Project Man Cave

smr

smr

smr

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
8,799
Location
Leicestershire
Hi all,

Over the last couple of months I've been converting my Double Garage into a Man Cave. I bought a 7 ft American style Pool Table and Dart Board last year but the place really needed freshening up so I set about getting onto it in March.

Since then I've bought quite a few things for it. I've gone for a predominantly American-themed Bar style with splashes of Britishness mixed in (although you can't see any British stuff yet lol).

As you can see it's a concrete sectional garage which is prone to a bit of damp and cold in Winter so anything valuable (including the Pool table which can be folded comes inside) and really the purpose of the Man Cave is to serve throughout the Spring and Summer Months (so March to October sort of time).

Here's what everything looked like to begin with...





 


We decided to go with a 'Brilliant White' Paint for the walls - as white imo looks great with everything, with the only problem being that it can get dirty quicker than anyother colour. This is Dulux Weathershield Masonry Paint that is supposed to be decent though.





Almost everything cleared out by this stage...

 




There was quite crack in the Concrete Floor from the back to the front of the Garage so we filled it in with some Concrete Cement...

 
Coming up nicely, I wish I had space to have one of those! As long as you can get any leaks sorted you should be good to go :)
 
Floor Painted...



Pool Table and a few other things start going in...



And a 3 seater Sofa...



As well as a Bar.. and a few Jack Daniels bits bought...Bar Runners and a Bar Stool...

 
Looks good but seems daft to do all the work and then bring everything back in the house when it gets wet/cold.

Surely sealing up the garage properly, some insulation and quick stud walls wouldn't cost much to do and you would have a permanent usable room.
 
Doing this properly would surely be better long term, i dont mean anything expensive, but batten the walls, insulate and board over. Then just paint the board to save paying to get anything plastered.

Ditto the floor, that needs insulating, it would be so easy to raise it a couple of inches and insulate :confused:
 
A double garage without a nice car in it - what a waste :(

Do it properly.

chassis.jpg
 
As others have said get some insulation and plaster board on the walls and seal up the doors properly.

It is a great space and would be a shame to do it half arsed so to speak.

Could probabally get away with some 2x1 or 3x2 depending on the thickness of insulation directly screwed onto the walls and then just shove some plaster board panels over.

What budget are you working to?
 
Looks like something a teenager would come up with if you asked them to design their ideal house. A one man bar with assorted generic Jack Daniel's memorabilia? Okay :p

Jez is right, it will be freezing with that floor, I'd definitely insulate it and weather proof the structure first.
 
Ok

Well the thing is the Garage has been as in Pic 1 for the best part of 4/5 years and we've finally got around to getting to doing something about it. We've got two grown up kids, a three year old and a Baby on the way in August and we've had to completely redecorate the house (which is 4 double bedrooms) leaving the Garage last as that was the least important thing in our eyes.

As the House is finally finished we wanted to make use of the Garage and have friends over, TV in there for the World Cup etc. so we haven't had much time to plan anything.

I'm an absolute noob when it comes to DIY so it didn't even occur to me to insulate the garage, we just wanted to get it in decent shape before the World Cup kicks off in 10 days time.

I did ask a few days ago but can anyone give me a rough idea as to how much it would cost to insulate, materials and labour?

We'll look into it but at the moment I'm just stoked that we've turned it into a decent room! And Jack Daniels is my favourite tipple so it makes sense to decorate accordingly :p

Thanks.
 
The insulation you should really look to do yourself, all you need to do is batten the walls out to say 2-3" and fill the voids with insulation. Then screw plasterboard over the battens. Ditto the floor, but use floorboard. :)
 
Your roof structure is ideal too, i would run some 2x4's over the room to create a void, bung loads of rockwool up into the void, and then board the ceiling too. Very easy to do and would create a lovely warm room. :)

I'd also then with the new ceiling bung some cheap recessed downlights in to complete the look. They wouldnt need to be fire rated or anything so you can use the really cheap value ones at B&Q which also happen to look great. They come in packs of 3 including lamps at £9.99.
 
Thanks Jez, I've got a Carpenter and Joiner guy who lives in the same village coming tomorrow to give me some advice / estimates etc. :)
 
They might quote you loads as they wont really do it any quicker than you would, and it will be a fair bit of time involved.

Also if they are doing a pro job then they might quote to finish to better standards than you need, they might certify the electrics, etc etc. None of which is worth doing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom