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As of February 2016, after 416 posts, and over six and a half years of blogging, I'm taking a break.
I've explained why here. There's plenty of past posts to read, though - hope you enjoy them !
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Look at my amazing room now !

Jake

This is just a short mid-week post to say that over the last week my bedroom has been completely redesigned around my bones ! It has always had tons of bones in it, but I was getting so many that I had to find new places to put them on display. The bones were already over 14 shelves and four walls, and I needed a way to show them off while having space to put the rest of my stuff away.

I've written about my room before in October 2011 when I got my 100th skull on display (read that here). This next picture is is what my room used to look like back then:



(This was what it was like when I was filmed for Autumnwatch in November 2011). The far wall had a moon and stars lights which had been up since I was a baby and space wallpaper with Star Wars ships hanging from the ceiling.

This is what it looks like now:


The old shelves on the left are still there, but the space wall is now painted bright red with a big cabinet at the far end to show off my bones. At the top are four glass cabinets with shelves in. The really cool thing is that the lights in the cabinets can change to any colour you want, or change colour automatically !


The first cabinet has a dog, a fox and my two monkey skulls:


The second one has loads of bird skulls, with gannet, heron, black-backed gull, owls, buzzard, kestrel and swan at the top, and ducks, razorbill, guillemot, oystercatcher, woodcock and snipe at the bottom. This one has loads in but it still looks far neater than the shelves did:


The third one is all my exotic skulls and has my leopard, my golden eagle skull, beaver, snake, crocodile, alligator, kangaroo, armadillo, fruit bat and parrot.


The fourth one has three types of deer at the top (muntjac, Chinese water deer and roe buck) with three mustelids at the bottom (marten, otter and badger):


I haven't decided what I'm going to put above yet, but right now Vulpy hangs from the ceiling, my cow skull is on the top shelf, then there is a pig, horse, seal, and Roger the stag. Then on top of the unit is a deer model that was a present from Mrs Powell (thanks Mrs Powell !), four roe buck skulls, a sheep, a harbour porpoise and my monkfish. I'll probably swap these around some more.


Underneath the glass cabinets are my bone books. Here are some of them:


And underneath that are drawers filled with trays of other bones. These are mostly rabbit:


My boxed skeletons and spare bones are to the left of the cabinet on the shelves there:


And the walls of male deer are still where they always were, with roe deer, red deer and my fallow buck:


My new bunk bed is bigger (thanks Mrs Bishop !) and has my desk underneath.


Opposite my desk are some of the page designs from my book that I have been working on. These are early designs, not the final ones, and you can tell because the later cartoon versions of me don't wear shorts.


A lot of what I've had to do is to do what museums do, which is to pick the best things to go on display, and what ones to group together.  I absolutely love my room now, I think it looks amazing. Thanks Mum and Dad for doing all the work in just three days !


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16 comments :

Robin Roe said...

Great job Mum & Dad! This is really awesome! Those are some seriously high quality display cabinets, Jake! Good on you all. I'd never get to sleep, though. I'd be staring at the bones all night! Love it!

Hayley said...

Great room Jake! Where did you get the shelves and display cabinets from? I'd like to do something similar with my collection as at the moment I have bones all over my bedroom floor.

Katcetera said...

That looks terrific!

Jake said...

It is pretty cool now.

Jake said...

They were from Ikea: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/series/09064/

Jake said...

Thanks ! I keep playing with the lights but I'll get bored with them eventually I guess.

Psydrache said...

This is a really impressive room. I could spend hours watching all the things. But good luck with dusting all that off. ^^

Rhea said...

Your room looks wonderful! Congratulations, and thank you for sharing!

Jake said...

Thanks !

Sea Wolf said...

Room looks awesome. Wish my parents took an interest in my hobbies like yours do. Congratulations Jake's Mum and Dad. Super duper job there.

Sea Wolf said...

You'll have to get a black light now. Certain mineral specimens fluoresce different colors. Maybe some bones do too.

Jake said...

Thanks !

Jake said...

The cabinets should help with keeping dust off now.

Veronica said...

Beautiful room and organization, good job! Just a question Jake: can you suggest a good skeleton book with illustrations? I'm searching for it but I've found only some with photos! Thanks and have a lovely day!

Jake said...

I wrote about some good books for bone collectors here: http://www.jakes-bones.com/2013/04/some-great-books-on-bone-collecting.html and one book which was recommended to me was by someone called French and was called something like Animal and Human bones. There is one version which is £120 and a shorter version which is about £35. This page is also good: http://www.skullsunlimited.com/products_by_class.php?id=14

Qarly said...

Awesome collection and displays/storage! :D




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