I am planning a Trophy Room from scratch for construction beginning early 2010. I have quite a few animals that I want to display and I am looking for some input from present owners and those that have built from scratch to see what you did that you liked and what one must guard against. My present room is 48' x 32' and I am completely out of room with 25 animals at the Taxidermist. I am leaning toward no windows for the premium on wall space. I will have roughly 200 Trophies of which 50 will be lifesize with the balance mostly shoulder mount. I am studying all facets right now, shape, lighting, ceiling height, wall configuration, etc,... The advantage is I am "starting with a clean slate", the disadvantage is "I am starting with a clean slate", lol. I will only do this one last time, so I am looking for any and all input, ideas, cautions, etc,.. I currently have 8" log walls so weight is not an issue. On the new one, I am concerned about weight, as I intend to put many of the lifesize, especially mountain species, up on the walls. I appreciate any and all advice in my research.
Thank You,
Rusty

Wow! Sounds like the beginnings of a museum. With that many life sized, you will need a big room. Let me start by saying I know nothing about planning for a trophy room. But are you looking for just one really big room or maybe having a divider wall for perhaps animals from different regions?

OK....if you have 25 animals coming back and will ultimately have 200, that means you are going to be increasing your current number by about 15%. By that rationale, if you NEVER wanted to have anything mounted again (and were comfortable with your existing wall height and layout, you should think about increasing your square footage by the same amount.....yielding about 1770 square feet. If you are gonna do this though (and are over the age of 60) I think you might as think of 2000 square feet as an absolute minimum size with at least 16 foot (more likely 20 foot) walls. This will allow you to get some life size mounts up off the floor as you plan. If you are under the age of 50 however and plan to hunt a lot more, and given your current rate of trophy collection, you might as well be thinking of 2500-3000 square feet so you don't have to worry about this again for a while. Frankly, I'm not at all sure, if you are under say 45 however, if 2500 square feet will get you personally through a lifetime of hunting. Obviously, you might as well cover the whole thing in plywood before you sheetrock in order to give you flexibility re: the placement of mounts. Recessed lighting in the ceiling will also make for a cleaner look.

Bluefin also brings up a good point regarding divider walls. It might be nice to increase your wall space (and thus capacity) with these, but that comes at the cost of making things feel more cramped. I personally think wall height is the most cost effective and aesthetically pleasing way to increase your capacity.

Also, I think you should be thinking about what you might want to include in the new trophy room that isnt in the old. If you dont have a bar or office or lounge area in your present one but want one in the new, you need to add the estimated square footage of each to the figures above. You are also right that windows take up wall space and should probably be minimized for the sake of the mounts anyway. That said, I'm not sure you want a dark dingy cave either....although I can sometimes see the appeal of the dark, smoke filled "man-room". If you decide on a size, you can sit and figure out where mounts will go and then place windows strategically between mounts in a symmetric way. That way, it wont cost you wall space as the mounts cant possibly just wedge right up against one another anyway. Just make sure the windows have an anti-UV film so that they will let in some natural light but also protect the mounts.

Hope this helps.

tendrams

Tendrams, just exactly the type of advice that I am looking for. I am 53, so there will be additions as I go along (hopefully). I didn't start until I was 41 (couldn't afford it), so I have been on a rapid pace. I think I like the wide open style without walls, but I don't think I just want a rectangle. I think your calculations are about right, as I figured approximately 35' x 70', but I have been toying with the idea of an "L" shape, with the inside of the "L" flattened to form a delta type shape. This would give the room some shape and still be open. Of the 200 animals about 35 are shoulder mount Whitetails, so there will be one section dedicated to them. I also thought about 20' ceilings too. What would be the side wall heights? I tend to think 10'/14' as a minimum, again for wall space. I am planning a staircase at some point in the room to access an upstairs bedroom (my wife calls it a mountain goat perch)so there will be some platform areas available around the staircase if we choose to take advantage of them. My present room includes an office area, desk, computer table, credenza and glass fronted cabinet that I put skulls, claws and momentos in. I would include this area in the new room. I plan a center piece diarama with hopefully five lifesize (canadian) whitetails doing different things in the snow. I have them now with skins, but am always trying to upgrade the quality. What about floors, colors that type thing? Anyone have any suggestions or points to consider? I plan to put alot of thought into this. I have a couple of the trophy room books, but so many look dark as you said. I really do not want windows, so I hope to get the desired effect with lighting and colors.
"So many animals, so little time."
Thanks,
Rusty

