Thread: Man Cave Renovation

I've talked about this in the General Discussion thread in off topic, but I suppose it's time to stop teasing people, and start showing them what I've been working on. The idea here was to take a seemingly unusable basement and turn it into my little entertainment oasis. This was previously no place for ANY man to hang out, and needed a lot of attention and care.

I don't have many "after" pictures yet, because the work is still in progress. I should be mostly done this weekend though.











We had to run a coaxial cable from upstairs to the basement, because there was previously no jack here. This picture shows that jack (TV will be mounted over it), and it also shows the ugly gold / yellowish light switches and outlets.



We had to cut a hole in the ceiling to be able to run the coaxial. This was the rough patch in place. We did sand it, texture it and paint it. I don't have a picture of it, but you can't tell there was ever a hole there.



We did have to use Kilz in the back room where the air hockey table used to be, because one of our cats had a spraying problem years ago. That stuff really works!! The odor is completely gone. The floors are not done in the back room where my computer will be moved to, so I'll have to get those pictures in a few days. Right now I've only got one picture of what the updated room looks like so far, and its' a crappy cell phone picture.

(Same corner as above picture with the ugly green chair)


I got rid of my old computer desk that I've had for about 15 1/2 years, and received my new one yesterday. It's a 71'' by 71'' maple "L" desk. It will go where the air hockey table used to be. I sold the air hockey table, due to not having any room left. We also bout a new reversible chaise lounge couch (dark tan, microfiber), a 47'' LCD, and a new TV stand. The ugly green chaise chair will be replaced by a popazon (spelling?) chair that my wife used to have as a child. That new chair has a blue cushion right now, so we'll be changing that as well.

More pics coming very soon!

Oh, we're also replacing all of the old outlets with bright white. I'll snag a picture of those. I do have the outlets and switches replaced in the front room.

The color is very hard to see in the crappy cell phone picture. It's a very light blue in the main room. The back room where my new computer desk (masturbation station) will be is Earl Gray. Very dark and manly, if you ask me.

Nice. Are you changing the doors also? If you haven't chosen yet, I think #2 in this pic would be a good choice IMO, or something along those lines.

Eventually we're going to change the doors, but I think I'm going to do that next year. ALL of the doors in my house are ugly as hell (no paneling, all brown). I had a $2500 budget to get everything, including the new furniture. I have everything I need with $4 to spare! I got really good deals left and right during this project, so that's what let me get everything I wanted. I will be painting the doors and trim to match the new white trim around the ground line, but that's going to be some time this summer when we have consistent weather to be able to do most of my painting outside.

Next Spring I'm probably going to replace all of the interior trim in the entire house, as well as the doors + hardware. I do like the second style as well, but it might not fit with my house all too well. The third style may look the best.

We're also tossing up the idea of doing similar floors as the basement on our main floor, though we would go with a light bamboo instead of this Beach tone. We like the beach tone, but my wife REALLY wants bamboo upstairs in the kitchen where she spends most of her time (lol, I said it).

Here's a quick pic of the new light switches, sockets, and the low profile TV mount for the LCD. We haven't cut the holes for the wire management boxes yet, because we're waiting to see where they need to go to be 100% covered by the component stand and TV. NO wires will be showing on this wall, because the power will be covered by the TV stand.

Looks good so far, keep up the status on the project, about how big is your cave, what are the dimensions?

Originally Posted by SMW

Looks good so far, keep up the status on the project, about how big is your cave, what are the dimensions?

The dimensions are a little odd to explain, because one of the rooms is shaped like a gigantic "L." The area being remodeled is about 370 to 380 Sq. Ft. The basement's total size is around 560 according to the county records, but a lot of it is consumed by the water heater / furnace and the unfinished bathroom currently used for car tool storage. The main TV room is about 16.5 feet long by 12 feet wide if you're not counting the landing under the stairs. The corner area of the "L" shaped room where my desk is going is about 7 feet by 9 feet, and the main area of the back room is about 8 feet by 14 feet.

We're also talking about finishing the bathroom downstairs, but I have to find a place to store all of my car tools and cleaning supplies. It's a townhome, so we don't have a garage to store it in, and my exterior storage unit is packed with stock car parts that I won't get rid of.

We finished the floors on Thursday night, and I had the day off of work Friday, so I finished the trim, built my new computer desk (4 hours.. it's a beast), built the new TV stand, test-mounted the TV. Tomorrow we've got a couple hours of organization and relocating equipment and we'll be good to go.

We also found our old Nintendo's in our storage unit while we were organizing things, so we're going to make the TV upstairs our "Nintendo Center." The PS3 and everything else will be down here, so we might as well keep the other stuff upstairs to entertain my nieces when they come over.

I'll post some pics either today or Sunday depending how long it takes us to finish everything tomorrow.

New computer desk



TV Room




So the project is pretty much done at this point. We've still got to get rid of that green chair and get something smaller, and we're getting a new table, ottoman, window treatment and dog bed for Ziva tonight or tomorrow as well. It was a lot of hard work, but this basement feels like such a relaxing place to be now. We're also going to get the carpet on the stairs replaced in a few weeks. I think that's about the time we'll go through and paint all of the old doors and frames.

Holy shit it's looking epic. Nice work dude. Looks like Ziva has claimed the new couch already.