This seems to come up all too often. I live in a condo but I stay at the family property up in Wisconsin about every few weeks too so I need weapons good at short but also medium range.
I have a CZ75 in one of those "conceal clocks" next to my computer (living room) ; an S&W 1911PD in the drawer closest to the toilet in my bathroom and I typically have a P229 on my night stand.
If I was worried "its going to be heavy" I have a rifle ready to rock and roll in a gun safe in my bedroom as well. I have a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 loaded spare magazines ready for each gun at all times. It boggles my mind, my brother in law only keeps the one magazine loaded for his SIG, his only other gun is an old Winchester 30-30.
The other thing is all of my ammunition is right there in my bedroom, god forbid some far fetched prolonged shootout happened she would be in there reloading empty magazines for me. Sadly right not that is only about 750 rounds of 223, 500 of 9mm and 300 of 45 ACP. Need to double just about all of that too.
Hope to add a few more things to that list in the next 6 months.
Something else to note; I have to keep my P229 in one of those handgun racks for fear one of my evil cats would knock it off the nightstand. I DONT want to pull a Boondock Saints on my poor cats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-G9vrgPLk