James
Before building a house with a walk-in vault, for years I stored firearms and ammo in an old soft drink vending machine. Bought the non-working machine for next to nothing, removed the guts, and had a cheap gun safe (if necessary, a locksmith could re-key an old machine for a few bucks). It held a lot, had an excellent locking system, would be hard to break into, but best of all was invisible. Placed in my garage and later a barn, with a few tools and old boxes stacked on top, no one ever gave it a second look. – Bois d’Arc
JWR:
Just a couple more ideas on hiding in plain site:
Junk silver coins can fit in [tubular] clothing rods in your closets.
If you take the felt bottoms off of most ceramic lamps there is a hollow are to stash stuff in though you will have to secure it so it does not rattle.
Depending on the layout of your house look at heating duct work, is there a place where you could install a false duct going to nowhere and fill it.
under a kitchen sink drill a 1-1/2″ diameter hole opposite of each other in the back and you can slide a piece of PVC drain pipe in the holes one side first then the other.
also if you have a compound miter saw a semi permanent hiding place is installing crown moulding and using the dead space behind the moulding as a storage area. If you use nails as well as liquid nails glue to install it can support a large amount of weight. this idea also lends itself to coffered ceilings where you can build in a very large hidden space.
if you have a bed with large posts and decorative screw on tops you can use a wood boring bit to make a large hollow space and then screw the tops back on.well I hope these help you guys – Brian
JWR Replies: Thanks for those suggestions. One other “in plain site” cache suggestion that I’ve seen mentioned is a piece of black 4″ diameter ABS plastic pipe with threaded end cap protruding from the ground. To the casual observer, it will appear to be just a sewer or septic tank clean-out access port.