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Posted: 8/7/2012 7:02:53 AM EDT
Closing on a house currently, Only position I can think to put a safe is in the garage. The garage is attached to the house via a sun room. I havent gotten a quality safe yet just a cabinet to keep the boy out of the yuckie firearms. Where have you guys put your safes in the garage? I I dont want to it be visable when the door is open. Garage is heated and insulated. He is a awesome drawing of the lay out.
 space beside the door is 6-9 ft. Any thing I can do to dress it up to look less like a safe? Thanks fellas.
Edit* forgot to label Yellow is the house, black is the sunroom, blue is the garage. It is a over sized 2 car garage door. |
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Any thing I can do to dress it up to look less like a safe? Thanks fellas. Do you want to disguise it from the casual observer that may be looking through the open overhead door? If yes, build a small wall near it with some trim etc on it to make it look like a small closet/cabinet/shelf etc in that location. Such a thing would be a very common occurence in a garage and a casual observer wouldn't think anything of it. OTOH, if you are trying to disguise it's appearance from a person that is inside your home/garage then more work is involved. There are a few different way to do it of which the easiest I can think of is to build an entire cabinet around it with some sort of lock to keep nosy people from opening the doors. There have been a few threads here before where people have disguised them but I don't have search priveleges so no help from me in finding those. You can also search the internet to find ideas. |
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Any thing I can do to dress it up to look less like a safe? Thanks fellas. Do you want to disguise it from the casual observer that may be looking through the open overhead door? If yes, build a small wall near it with some trim etc on it to make it look like a small closet/cabinet/shelf etc in that location. Such a thing would be a very common occurence in a garage and a casual observer wouldn't think anything of it. OTOH, if you are trying to disguise it's appearance from a person that is inside your home/garage then more work is involved. There are a few different way to do it of which the easiest I can think of is to build an entire cabinet around it with some sort of lock to keep nosy people from opening the doors. There have been a few threads here before where people have disguised them but I don't have search priveleges so no help from me in finding those. You can also search the internet to find ideas. Just the first. I never would have thought of the wall thing along the side. That should do nicely. |
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I have hid several garage safes at former homes. I have disguised as a normal white melamine cabinet. The short version, assumes safe is in a corner, lag bolt a 2 x 4 (or two) to the wall for support of the door frame, use heavy duty hinges, built a door frame out of white melamine 1 x 2's, buy white melamine panels in 15" wide by 30" tall (approx), bolt 4 of these to the front of your frame, leaving an overlap showing the frame trim, add white handles to the four fake doors. Obviously you will need a side and top, I use 2 x 4's for frame, and peg board, melamine etc for the side.
Everything you need will be at Lowes/HD, should only take an afternoon. Sorry if the directions are unclear but it is simple once you get the idea straight in your head of what you want it to look like. |
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I have hid several garage safes at former homes. I have disguised as a normal white melamine cabinet. The short version, assumes safe is in a corner, lag bolt a 2 x 4 (or two) to the wall for support of the door frame, use heavy duty hinges, built a door frame out of white melamine 1 x 2's, buy white melamine panels in 15" wide by 30" tall (approx), bolt 4 of these to the front of your frame, leaving an overlap showing the frame trim, add white handles to the four fake doors. Obviously you will need a side and top, I use 2 x 4's for frame, and peg board, melamine etc for the side. Everything you need will be at Lowes/HD, should only take an afternoon. Sorry if the directions are unclear but it is simple once you get the idea straight in your head of what you want it to look like. I think I'm following you. |
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Paint it white. When somebody is driving by and sees a large white box in a garage, they usually think it's a fridge. simple idea, I like it. Or go to the extreme and put it inside an old freezer like someone else here did. There's a whole thread on the build somewhere around here.Looks great.. and is a great disguise |
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Paint it white. When somebody is driving by and sees a large white box in a garage, they usually think it's a fridge. simple idea, I like it. Or go to the extreme and put it inside an old freezer like someone else here did. There's a whole thread on the build somewhere around here.Looks great.. and is a great disguise I plan on having a working one out there. lol |
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Quoted: That was me. Here ya go http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_46/330774_Making_my_safe_look_like_something_its_not__Pic_Heavy_.htmlQuoted: Quoted: Paint it white. When somebody is driving by and sees a large white box in a garage, they usually think it's a fridge. simple idea, I like it. Or go to the extreme and put it inside an old freezer like someone else here did. There's a whole thread on the build somewhere around here.Looks great.. and is a great disguise |
