Had no idea it had been this long since I posted an update on the office in the Head Shed. I started moving into the office one year ago next week. Turned out nearly exactly like I envisioned it.
One of the major purposes in building the Head Shed was to create a work area where I could be productive and work from home. I’m a sales and marketing guy and love my job but my office commute is ~90 miles round trip. I also wanted a place to store my books that wasn’t the standard IKEA setup.
Another factor was taxidermy - I’ve mostly a whitetail hunter (and pretty average at that) but I’ve been fortunate to hunt all over the world because of work. I’ve sent my taxidermists’ kids to college and I wanted a room to display the trophies.
And lastly I wanted an office space that had a small hangout area. I have an accountability group from church that meets every other week and needed meeting space. Plus, we live in an area where all our neighbors hang out at each other’s barns so I wanted a decent space. We have a new media room in our home and a great entertaining venue in our patio but I wanted a place the guys could hang out where I wasn’t driving my wife crazy. So this is the result.
The office is 25x15 with 12 foot ceilings. I wanted high ceilings so I could walk anywhere in the room without stooping down to clear an animal. The ceiling itself is corrugated, rusty metal from a local barn deconstruction. The walls are a manufactured product but looks like old barn wood. Love the look of barn wood but I needed something lighter because of my lighting situation. Also, old barn wood can have issues with insects - not a good thing in a room full of animals.
I had a woodworking buddy source the wood and build the custom bookcases for me. I’m a fifth generation Missourian and the wood was from a barn that was built in the late 1800s in my home state, up by Hannibal. Really happy with how the bookcases turned out. They are full of books, pictures and memorabilia from my travels.
The desk isn’t finished yet - I have the desktop on a couple of sawhorses while I decide on the metal base design. My grandfather was a union carpenter and floorlayer in St. Louis after WW2. He had a two-piece workbench top in his basement workshop that I inherited. I was going to strip and refinish the wood because it’s a beautiful piece of red oak. However, I decided to leave as is - every scratch and chip in that desktop reminds me of my grandfather.
Every wall in the office is a different setup. The north wall is my bookcase with a bison mounted over the books.
The East wall is my African wall. I’ve hunted Botswana and South Africa and been pretty lucky in my travels. And I have a spot reserved in the middle for a Cape Buffalo.
The south wall is my whitetail wall. Like I said, all pretty average whitetails and all ones I shot, except for my wife’s first buck.
The west wall is North America. I have a section of euro mounts of whitetails. I hunt mainly in MO, KS and OK but have also taken whitetails in WY and MS.
I love hunting out west but have paid for my good luck in Africa in western elk hunts. Went on 6 elk hunts, both bow and rifle, before I had a chance to shoot my first legal bull. A recent visitor to my office asked if it was a mule deer. When I answered it’s an elk, he said “Oh OK. I thought elk were bigger.” Ouch. I’ve also shot a few antelope in WY and MT and have room on this wall for more elk and mule deer.
Almost all my birds - waterfowl and turkeys - are at my work office but I have this turkey at home. He’s pretty cool.
The doorway on the south wall is to my gear closet. It’s a small space at 15x5 but I’ve used the vertical space as well as I could.
