Is your garage a mancave? The concept of a mancave, one room in the house where the man has total say over the design and usage, is an old one, but the trend of moving the mancave into the garage is more recent! Now that many homes are only using half of a two-car garage, or not using their garage at all, there’s ample opportunity to give the man of the house a space all his own.
We’ve got a Pinterest board containing all of our favorite mancave designs, and we’ve gathered some valuable data from seeing what people like online. So here’s our list of the five things that every mancave needs, with some examples from our Pinterest page. If you’re building a mancave of your own or trying to upgrade an existing space, these tips will help guide your renovation and leave you with a dad-pad behind your garage door that all your male guests will envy!
1. Furniture
The furniture that you use sets the general tone of your mancave. There is no single right or wrong answer here, since each man is looking for a different feel for his cave. Some people put wood paneling walls up, and use rustic farmhouse furniture. Others prefer sleek metal and bar stools. No matter what your taste, you’re going to need furniture for the room to be functional. Here we’ve included a picture that showcases one of the recent trends in mancave furniture design – using pallets for inexpensive and unique pieces!
2. Storage
No matter what variety of mancave you prefer, you’ll likely have some stuff that you want to keep out of the way. It might be kitchenware, speakers or other electronics, board games – whatever you prefer to use in your space will need a space to go. Storage can be an afterthought in many homes, where a disused closet or guest bedroom can accumulate all the spare possessions you acquire, but for a mancave to provide the sanity retreat that any man can appreciate, try to prioritize getting a clear storage system in place, and using it! You’ll feel better not having a mess all around the room.
3. Alcohol
Not every mancave needs to have liquors on display, but for many men, the concept of relaxing in their personal space with a cold beer and some friends sounds like heaven. If you’re going to have alcohol in your mancave, consider some sort of tasteful method for displaying the drinks, or maybe even a mini-bar. If you plan on entertaining in your mancave, there are few things better to get a group into a sociable mood than a few drinks to go around!
4. Lights
The way that you display your mancave is just as important as the design of the aesthetic – the most beautiful art in the world doesn’t look good in a dingy, dim room! If you’ve never worked with lighting before, this can be a great opportunity to learn lessons about design that you can carry into the rest of your home! Some recessed lighting in the ceiling is a classic mainstay because it’s out of the way and effective, but there are more interesting alternatives – a chandelier can be a statement piece and doesn’t have to be feminine, like our example demonstrates.
5. Layout
Lastly, the layout of your ideal mancave should inform all the other design decisions that you make along the way! We’ve saved the biggest opportunity for last, because if you’re redesigning an existing mancave, this is your best bet for giving a fresh new feeling to your space. A layout redesign totally revamps a room and can create a larger, fresher space. Plan out your essentials and make sure that they’re laid out in a logical manner – you want your seating to be facing the tv, for example, and you want a long open area in front of the dart board, where no one is likely to walk in front of any less-than-stellar throws. Once you have the main pieces in place, you can step up the whole assembly with things like light fixtures or end tables.
We hope that you’ve found this article helpful, and if you’d like a more visual walkthrough of what options are available for a modern mancave, here’s our Pinterest board that our example images are sourced from!
If you are putting your mancave in the garage, consider upgrading to a newer, quieter garage door, or perhaps installing a modern aluminum and glass door to open up the space! These are just a few of the residential garage door installation jobs that we are experts at doing, and we’d love to help you make your dream home into a reality!