I would never put a gun safe in a garage... but I've never had no other choice.  If you do put it in a garage, make sure it's bolted to the floor with FOUR good concrete anchors, one in each corner. If there's not holes in the bottom in each corner, drill them! Having it in the garage, unbolted to the floor, just makes it too fricken easy for thieves to load it in a pick-up truck or van backed into your garage or slide it onto a trailer and take the whole thing with them.. to open at their leisure at their own secluded location. I don't care how heavy it is... a couple guys with strong backs can do it (I've done it myself), and remember this.... they're not a bit concerned with denting or scratching it, like you are. Think about how much easier it'd be for you to move it if they were zero concerns on your part of messing it up. They don't give a shit how they get it in there and what it looks like after they do.  Have you ever seen a car trailer with a power winch? I could load a 2,000 lb safe on one of those in about 2 minutes, if I wasn't a bit concerned with denting or scratching.
If you can, put it in a corner, with something else big & heavy on the other side, and hide or disguise it as been discussed. And if you have power tools (saws, sawzall) and pry bars, sledgehammers, axes, etc., store them somewhere else, or lock them up in another good locking cabinet. Don't provide the thieves with the tools they need. Sounds simple... but I see it all the time (last time was last week)... thieves broke in and used owners' tools to force or cut open his safe. 
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Trust me that fucker would be bolted down! Actually talked to the woman and think we may have came up with something else.
Its not exactly to scale but, 
The basement is 3/4 finished, just need to put something on the ceiling as it just has the open rafters currently. So we talked about taking the closet out that is below the stairs and opening it up from the back side and putting a door on the utility room side then building a wally from the edge of the orginal closet in the family room side to make a small room and putting the safe in there. |
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why not build a fake wall the full length of one of the walls (hopefully concrete) so that the basement just looks a few feet shorter than it actually is. then hide/cover the door some how.
I have seen this a few time and I knew they were they and could barely tell it. unless someone knows the outside demention of the house and measures the room 99% of the people will never be able to tell the room is a few feet shorter than it should be. security through obscurity... sortof. |
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why not build a fake wall the full length of one of the walls (hopefully concrete) so that the basement just looks a few feet shorter than it actually is. then hide/cover the door some how. I have seen this a few time and I knew they were they and could barely tell it. unless someone knows the outside demention of the house and measures the room 99% of the people will never be able to tell the room is a few feet shorter than it should be. security through obscurity... sortof. Thats why I was going to put the door under the stairs in the washroom. maybe put some shelves up on the front of the door to make it blend in some. |
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why not build a fake wall the full length of one of the walls (hopefully concrete) so that the basement just looks a few feet shorter than it actually is. then hide/cover the door some how. I have seen this a few time and I knew they were they and could barely tell it. unless someone knows the outside demention of the house and measures the room 99% of the people will never be able to tell the room is a few feet shorter than it should be. security through obscurity... sortof. Thats why I was going to put the door under the stairs in the washroom. maybe put some shelves up on the front of the door to make it blend in some. ok gotcha! In that case this is an excellent idea! I would put the door flush with the left side if the stairs. Use the area under the stairs for storage like most people do. Then make the"door" hidden some how. |
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I don't care how heavy it is... a couple guys with strong backs can do it (I've done it myself), wow i'd like to see a couple guys pick up my 1600lb safes. then add a couple 400lbs or more to it and your at a ton. i'd hate to meet you in a dark alley.lol |
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I don't care how heavy it is... a couple guys with strong backs can do it (I've done it myself), wow i'd like to see a couple guys pick up my 1600lb safes. then add a couple 400lbs or more to it and your at a ton. i'd hate to meet you in a dark alley.lol I have personally seen 3 guys average build move a 2500lbs safe right here in Oregon with a small piano dolly and a moving blanket. They made it look so easy 
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I don't care how heavy it is... a couple guys with strong backs can do it (I've done it myself), wow i'd like to see a couple guys pick up my 1600lb safes. then add a couple 400lbs or more to it and your at a ton. i'd hate to meet you in a dark alley.lol Well, I'm 6'2", 235lbs and an ex-linebacker, 36" waist and 52" chest, and when younger I could bench 350lb+ ... but even I can't lift a 1600lb+ safe into a truck. But my car-haul trailer with a 8,500lb Superwinch and steel loading ramp can.  I can drag a 2,000lb safe up that ramp in about 2 minutes and be gone... it will be all scratched and dinged up, but I could care less if I'm stealing it.
