If you keep guns in your home, then you obviously need a good place to store them. If you’re looking for something with a bit more personality than traditional gun safes, then custom gun cabinets might be the right investment for you. The best custom wood cabinets cost more than stock options, but most homeowners find that they’re worth it. When you’re working with your cabinetmaker, there are essentially three categories you should take care to address:

• Safety

  Your top priority both when choosing a cabinetmaker and when designing your cabinet should be safety; a cabinet with a little lock on it is not a secure storage solution for firearms. Discuss your options for reinforcement, latching and locking mechanisms, and high-tech security devices. Safe storage can protect the people you love from accidental tragedies.

• Convenience

  As with all gun storage solutions, you’ll want to balance concerns of safety with those of convenience. If you’ll be using your custom gun cabinets primarily to display a firearm collection that doesn’t see any use, then this will be less of a concern. But if you want to be able to use your firearms, you’ll want to make sure ammunition is stored safely and separately but still in a convenient proximity to your firearms themselves.

• Looks

  If you’re going for custom gun cabinets, then you might as well use them as true display pieces, rather than just secured cupboards. Gun cabinets can either stand alone, like a wardrobe or hutch, or be integrated into surrounding cabinetry. If you’re using a truly custom cabinetmaker, you should have as many choices for wood, stains and detailing as you would picking out kitchen or bathroom cabinets. You can also consider extras such as integrated display lighting so that your collection always looks its best.

Do you have any tips on designing custom made cabinets for storing guns or other sensitive items? Share your ideas in the comments.