With the addition of an office, your current and future total mount count, and given the fact that you are only 53, I think your "L-shaped" room just grew to 2500 square feet as a conservative minimum. What about fireplaces? Maybe you could put your office on the short end of the "L" with the desk out from the wall and a fireplace behind it. Surround that area with whitetails. Then maybe have another fireplace at the other end of the long section of the L. This fireplace could be 20 feet floor to ceiling and made of stone to hold full mount mountain species....think CJ McElroy's style with the jutting out stones supporting sheep and goats. Another thing I think you have to think about is exactly what you plan to hunt. Is elephant in your future or past? If you want a shoulder mount elephant I think you absolutely need a minimum of 20 foot walls. Honestly, I think you need that anyway to avoid the place looking crowded. As for colors and such, I hate white. Also, I think the whole mahogony paneled walls and oreintal rug thing is a bit too dated and stuffy. What about a faux thatched ceiling? Maybe with textured beige or sage green walls? Add dark finished rough cut 8" pine board floors and that should be plenty rustic and homey, no? This should be comfortable....but it's your space of course. Another thing I have thought of is to go with a safari tent theme and cover the entire ceiling with draped beige canvas.

Here's some wall color examples and I really like the way they framed the animals!!!






I think a subcontractor could pretty easily reproduce this ceiling inside a home...

Rusty,

If you're starting "from scratch" consider that squares and rectangles are rare in Nature (I almost said "think outside the box, but resisted), and a room twice as long as it is wide, especially if it has an extra-high ceiling, risks feeling like being in a ditch or hallway.

Consider the available space and give some thought to a round, oval or even triangular (with rounded corners) shape. If the apex of the triangle attaches to the existing house there's two good walls to provide indirect lighting without subjecting your trophies to direct sunlight.

Personally, I think a round room 45' in diameter, with 16' walls and a domed ceiling, with your whitetail diorama in the center would work, and would more easily accomodate a large rock feature for your mountain species...

Tendrams, Jefffive, thanks for the input, I am getting some great ideas from you two and some things to consider. A fireplace or fireplaces are in the plan and I do want to avoid the hallway effect. The room needs to blend into the house, so that is to be considered too. I do like the idea of goats and sheep around the fireplace, fortunately, our property has lots of stone and that is in the plan. I have a lifesize Dall over my present fireplace, bedded on a rock. Elephant shoulder mount is in the master plan, but I think Elephant hunting is getting better, so I am holding off on that until later on. I am focused on Mountain species right now, while I can still climb, lol. The Whitetails around the desk in one end of the "L" is much like what I have now, except they are all in one corner. What about floors, colors, stone/tile. I have light tile now to pick up light. The toughest part of the floors to me is planning where to put floor outlets. Thanks for the input.

I think the floor choice depends on the level of formality you want in the room. Rustic room = 8" rough sawn wood, Middle of the road room = Stone to match the fireplace, Formal room = Light to medium finished hardwood. Of course, you could always use more than one floor choice for different sections of the room. Stone bar and lounge area and wood floors elsewhere?

Julian and Sons has lots of photos of various trophy rooms.

My only suggestion is go as big as you can - you will fill it.

Funny you should mention Julian and Sons, they are in the town I plan on building in, Heber Springs, Arkansas. I have talked to them on the phone. They do beautiful work, but probably a bit formal for me. Most of their photos show a very low density of mounts on a wall, I am afraid I will be trying to fit them in so it doesn't look crowded. You are right about filling it, it seems all space is a premium.
Tendrams, I think i am middle of the road on the scale. My present set up has cypress log walls, rough hewn, so you can move things around and the holes blend in with the natural wood. The log is a problem for maintenance and weather proofing. I will go with a more traditional outside, stone with siding, but I am still considering doing the log walls inside for the weight it can handle with no issues there. I have one mount that weighs a couple of hundred pounds that we used 1/2" lag bolts and a lift to put up and the logs don't know it is there.
I would love stone floors, but would probably have to seal them, we have dogs, cats, you name it.
Rusty

You know, if you sheath the whole inside of the walls with plywood, you can free up some resources by not paneling the whole interior. Then it might be neat to have Julian and Sons work some of their more SUBTLE magic on the remainder...fireplaces or wainscoting etc...BUT do it in pine or cypress. This might sound crazy, and Julian's may cringe at the thought, but I think a stone floor, dark beige walls, and something like below done in a less formal and lighter wood would look great. Rustic elegance! Further, it wouldn't be so dark that it feels like Vito Corleone's office in Godfather I. I would also delete the circa 1994 television and put a big elephant head mount over that fireplace which would fit perfectly with the grey stone!