I was referring to a typical RSC like a 28 gun Liberty, Cannon, Browning, etc. The most common size... roughly 60" tall, 30" wide, 24" deep, weighing between 500-700lbs. Myself and a buddy (smaller than me) loaded a 600lb+ Browning that size, that was fire damaged, empty, and useless (but still heavy as new) into a Ford F150 with little problems. It was already junk, so we didn't worry about dings / dents / scratches. We just leaned it against the truck bed (tailgate was removed) and "flipped' it in using a "moving strap" we had secured around it about a foot from the bottom. Piece of cake. 
edit: if you want to move a safe in a hurry (and again not worry about dents/scratches), just dump a bucket of golf balls on a concrete floor and tip the safe onto them and push it. Pick up the balls behind, put them in front. Or a half dozen 2' long pieces of 2" water pipe. I once moved a 2,000 lb safe out of a closed McDonalds, across a blacktop parking lot into the "new" McDonalds store, and into the new office... with nothing more than 6 pieces of 2" water pipe and a machinery-moving pry bar to get it up high enough to slip the pipe under it. Just me and a helper. It took a while, but it was a customer's safe so we had to be careful.
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I don't care how heavy it is... a couple guys with strong backs can do it (I've done it myself), wow i'd like to see a couple guys pick up my 1600lb safes. then add a couple 400lbs or more to it and your at a ton. i'd hate to meet you in a dark alley.lol Well, I'm 6'2", 235lbs and an ex-linebacker, 36" waist and 52" chest, and when younger I could bench 350lb+ ... but even I can't lift a 1600lb+ safe into a truck. But my car-haul trailer with a 8,500lb Superwinch and steel loading ramp can. I can drag a 2,000lb safe up that ramp in about 2 minutes and be gone... it will be all scratched and dinged up, but I could care less if I'm stealing it.
I was referring to a typical RSC like a 28 gun Liberty, Cannon, Browning, etc. The most common size... roughly 60" tall, 30" wide, 24" deep, weighing between 500-700lbs. Myself and a buddy (smaller than me) loaded a 600lb+ Browning that size, that was fire damaged, empty, and useless (but still heavy as new) into a Ford F150 with little problems. It was already junk, so we didn't worry about dings / dents / scratches. We just leaned it against the truck bed (tailgate was removed) and "flipped' it in using a "moving strap" we had secured around it about a foot from the bottom. Piece of cake.
edit: if you want to move a safe in a hurry (and again not worry about dents/scratches), just dump a bucket of golf balls on a concrete floor and tip the safe onto them and push it. Pick up the balls behind, put them in front. Or a half dozen 2' long pieces of 2" water pipe. I once moved a 2,000 lb safe out of a closed McDonalds, across a blacktop parking lot into the "new" McDonalds store, and into the new office... with nothing more than 6 pieces of 2" water pipe and a machinery-moving pry bar to get it up high enough to slip the pipe under it. Just me and a helper. It took a while, but it was a customer's safe so we had to be careful.
Agreed! Me and a friend moved my 1500lb safe with very very little difficulty! |
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