Using the walls of your home is a great way to hide your safe. We often work with clients globally who need all sorts of valuables secured at home, including: gold & silver storage, hidden gun safes, collectibles, art, wine collections and much more.
Below you’ll see our recommendations for the best options to keep your wall safe hidden:
Vulnerable Hidden Wall Safes
The first strategy we will discuss about hidden wall safes is using an external safe on your wall, such as a picture frame safe or clock safe. These wall safes can be cheaply bought but only hang on your wall, and are not otherwise secured inside the wall. These can generally keep small items, for example watches and cash. The way they are accessed depends on model, with most having no lock at all. A major issue with these wall safes are their lack of space. For example, you will be hard pressed to find an appropriately fitting picture fame gun safe for your collection.
Unlock Method: Some clock safes and picture frame safes have no locking mechanisms. Others have basic ones.
Price: $20-100
Upside: Can buy cheaply and the safe is easily accessed.
Downside: Not secure. Easily taken off of wall. Can’t have confidence in putting high priced valuables in it. Very limited space. Extra length of object can make safe a dead giveaway.
Good Hidden Wall Safes
A better method is to hide a safe designed to actually fit securely inside your wall, such as a painting wall safe. These safes can be secured in between the studs of your wall frame. It’s important to anchor your safe properly as burglars can break in to walls. This also means that the safe cover will look more natural, as the elongated part will jut into the wall, not the room.
However, because the safe must fit within your structure, the space for valuables is limited. Wall studs are generally 16 inches apart, which means your in-wall gun safe will need to be narrower than that, and it’s depth generally less than 4 inches. This will limit what you can hide inside your wall safe, making gun storage difficult. While installing a wider safe is possible, this will require custom engineering work for your walls, and is easier done before a house is built.
Additionally, with many methods of concealment, such as putting a painting in front of your safe, it is very easy to for a criminal to discover your safe, particularly because they may want to steal the item that is covering it.
Unlock Method: Standard safe dial
Price: $100-1,200
Upside: Safe securely placed inside of wall. Looks more realistic due to safe being in wall. Can easily cover safe with painting.
Downside: Wall safe can easily be found if criminals remove painting. Limited space due to wall framing, hard to store large guns in wall.
Best Hidden Wall Safe Strategy
The best method to keep your wall safe secret is to instead use your entire wall as a safe, and this is done surprisingly easily. 
This is the method we recommend to our clients, from the average homeowner to the international celebrity. Rather than just installing a hidden wall safe, one simply exchanges a door, such as a closet door, for a secret door. These secret doors are installed into the wall, but they usually fit where an existing door opening already is located, so little or no adjustment is required.
This strategy allows unlimited space for your valuables, as the entire room becomes secure for hiding guns and other valuables. Criminals won’t know where your valuables are or that you have them in the first place. We even frequently have professional home inspectors miss our doors.
Unlock Method: Standard doors include integrated magnetic locking system. Custom options include bio-metric access.
Price: Our prices start at $1,500 for a complete secret door system
Upside: Creates entire secure room. Criminals never know where to look. Easy to install.
Downside: More expensive