Tendrams, that is very nice. Is that your? I have the animals pictured. That I guess is my challenge. If I spaced the animals as they are in that photo, I would need a hangar for a 747. I will have to have them a bit closer. i am going to look at lighter stone colors for the floor. In north Arkansas there is some stone that is just off white with a slight reddish tint. I agree on the Elepahnt head, you know of any good Elephnat hunts? I have three/four more years in the mountains, then back to Africa I hope.
Rusty

Forgive my spelling, trying to get out the door this morning. LOL

quote:

Originally posted by RustyF:
Tendrams, that is very nice. Is that your?

God no, that is off of Julian's web site. Personally, I have more animals but in a much smaller and less luxurious atmosphere. I am the guy who would think about the cost of the fireplace construction and then compare that to what I could hunt with that money.

I think the above room needs to be wider with maybe slightly taller ceilings for your purposes. However, I really like the lighting set-up and the conservative use of woodwork without going overboard

quote:

I am the guy who would think about the cost of the fireplace construction and then compare that to what I could hunt with that money.

That sounds like me!

As for the floors. I have seeen trophy rooms with wood floors, carpet floors, and brick floors. I personally liked the carpet floors the best. They were a sandish color and flowed well with the African dioramas. The carpet also seemed more warm and inviting. If you are going to have lots of people over to see your trophy room though, stone or wood might be a better option since it will be easier to clean.

My current TR has travertine floors. Highly recommend them; things on the floor look much better, and stone looks much better than carpet. I would stongly consider slate if I had to do it again.

I would agree to make it as big as possible, and also agree that you should have some windows. Natural light is great, and UV film will protect the mounts from light.

I think ceiling height is critical; I have 14 feet in most of my TR, but we have a great room with much higher ceilings - I think you can get too high.

The other consideration is resale value. A huge rectangular room is not going to be very appealing to anyone but a hunter, esp if it has no windows.

My TR has 1/2 inch plywood sheathing. Using wing-type wall mounts, you can hang a ton of stuff on it. Hardware stores such as Ace also sell very heavy bolts with flip-down wings to hold very heavy things.

I put a bar with a granite countertop in my TR; not sure I would do that again, although for resale value it might be good. A fireplace is a must. I do have a stone fireplace that my designer (not architect) designed just for mounts. It is stone with a mantle about 6 feet high, with stone columns on either end. The columns continue above the mantle, but the middle is normal, which allows me to mount things above the fireplace.

I spent about 10K on cherry bookshelves; I think they lend a rather elegant look. The middle bookshelf contains a gun rack, where I display my wood stocked rifles and shotguns. There is a door on that wall in the middle of the bookshelves that leads to my reloading room. I had the reloading room custom built (bench, shelving, etc.) and love it. I can open the door to see the trophy room, but close it when I want a more formal look.

Our house sits on a hillside overlooking Phoenix. My trophy room has windows that look out over the city. On one side French doors open to a covered slate patio on two levels that border the length of our 75 foot pool that is dug into the hillside; the walls of the pool are stone where it goes into the mountain. The view when looking out the French doors is that of very blue water (blue Pebble-Tec), the stone walls, and the desert preserve mountian behind us. If you have a beautiful view, take advantage of it.

Trust your own judgement more than the architect, esp if he/she is not a hunter. Mine said my room would be large enough (32x30 but not a rectangle). Ha! I guess I will have to start building that house on our Colorado land soon...

Finally, make sure the lot your are going to build on allows you to build a house that big. Consider allowable buildable area, etc.

I suppose it is a matter of taste, but at some point you can crowd a room with too many trophies and to me, nothing looks worse. As I get older, I like to hunt as much as ever, but I am much more selective about what I mount.

Just a couple suggestions that I'm very glad I did on my room. First, I made the plate height on the walls 13', and sheathed all the walls with 3/4" plywood so that I could pretty much hang heads wherever I wanted. The 13' wall height is good, as it leaves a lot more room to hang things, but nothing is so high that it doesn't look good. The other thing I did was 'clear span' the room with a gluelam beam that runs the length of the room, which is 42'. That beam is 24' above the floor. On one end it is supported by 2 - 4x6 posts that serve double duty as anchor points for a large Alaskan Moose and a soon to be hung Bison. At the other end, the beam is supported by a large fireplace that is completely done in natural 'moss rock'. It is sandstone from Colorado that is covered with lichens and moss, and looks great. We made the fireplace the focal point of the room, it is 16' wide and about halfway up there is a wide shelt that has several smaller lifesized mounts on it. With a nice hearth, we've got quite a few things on the fireplace. 3 elk, 3 deer, a couple elk skulls, a set of elephant tusks, a bison skull and various other memorabilia. It looks great and I'd highly recommend putting a large fireplace in your room.

