In July of '13 my darling bride (of sixteen years) accepted a job in Houston, Texas leaving my in England on my own until I could follow her at Christmas time. A few short weeks later my pal Andy joined me on safari in Namibia with Rex Brandt of Outjo. We hunted near Etosha and the vast Damaraland conservancy. I had only booked ten animals but due to the local Damara peoples upcoming celebrations they found themselves in need of more meat. As I was on hand, I got the honours. We ended up with twenty six! At at the end of our very successful safari I found myself with a slight case of Taxidermy Fever :-0

Meanwhile, Herself found us a perfect little cottage in the Heights area. My only requirement was a stonking huge garage for my tools and man cave. Well, let me tell you, this girl is a keeper. I arrived at my new home to find an enormous garage in back that would do the trick nicely. There are very few things that the good lady wife absolutely puts her foot down on. She humors me on so many things that I can't really complain at all. Number on her list is "No eyballs in the house - DT's (dead things) belong in the man cave." Oh darn, now I have to build up the man cave into a trophy room :-)

I started by dividing the garage in half. Then we raised the ceiling in the trophy room and added soffitts on the sidess for lights and HVAC. Once that was done we added a utility room off the side for washer and dryer as well as deep sink, toilet and shower. The good part is the trophy room is nestled between the utility room and the garage. That means you have to go through two doors on either side to enter it. As there are no windows, it is pretty secure.

It took 15 months for my package to arrive but it did at last. My 21 year old son and I jumped into my hunt truck, a 1989 Ford F-350 4x4 ex-Army ambulance, and drove to the bonded warehouse at Bush Intercontinental Airport to pick it up. When we got it home we back the truck up to the garage and set the box on the ground. I felt like a five year old at Christmas! In fact, it was my Christmas. We slowly and carefully unpacked the goodies from the box. Amidst mountains of shredded paper and bubbble wrap, the delicate trophies emerged. Once inspected and horns re-attached we took them into the man cave and started adorning the walls.

The room ended up exactly as I had planned. To say that I am pleased would be the understatement of the year. As I gaze up at the walls I am snapped back instantly to the moments of the hunt that meant so much to me. Even though it took seemingly forever for them to arrive, I think it was worth the wait. Anything worth having is worth waiting for.

The shipment contained:
Kudu shoulder mount.

Skull shields:
Oryx, Eland, Steenbok, and Springbok.

Warthog ivory shield.

Skins:
Zebra x2
Ostritch
Sprinkbox
Blue Wildebeest
Kudu
Jackal

Extra set of Kudu horns from a "Blue" Kudu in Damaraland.
Zebra bookends
Blue Wildebeest fly swisher
Baboon skull.

Most of the extra leather will go into making a set of Roorkhee chairs. I have the legs and dowels already made up. Now I have exotic leather to make the seats and backs!

And now for the pics. If I load them right, it should start with building the trophy room, unboxing the trophies and the finished room.
Enjoy!





The baboon skull was a gift from the taxidermist. My son thought it would be funny to have him smoke one of my pipes! As a final note, I am extremely pleased with the colour of the walls and they way they make the trophies stand out. I really, really dislike white walls. I think they make trophies look washed out.

I hope you have enjoyed my trophies as much as I am! I have left space on the walls for a skull shield from the joint horned infidel and maybe the right ear of Old Tembo. I better get busy planning the next safari!

Howdy from Houston,

Cole

I'd say that turned out well! Congratulations.

Damn that's nice
I like it

Hope you can still remember which spent cases went with which trophy after so long a wait.

Having said that Belinda has done a fantastic job with the mount from what I can see from the photos and what she did with my 2 sets of horns.

Hope to see it in person as soon as we can get over there.

All the best for the New Year.

Andy (as mentioned above)

Looks very nice.

Very nice trophy, but what is especially nice you have room for many moooore trophies.

I like what you had done with the Zebra lower legs and hooves. I/we will travel to RSA this coming April. I plan to take a Hartman's Zebra, mountain Zebra, for our living room. Will talk to taxidermist about the hooves. MTG

We need to see some completed photos. This thread has got me thinking about building a detached garage and converting half of it in the same way as the OP.

I like your trophies. Looks like you are going to have a great trophy room.

Looking very good, I know you will enjoy many hours in there..