Set into the wall, not standing against it

The most common thing we are asked is the simplest to state: make it not look like a gun cabinet. This is the version where the cupboard stops being an object in the room and becomes part of the room instead.

The cupboard is set into a run of painted panelling. The joints fall where the rhythm of the panelling puts them, so there is nothing at the edges to give it away, and the door carries the same mouldings as its neighbours. Closed, it is a panelled wall.

That is worth more than it sounds. A steel cabinet standing in a hall tells every visitor, tradesman and delivery driver that there are guns in the house and precisely where they are. Most owners would rather that information were not on display in their own home.

Concealment is a benefit on top of proper security, never instead of it, and we say so plainly: the storage still has to satisfy your firearms enquiry officer on its own merits. Behind the panelling this is a steel-lined carcass of more than 2mm, with folded steel doors, anti-cut pins and BS 3621 locks, anchored into masonry exactly as it would be if it stood in the open.

Because the panelling has to be set out around the opening from the first drawing, this is a decision worth taking early. It is not something that can be added neatly to panelling that already exists. If you are panelling a study, a hall or a dressing room in the next year or two and you shoot, it costs very little to allow for it now and a great deal to retrofit later.

Interiors are drawn around the collection in the usual way: barrel rack set out so guns stand without touching, heights for scoped rifles, and separate lockable ammunition storage where the certificate requires it.