Awesome house plans for hunters?
General Topic
Lets put up your good ideas to build an awesome house for an outdoorsman. I might build a house soon and want to have a walk in gun vault, trophy room with a bar, and maybe even a small indoor archery range if it can be done within budget. Also, I might like a mud room where I can walk in the house with muddy boots and then take them off and just hose down the whole room if I have to. Just submit your ideas that you wish you had in your house. I know we have had trophy room threads but this thread is about starting from the ground up building a pad for the outdoorsman not just a room.
Make the house one level(with walk out basement). To hell with stairs.
Big family room conducive to taxidermy, huge hearth and make sure it's cozy. Nice view from windows. Forget formal living room - nobody uses those...
Huge eat in kitchen with easy to clean floor, tons of cabinet and countertop space. Center island preferable, with as big a fridge as you can fit. Ideally a nice view out the window.
Dining room big enough for 20 or so family and friends.
oversize mud/laundry room leading to garage or other primary entry/exit. Clothing hooks, shelves are a plus.
You can't make the garage big enough if you are not building a separate detached garage. You need room for 2 to 3 cars, mowers, tractors, quads, snowmobiles, tools, hunting equipment, etc...
Preference is attached oversized 2 car, but also a 3 or 4 car sized detached as well, so you can hang and process your game in there too..
Maintenance free exterior (more stone /brick - the better it will look, but if you have to mix some vinyl in - fine. You want to be hunting, not maintaining the house!)
Four bedrooms - decent size, but don't go crazy. Plenty of closets..
IF/WHEN you run out of room, finish the basement..
With walkout basement - your deck should be high enough to simulate tree stand hight, so leave yourself in back yard for a great 3d target range...
Go ahead and make part of the garage the game processing room. You will need a poly top cutting table,hot water, and a floor drain. You will also need some extra counter space for wrapping game. Dont forget a meat freezer, and a frig for the beer. The rooms that will contain the trophies will need recessed or track lighting to highlight your mounts.
I want a garage that I can drive into with my truck camper on and leave it. Maybe a 14' garage door?
I'll lean towards getting the house the wife wants, and then build on a game room I design.
No less than 5 acre lot, preferably with some sort of huntable wildlife that can come around.
I can design,and draw the plans for you. Pm me.
Every bedroom has an attached full bathroom
A house with a wrap around porch built on 1000 acres of prime whitetail property with a view of a pond.
"A house with a wrap around porch built on 1000 acres of prime whitetail property with a view of a pond."....with CRP for a yard.
GR
-Space in the basement/garage long enough for a home archery range
-Cool/dry place for black powder / ammo storage (you mentioned a walk-in gun vault)
-Plywood between studs in your trophy room
-Floor drains in any room that will get muddy or bloody
-Antler handles on stuff like doors and cabinets
-And for the IT guys out there and just because it has so much awesome potential, I'd wire all of the lighting and outlets with X10 plugs and switches so I could automate and remotely control everything in my house.
I like high ceilings I have 25 ft in the living room.Also have a balcony to over look everything with a fireplace in the middle.
I had a 6x6 cement gun vault poored in my house I built last year. Only cost me $600. Just need to get a door for it. Cheapest door I found was $1700, but I am just gonna build my own for under $500.
Don't forget a large sink in your garage. Great for cleaning up after cutting your game.
Zbow, Would love to hear your plans on building your own vault/safe door, I need one also.
Ok, send me your first of three payments, 300,000 each. I'll send you your plan and first load of lumber. ace
here ya go:
battery and propane backup everything, fresh water storage tank, power outages no problem
nothin to clean, nothin to maintain, cheap to heat and cool, cheap to buy, no TV, no phone, no internet
more time to hunt and fish ;-)
A huge walk in closet for hunting clothes,gear,and boots only.Cedar lined
24 feet by 24 feet no basement, one story and one bedroom. You can come visit but you ain't staying. Walk out the door and start hunting or fishing. One small shed for the stuff you really need and get rid of the rest of it.
FWIW....I've been looking at Youtube for ideas. I'd lean towards a pole barn house. There are some great plans out there. Some guy out of Texas does "Barndominium" videos. He does walk-thru's of pole barn houses. For the hardcore meat hunter house.....a walk-in fridge would be cool.
Architect is revising our plans for our retirement home as I type this. Two distinctly separate living rooms. One for the house and a hunting themed for me and my homeboys. Off of that room will be my archery room. Room for all of my archery and hunting things in one room as not to have scattered about every room in the house. A small storm shelter made of metal which will alleviate the need for a separate gun safe. It will be, in essence, a big secure from tornados area and can keep guns safely in it as well. 4 car oversize garage. Very large back porch (not facing west) with lots of ceiling fans. Outdoor cooking area. Three fireplaces. I could care less about the rest of the house. That belongs to my wife.
