Lisa J Thompson
Learn how to quickly and inexpensively hide your wall safely behind a photo or painting canvas.
You’ve seen the scene in old movies – the dapper, wealthy man, possibly in a silk robe, sporting a pencil-thin mustache and aristocratic accent, moving an old painting to reveal his safe concealed wall that was tucked behind the canvas.
As we have mentioned in previous blog posts, hiding your valuables is an essential defense against most property theft. A great form of concealing your safe is to mount it in a closet or other hidden space, such as in a child’s bedroom (most burglars make a straight line to the master bedroom as a likely source of objects from value easy to find. and move in and out of the house very quickly).
Hiding your safe provides an additional degree of protection. You may not have a precious oil painting of an old ancestor to hang in front of your safe, or you may not want to draw attention to your safe with an overly attractive or potentially valuable wall hanging. Fortunately, there are remarkably cost-effective alternatives available today to cover up your safe.
For less than $ 100, a company can print a canvas for you from a photo or other image that you upload or email (or you can choose one of their images). We prefer these lightweight canvases to an image mounted in a heavy frame. After reviewing several of these companies, we were very pleased with the quality, multitude of choices, and speed that Amazon offered, but there are many companies that offer similar products.
Hiding your safe behind a painting or picture is a great form of protection. We found that a 24 “X 36” canvas, hung vertically and centered on the frame of the safe, perfectly covers our deep wall safe. It’s light enough to swing left or right on a pair of normal two-inch hinges from a hardware store (of course you can just hang the canvas on wire and a hook, but we prefer the convenience of the hinges ). You should order a regular 1.5 ”deep canvas, where the back of the canvas is“ open ”and unlined, to allow plenty of room for the keyboard and handle without creating a dent on the canvas surface. We prefer to get the canvas with the optional black border, to hide fingerprints when opening and closing the canvas (and we think the black border is sharp, especially on black and white photo canvas. ).
Just upload or email them a photo or picture you like, and you’re in business.
NOTE: As your photo will be enlarged up to 24 x 36 inches, try using an image or photo taken with a larger mega-pixel camera (a good full resolution photo from an iPhone or Android phone recent is good).
We mount the hinges on the back of the wooden frame and on the wall (see photo). If there is a stud in the wall to attach the hinges to, so much the better; if not, just place light anchors in the wall for the hinges to screw on. The hinges should be on the side out of easy sight by a stranger – even if the hinges will be mounted “blind”, they will still be visible to a keen eye. For example, if entering the room is from the right of the canvas, mount the hinges on the left side of the canvas, so that the right side shows no hinges and the canvas swings to the left.
That’s really all there is to it. For less than $ 100, you get a beautiful piece of art or a photograph on the wall and a cover-up for your safe. We highly recommend this solution.