One thing I'd do differently is the what I hung from the gluelam. I have two large ceiling fans hanging from the gluelam, but plan on someday changing those out to hang two antler chandeleirs. I think that'll look a lot better.

quote:

One thing I'd do differently is the what I hung from the gluelam. I have two large ceiling fans hanging from the gluelam, but plan on someday changing those out to hang two antler chandeleirs. I think that'll look a lot better.

I'm surprised nobody on AR has invented a ceiling fan using moose antlers for blades, yet.

One more comment about height...

If you have a lot of big animals with large antlers/horns such as caribou, elk, kudu, sable, and ibex, they look much better higher. Animals that are big but don't have tall or very long horns (Cape buffalo, waterbuck) look better mounted so that their heads are about 10 feet high. Smaller animals such as deer, impala, etc. look better lower. Animals that have stunning capes (tahr, gemsbok) look best with their heads about 8 feet high. Just a personal preference, but I like a few skull mounts sprinkled throughout. Again, a kudu or elk skull looks best high up. Smaller skulls, such as a Lichtenstein's hartebeeste and reedbuck look great mounted only 4 ft high.

I am not a huge fan of full size mounts; I have only one. I have a griz that I made a rug. I like the idea of full size mounts on the wall. I like an open floor.

Speaking of floors, with stone you can throw your tanned backskins or full skins on them. I have two sofas that face each other in front of the fireplace. there is a coffee table between them that has a lot of glass; there is a zebra skin under that table (sticks out from both ends). I have another single sofa with a carved wood table that sits on another zebra skin. Looks very cool. I have a waterbuck backskin as a "mat" in front of the French doors to the pool, a sable backskin on the single sofa (which is green leather), and a nyasaland wildebeeste behind the bar. I normally work from home, so my TR is my office. I have a desk and chair naturally; the chair has two capes thrown over it. A bohor reedbuck (I have a shoulder mounted common) and the Lichtensteins hartebeeste.

Anybody want to buy some buffalo capes? I have two or three of them.

Wall space, wall space, wall space.

So many guys build a trophy room and have little space to hang their trophies. Lots of windows, but little wall space. Most people have no idea how much room a Kudu or an Elk takes up. both on the wall and out into the room.

If I was building a dedicated trophy room for myself with a goal of many mounts ... (Modify this as you wish)

Start with a good sized building. Maybe it is octogonal (Helps utilize corner space), square or rectangle is fine. I would build a room in the center of this building. This maximizes the available wall space since this room has an inside and an outside wall.

The center room can be a library, with mounts up high or possibly strictly a European mount room.

Leave out the windows, unless you have a phenominal view of something. then sacrifice one whole wall and put a big ol' window in.

Plan your lighting accordingly.

Most will disagree with me about the windows, but remember, this is my room! This advice may be worth a little more than what you paid for it, maybe not.

I like Wendell's idea of a room within a room.

Think a smaller 'box' like a 10X12 gunroom/library in the center of the room. If this smaller room had 8' ceilings, if the main room was a 16+ ceiling, you could place full body mounts on top of the gun room too.

Dont assume the room has to be symmetrical. A friend's trophy room has two or three alcoves (12X12 or bigger) off the main room that act a seating areas, give the room more character, and more 'private' space for grouping of animals (whitetails, canadian trophies, etc)

How about something cross or "plus sign" shaped. Put a 20x20 casual sitting room dead center and then have three 25x25 rooms off the north west and east of that room. Have a bathroom off the west side of the west room and a small kitchen off the east side of the east room. Obviously, use those two rooms as your "trophy bedroom" and "trophy dining room" respectively. Make the north room an office with a room length gun vault on the left and a room length cigar humidor on the right. Then, to the south of the central casual room, have a huge formal sitting area of about 20x40 extending south. Fireplaces open to both sides are placed at the south end of the office and the south end of the formal sitting area between it and what will be a 20x10 formal entry way. With this, you would have the worlds coolest 3500 square foot one bedroom house.

Resale would suck, but it would kick ass!


tendrams


p.s. Yes, I have done plans in MS paint.

Whose says the floor all has to be the same material! If you are putting all the whitetail deer in one area then something that reminds you of your favorite hunting area could go there. Africa area, something else there.
Don't forget stained concrete if you are doing slab on grade construction.
Hardwoods are easy to keep clean and the woods can be changed through out the room.

Don't forget to think about a fire sprinkler system. If you have a fire, the water used will not be that great. The only ones that will discharge will the ones that get hot enough to, no the whole system (you aren't going to put in a deluge system in a residence)
The cost on new construction is not that great and you should get an insurance discount that will more than off set the cost of the system.


Robert