-in closet.

I'm not sure if a 12" deep safe will work... there are a few too many things to put into it.

If you really want to protect your guns, get a $400.00 safe like the ones they sell at Home Depot, and bolt one of them to the walls in that small hall closet to the right of the bathroom sink. Burglars will see THAT (empty) safe and waste their time trying to break into IT, and not even bother looking for your concealed gun safe in the other closet. Stack a few 3' metal pipes inside, so if they shake it, they'll hear the "guns" clanking around inside. In this way, they will not think about looking for more valuable bootie.

I like the idea of getting a "fake safe" as bait. I'll have to do that. I'll probably put the fake in plain view... I could use a empty document safe as an end table Gotta run that one past the wifey.

To protect your wife and kids, put a sign right on the front door: "Kids! The guns in this safe are not toys. If you want to see them or show them to your friends, ask DADDY to open the safe for you. MOMMY does not have the combination!"

I've got no kids yet, and if someone breaks in they have more to worry about from my wife then from me. She like .357 revolvers and shoots them better then I do. I love my wife

Make sure you home is alarmed with a loud siren or something, so that even if they THINK they can get into the safe before the cops arrive, that is ALL the time they will have. Also, install a concealed video recording device in that hall closet above the safe to catch the faces of the burglars, in case they decide to return later with tools to open the hall closet safe. Get one that looks like a smoke detector and mount it on the wall. Google "spy cameras."

House alarm is definitely on the list. So is big, spiked iron fence on all 4 sides of the property. The fence will be able to repel calvary if we put it down at an angle

A friend of mine finally took me up on my suggestion after his apartment was burglarized for the third time. He used to shut his windows and curtains and lock up everything. I told him to leave the windows open and leave the curtains open wide. Place two cardboard boxes on the floor in view of the windows. Cut two LARGE holes in the sides of the boxes. Cut off the tops of the boxes, and drape an old towel over each box. Cut out the rear wall of the box. Plug a single night light into two wall outlets, and place the boxes against the wall so that the night lights are inside of the boxes. Now hang a small laminated sign on the front door:

"Please knock softly. Loud noises disturb the snakes. Thank you."

At last report, he was never burglarized again.

Wow. You win.

Given the amount of space you have, I would simply eliminate the closet in the the "Family" room, reinforce that wall and use a vault door entrance from "Bedroom 2." If it is possible to extend out the wall in that area, you would have some more space in both the vault and in "Bedroom 2."

The door on the bottom of the "family" room is the back door to the house that leads to a covered porch. I could turn that into a closet but then I'd have to figure out where to put the (required) back door.

Cellars are not allowed in this zoning or I would totally be down for a cellar.

[compsoftstation]

Mine is in my attic.