Make sure to line your game room with plywood before drywall...
Old thread brought back by a spammer :)
However, I'll contribute :) My wife and I are in the opening stages of building our dream home on 20 acres. Some of the things mentioned are things we're doing. We'll have a "mudroom" off the garage, as you come into the house, with cabinets and spaces to keep dirty shoes, muddy boots, etc. Under that mudroom, in the walkout basement, we'll have a concrete "safe room" with a steel door. That will be our storm shelter (tornadoes a real threat in my area), and area for gun safes, as well as storage for my hunting stuff.
I gave up the idea of a trophy room. I've always dreamed of one, but just can't justify it. So instead we're doing a full walkout basement with 9 foot drop ceilings, and only finishing about 900 square feet of it for now. We'll finish it cheaply for now, and make it a kid room for my daughter and her friends. Some day, if I want, I can refinish the whole thing and make it my trophy room. Our great room will have tall ceilings, and I'll do ply wood behind the hanging areas, and hang dead stuff in there.
I'll have to build a shop building. I want a 50x80 with 4 12' doors. One on each end, and two on the side. So I can pull through if I want, and have plenty of room for big toys. I may have to settle for a smaller one. Possibly 40x60 with less doors. I would like room for my Ranger and mower, plus I have a boat, car trailer, and want room to add a tractor and another boat, and a third vehicle.
It's fun to plan!
Go with 2x6 outside walls. My wife and I built a house 15 years ago and modified the plans for 2x6 walls, extra insulation, good widows, and an energy efficient hvac system. Best money I ever spent. Solar panels are my next investment.
Big kitchen is must, cooking, family and friends. Nothing better. What i wouldnt give to have all the love ones I lost sitting in my kitchen
Put plywood under Sheetrock in rooms where lots of mounts will go. This way you don’t have to look for studs.
Shrugs idea is golden. Have that on the main wall in our den and it really makes hanging and decorating easy
Since the thread is 9 years old we should ask the OP for update.
76aggie I think you nailed it.
Any thoughts on what material and labor costs will do in the near future as we make it through this time Great ideas all.
If you put plywood behind the Sheetrock be sure to tell your electricians when they are setting the boxes for outlets and switches. You will have off set the box the depth of the Sheetrock and plywood. If thick enough it my take different boxes. I put plywood behind my sheetrock in my shop and had to reset all the boxes once I figured it out. Ugggh!
Well, he's had a decade, what did he end up building???
2x6 walls, wood stove in addition to forced air, wraparound porch, one level + basement, and I'm putting in a hidden door to my storage room and safe
For the purpose of hanging mounts without the trouble and added cost of hanging plywood behind the drywall in your main trophy room I would recommend that you take the time to photograph all the framing layout in that room before the drywall goes in. If you use the photos as a reference along with notes that have layout detail then you should have very little trouble when you need to locate studs to hang your mounts.
The plywood only needs to be above any electrical boxes. From 54" above the finished floor, set the plywood flush with the studs mounted on cleats attached to the studs. This will keep plywood away from outlets and light switches but will keep it there for wall mounted TV's and taxidermy mounts without affecting wall thickness.
Good idea on photographing the wall layout, Bowbender, however, oftentimes the best spot to mount a particular animal just doesn’t match up with where the studs are. The plywood solution fixes that problem. Sure wished I had thought of that when I built my house 20 years ago!
This is the one my wife and I are planning, with a few modifications here and there.
I like the Cobra in the garage. Does it come with?
X-man hit on what we did, plywood in between and flush with the studs on the upper ~ half of the walls.
Who wants a cobra!? Lifted Ram 2500!!!
Doing it now. Ranch with full basement, walk out. 2000 ftsq on each level Ceilings 10’ on main, 9+ in basement Kitchen, dining and family room on main floor are essentially one big room. Large pantry next to kitchen Laundry on main Master bed/bath on main Small office on main Half bath on main Covered deck with skylights Three car garage that’s 24’ deep, to hold long pick up with plenty room in front Basement two bedrooms with a full bath between Big family room with granite bar in basement Fourth basement bedroom unfinished for storage
A trophy room with low-light, no direct ambient light...don’t ask me how I know.
Front yard
Front yard
Back yard
Back yard
Side yard
Side yard
Bake....here is mine....actually way back in the mountains about 9 miles from Crested Butte at 9400 elevation.
Doesn’t make you house poor like some of those custom mega cabin-mansions you showed in your link....and the hunting is good the moment you step off the porch!
Surprised no one mentioned it, but when we built our house we had them excavate under the front porch and under the garage. Poured concrete walls and steel doors going into both spaces. I use the room under the porch as my gun room, have a combination lock on the door and safe in the room, and the room under the garage as storage. I framed and sheet rocked a 12’x12’ room inside to use for hunting equipment and clothing.
