Putting an "armory" room in your house?

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Phantom Warrior

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I'm several years away from owning my own house. I've got the military and law school to finish up first. But in my spare time I occasionally while away the hours contemplating what I'd like to do with my own house.

One idea that I've come up with is creating an "armory", hardening a single room and devoting it to my firearms. Maybe that stems from working in the arms room back in garrison. But I'm starting to acquire a lot of firearms. I have a gun cabinet upstairs that is full (well, including my sword) and the family gun cabinet downstairs is half full of mine too. It seems like it would be easier to concentrate them all in one room, rather than scattering them all over the house. I'd probably put a solid core wood door or a steel door with a lock on that room. Maybe do it in a basement room w/o windows or secure the windows some how.

Has anyone done something like this? If so, what did you put in to it? How happy have you been with the results?
 
Basements are better so long as you can control the humidty and you have no windows to the room. The advantage of putting a most of your firearms in one room that you can dedicate to your hobby are numerous to include potentially greater security, safety and a better enviornment for your weapons.
 
As well as strengthening the door, I'd reinforce the walls too, and maybe the floor and walls. As I understand it, most American homes are made from drywall and studs; hardly likely to be resistant to much! If someone knew what was in that room (or really wanted to find out) it might not take long if they were reasonably sure of not being disturbed (like if you wre on holiday).
 
My house came with a "wine cellar" room on the bottom floor. It was a small L shaped room next to the stairs with a few cabinets and plenty of space for a couple safes. Its completely enclosed with no windows and only one door. Best of all, it isn't a regular door, but a lockable (padlock) iron door. You can see through it, but its very heavy. Since neither myself or my wife drink nearly enough wine to ever use the room as it was intended (the house came with a separate wet bar/wine cabinet, I guess designers think most home owners a drunks?) I now have my own "armory".

Its really nice because I don't have to waste closet space anymore moving around rifle cases or worry about moving safes upstairs or finding the right place to bolt one down. Plus theres something satisfying about undoing the lock and hearing the creak of a heavy metal door open when I want to access my firearms.
 
As Matt87 said, drywall is not very secure. Unless you intend to make the walls out of 3/4 in plywood or something, I could break into that room in seconds - literally - with a utility knife. I'd have a 15 inch doorway between two studs. Heck, if it were just drywall, someone could cut their way in almost silently.

I read a comic book once where they had this big monster locked in a secure room. The army guys were looking at it through a window. One of the generals says its a good thing the glass is super thick/strong/unbreakable. The monster looks at the glass, steps to the side, and breaks through the wall. Same deal.
 
I'd suggest acquiring a gun safe first. Your costs of properly reinforcing an entire room (door, walls, any windows) will probably be more than that.
 
My house came with a "wine cellar" room on the bottom floor...I guess designers think most home owners a drunks?
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Hey Stage2, maybe I can shed some light on this subject for you.

Wine is a product that, unlike something like Coca Cola, doesn't come from a factory. It's based on a natural substance (grapes) that are subject to a lot of naturally occuring variables. Say one year it's moist in June and hot & dry in July, and the next year it's hot & dry in June, and moist in July. Wine made from the same vines growing in those same vinyards in those two years will taste subtly different. That's why, when you discover a wine that is really *just right* you don't say, great, we'll get more of that next week-next month-next year. You buy a lifetime supply (as much as feasible) because you know next year will probably be different. Wine matures best in a cool dark place with a constant temp, and many basements are ideal for this purpose.

So having a "wine cellar" doesn't mean you're going to drink wine for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, then have to fill up the wine cellar again next week when you go to the grocery store! It's so you can plan on having something very nice weeks, months or years from now, and have it taste like you remember.

That said, I would probably store guns & ammo in it too, provided humidity wasn't a problem. And maybe a couple of bottles of wine just so I can keep calling it a "wine cellar". :D
 
So having a "wine cellar" doesn't mean you're going to drink wine for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, then have to fill up the wine cellar again next week when you go to the grocery store! It's so you can plan on having something very nice weeks, months or years from now, and have it taste like you remember.

That said, I would probably store guns & ammo in it too, provided humidity wasn't a problem. And maybe a couple of bottles of wine just so I can keep calling it a "wine cellar".
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I would agree with you but for the fact that the house came with the cellar, a wet bar with wine storage and a wine pantry which is wholly separate from the regular kitchen pantry.

I like vino as much as the next guy, but 1) the difference in the date/taste doesn't really mean that much to me and 2) there is no way that if I had the disposable income it took to actually fill up all of these places that I would actually spend it on booze. Between ammo, surfboards and hotrods, a 99 merlot is way down on the list.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that even the most particular of drinkers doesn't have more then say 20 bottles at home.
 
Jorg,

My searchfu is weak. I am ashamed...

(What terms did you search to find those posts?)
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It's not really your fault. I spend far to much time on the forum and my brain has this weird way of indexing posts by key idea so that while I don't always remember the exact contents of the read, I usually remember enough to find the posts again. In this case, I remember the word "vault" being used in all three threads so I searched on "vault" to find them again. From there, I was able to eyeball the subjects and find the proper threads.

Mainly, I just spend too much time here and not enough time shooting.
 
1st rule of thumb. If they don't know a gun room exists then they simply don't rob it. Problem with that is keeping your trap shut when you build a false wall in the basement. It's easy to build a hidden entrance, no one will ever know it's there. that means the wife and kids have to muffle it. keep a couple of cheap guns around to serve as a decoy and let them steal those. Locks were meant to keep honest people honest honestly.
 
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that even the most particular of drinkers doesn't have more then say 20 bottles at home.
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If you do, there's not enough room to store the ammo as well as the guns.

On the other hand, I have a half-closet that barely fits two 12-bottle cardboard wine cases across, and I have over 100 bottles - and I'm not even trying.

Buy ammo and wine by the case when you find good stuff.
 
In my daydreaming, I've had these thoughts:

-For an existing house:

Vault door ($1500-2000). Keypad to unlock the door, except the keypad is across the basement so that it doesn't draw attention to such an important door. The door is made to look like any other wooden door in the house. Nothing special. OR... The door is hidden entirely behind wood paneling matching the walls of the basement, or hidden behind a swing out bookcase.

Build an extra room into a corner of the basement, so you're only building 2 walls. Use cinderblocks, and fill the cinderblock walls with concrete and rebar.

The ceiling will be a large metal pan/mold, into which concrete will be poured, and rebar laid down. You end up with a concrete slab for the roof of the room.

-House I build:

Vault door, offsite keypad entry, hidden behind a bookcase.

When the foundation is being poured, a seperate room with reinforced walls is built as part of it, with a space for the vault door.

Reinforced concrete roof, enough to withstand the house burning down and falling in on itself.

Next to the safe/vault room will be the underground 25 or 50 yard shooting range.
 
I had one built in my house when we built 7 years ago. I went with the solid core wood door because the wife said it had to match the other doors in the house so no vault door. It came out very nice but it took almost 6 months to get the door because it had to be custom made. I am very happy with how it came out.
gunroom.jpg
 
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