I have a gun safe I'm going to mount in a bedroom/office.  I have two basic questions, one about the carpet and one about the wall base board.  First, when mounting to the floor, do I need to worry about the carpet when mounting it?  What I mean is should I put some plywood or something between the safe and carpet for any reason when drilling and bolting it to the ground for extra strength/security?  Second, obviously with the base boards in place it won't sit flush against the wall.  I want to bolt it to the ground and the wall both, so should I cut away that section of base board so it can sit flush or just use longer bolts and live with the gap between the wall and the back of the safe?  What are people's opinions and how are people doing this with their own safes (no, I don't want to mount it in my garage or basement).  Hopefully this all makes sense, and thanks for helping out a newbie!

Removing the base board will help keep it flush against the wall. I’m not sure about the carpet I bolted mine on top of the carpet and it seems to be fine.

Just know there is zero real security in this plan. All but the laziest smash and grabbers will have no issue.

With that being said the proper way is to bolt it directly to the subfloor. The carpet and pad will allow give to get a crow bar between it and the floor. Bolts aren’t as strong as we would like to think. Leverage between the wall and side of safe will also be easy to allow ripping the bolts out of the floor. Of course this is all moot if they have a cordless angle grinder.

I have a safe in our master bedroom. It’s to keep the kids out and nothing more. Any sense of real security is false and if anything it’s a decoy to my hidden secured guns. It only holds my HD gun in case of a bump in the night.

Cut the baseboard so it sits flush against the wall, but unless you're bolting it to an exterior wall (that's brick or block) you're not really adding much by bolting to an interior wall unless you have a really lightweight or shallow safe (locking storage cabinet).

Don't worry about the carpet, put the safe right on top of it. I just took an x-acto knife and cut a slit in the carpet from the inside of the safe at each of the holes before I drilled the holes (thinking it'd keep the carpet from getting destroyed by the drill). I don't think it made much of a difference but I'll find out when I move.

Keep in mind if you go on top of the carpet that means on top of the tack strip too (along the wall). By definition half the safe will be floating providing a lip for leverage. Just FYI...

I sat my safe on top of a piece of plywood, on top of the carpet.  I didn't want the bottom of the safe to possibly be dirty/rusty, and stain the carpet.  I cut the baseboard where the safe was, and put the safe flush against the wall.  I measured, and ran lags through the back of the safe into the wall studs.

On the bottom, I drilled holes through the bottom of the safe, and through the carpet / floor.  I ran long bolts (all thread) down through them.  In the crawlspace below, I used sections of this metal framing strut/channel stuff:



to span across a few joists.  I then ran the bolts through this, and cinched it all up.  I never drilled into the actual floor joists (didn't want to weaken them), but in essence I "clamped" the safe to the floor joists/subfloor/carpet/plywood below.

The safe lived there for a couple of years.  When I pulled the safe (when we moved) the carpet under it fluffed right back up, and looked completely normal.

So what is the strongest way to secure it?  Into concrete?  I just want to stay away from that because I don't want people to see it in my garage, and my basement will flood a little every now and then in strong rains.  Or am I overthinking this?

I guess it depends how much you value the belongings. If your safe is under about $5k though a hillbilly thief is only 7 minutes away from the contents regardless of how it’s bolted down, as that’s how long it takes to cut the side out of even a Liberty Presidential safe with nothing more than a $15 HF angle grinder.

I don’t think my stuff is safe from thieves. But nothing I have is really irreplaceable. Concealment is always the best option for 99% of cases. I just want to keep my kids safe more than anything. And if a fire happens most safes still allow quite a bit of fire damage, and if not that the flooding since your basement will have 2-4’ of water in it after the fire department is done.

Home security is all about layers of protection.

Before a criminal reaches your firearm safe he Should have to defeat many layers of security. Increasing his time and risk of being caught.

1) don’t make your home look desirable
2) motion sensors and lights for early warning
3) cameras over each doorway
4) solid steel doorS with deadbolts and reinforced strike plates
5) alarm system with window and door sensors, glass break and motion sensors that is monitored
6) dogs
7) keep safe and valuables hidden away and not on display
8) lock up all power tools in garage
9) store drill bits and grinding wheels in your gun safe
10) secure safe to concrete is ideal but bolted to a wood floor is better than nothing
11) buy a home in a low crime neighborhood
12) if you really have high value items consider firearms insurance.