Project Man Cave

The Man Cave is really a cave within a cave. Out the back of our property I have my workshop, a 9m x 6m tin shed, fully insulated, that the previous owner used as a fish breeding room. After we moved in I bought some cheap paint from the dump shop and repainted it. It had blue walls and ceiling. There were also about 500 hoseclips in the walls and roof. Now it holds my wood working tools, lumber racks and a couple of work benches. About a year and a half ago I got tired of not being able to play xbox inside. I framed off a 3mx3m section in one corner, lined it with gib and set up a TV, my games consoles and a couch in there. It was okay for a while. Then my mum moved up. I gave her the TV, swapped out the couch for a bigger one, got unhappy with the room size, pulled it apart and made it 3mx3.5m, but never reframed the gap or lined it. Basically it became a junk storage room. Now I want to get back to it. The brief is to make it a sort of Victorian era gentlemans explorers club room slash library. The sort of place where you might find a retired Alain Quartermain or Professors Challenger or Aronnax, but with a fantastical feel to it. The walls will all be panelled. One end will be dominated by a wal to wall, floor to ceiling bookcases and display cases which will also cover around a third of the long walls.A coffee table and an over stuffed couch in the center and a bar leaner at the other end of the room. Indirect lighting, a large wooden fan turning lazily in the ceiling. Carpets strewn with rugs. Maps and hunting photos on the walls, along with weapons. The maps will be unfamiliar. The Wheel of Time, Middle Earth, The Belgariad, Westeros, The Drenai Saga lands. The hunting photos reveal smiling hunters in front of their game, Dragons, Unicorns, Sphinxes and other mythological creatures. The weapons are swords and spears, guns would be steampunk looking or ultra sci fi. When the door to the workshop is closed it looks just like the wall panels, a secret door. With the door closed you can open the secret catches on the book case to reveal the entertainment center. Flip the coffee table lid to access keyboard and controllers. Open a section of the bar top and modern appliances rise in to view.

Thats my vision for it. At the moment the main barriers are my girls, who demand all my attention and get jealous if I have to much shed time. But I've slowly been working out my plans, and I start tomorrow by emptying out the room and stripping the gib from the walls. Then I'll reframe them to close the gaps and reposition the doorway, and add extra nogging to support shelves and Tvs and the like. Then run some cables and reline the walls with 7mm plywood sheets to start creating that panelled look. The goal is to have all that done by the end of next week.