My Christmas present from my wife is a gun safe (to be picked out) and after looking at them I keep going bigger and bigger. The problem with that is we dont have the room for it and I dont want it in the garage.

The best place to put it is in her closet (2x the size of mine) or in the wall of my closet.

The studs in my house are 24 inches apart and the safes I am looking at are around 22 inches wide (60inches high and 18 inches deep).

Has anyone done this? How did you seal it up?

I agree about not putting it in the garage. Even with a goldenrod or desiccant, it's just not going to be a climate controlled dry environment for your firearms and valuables.

When you start talking abotu putting it in the wall, are you talking about sinking it into the wall, so you gain the 4-6" of the depth of the wall, or is there something else that you could fit in there.

Another option would be multiple safes, one for handguns, one for valuables and data backups, and one for long guns. I personally ruled this out on my recent safe search due to cost.

If she has the room, I would put it in her closet. It is going to need to be secured to the slab, so it's not going to be moving anywhere.

Can you post pics of the two closets to give us a better idea of dimensions?

There isn't any unused space in that wall. Unless your house is VERY weird there's only 3.5 inches between the sheetrock. Putting a safe in a wall (the right way) means you build a vault and install a vault door. Of course this option will cost as much as the safe. People that go this route are usually building a home from scratch and have such a collection it makes more sense to build a separate room for the valuables and store them on display. In other words, you've got a small museum. I don't think this is your case.

What about a guest bedroom? Putting them in a closet is fine if you still have room to open the door. Are you looking at internal or external hinges? Internally hinged doors only open about 90 degrees and typically do not have pins on that side. External hinges allow the door to open 180* and may or may not have a 4th side of pins. The higher end safes will have those pins. If you go that route of extra security you will probably lose the ability to take advantage of the doors full motion if its in a closet. You're buying an expensive safe. You don't want to get into the "I'll put that rifle/shotgun up after the season is over cause it's such a pain to get into the safe" mentality.

Also... Your security level. Worried about a typical home invasion, smash and grab scenario or pros? Smash and grab dope fiends/gang bangers will probably check a safe door to see if it's open then leave it alone. Even if it's not bolted down, they probably wont spend more than a few seconds to a minute jacking with it. Even if they push it over and it falls through a window they can't lift it into their truck or van. Even a 400 lb safe (empty weight) is going to take 3 people to lift if they don't have a dolly. A 600 lb safe is probably game over unless they're professionals, and came prepared to tackle a safe.

Fire rating. I think most safes are over built in terms of fire rating. Unlesss it's going to be on the ground floor in the center of a two or three story home, the FD will get the fire out and the temperature down fairly quickly. Once a room is at 900 degrees if there's sufficient O2 it will be fully involved. Yes at this point the temperature will rocket higher, but if the FD can get water on it they should be able to knock it down in a matter of minutes. At that point it's just mop-up and at that point the temperature is decreasing pretty quickly and will be back in the mid 100's as soon as they get the fans going. Only way for a safe to stay super hot for over an hour would basically require the house to collapse around it and bury the safe in embers.

I suggested we build a bed with a water-proof box as the base, put the guns in that and place a hydraulic lift lid. Burglars who would look under the bed would think it was just the frame of a modern look bed. My husband said I was dumb...I told him I was going to give away every one of his guns if he ever said that again! He has been very quiet lately!

Thanks for the input.

I have talked to my wife into putting it in her closet. There is a perfect spot for it (its huge)

This is the safe I plan to purchse-
http://www.academy.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_10051_321851_-1?N=329211197+4294965690

I now am planning putting an external netwrok hard drive in it and use as a backup from the computers and possibly trying to get a camera system to run feeds into it. So need to get the ethernet cable (modem/router in her closet) and a elec plug closer to the safe.

I live in a good area but if someone does break in when Im not home dont want them to take things I cant get back.

I hope you are taking something for your paranoia...if your family is away the most valuable assets you have will be safe. You may bemoan the loss of a gun but in the whole realm of things it is all just material possessions.

Things can be replaced, people can't!

And things cant get themselves out of a burning house or defend themselves from a thief. Also there are many "things" that cannot be replaced.

Many material goods are replaceable, many are not at any price. It doesn't take very long for a $2,000 safe to have many many times it's value in goods that it's protecting.

Mom, we're not paranoid. We're practical and realistic

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This is the safe I plan to purchse-
http://www.academy.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_10051_321851_-1?N=329211197+4294965690

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I have that safe! You'll enjoy it. However, I will say that a hard drive in the safe is not a complete backup. Guns in that safe may survive a fire in restorable condition. A hard drive will not.

I don't know about you guys I opened the sheetrock in my guest bedroom and found a 3rd bathroom!

I was in Academy right after all the fires whe had up in the conroe etc area this past year.

Guy had pictures of his two safes he had purchased from them and all his guns were ruined. Most of those safes have limited time and temperature fire protections.

Better than nothing, but if you are looking for better fire protection you should step up to 1500 degrees for 60 minutes at a minimum IMHO.

I agree that Cannon from Academy doesn't look like much of a safe.

Check out what these guys have to say. Some of the links are broken as it's a few years old, but all of the information is solid!
http://www.6mmbr.com/gunsafes.html

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I live in a good area but if someone does break in when Im not home dont want them to take things I cant get back.

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There are several ways to look at safe ownership.

1. This thing is secure and my stuff will survive break-ins, fire, etc.

2. This thing might prompt an intruder to either lie in wait for me or return at a later time to attempt to force me to open it for him at gunpoint.

#2 would be even more reason to hide it in a wall.

I have never heard of a case like that. Dont most robbers want no interaction and just to get in and out?

My buddy, LOG (outdoors forum), has a walk-in gun safe, lives in Plano (address is .....) and when his house got broke into they came in and just took the TV and even had guns laying around.