How a Garage Can Become a Man Cave

It’s Father’s Day on Sunday. We thought we’d celebrate by writing about the phenomenon of the ‘Man Cave’ and giving some tips on creating the perfect man cave – a place where fathers can appreciate a little peace away from the family from time-to-time.

The Earliest Man Cave

In his famous dialogue, The Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote his celebrated ‘Analogy of the Cave’. The analogy asks the reader to imagine men in a cave who can’t see the real world but only images cast on the rear wall that are a mimicry of the world outside, but are treated as reality by the participants watching. Basically, Plato, writing in the 5th Century BC, accidently predicted a group of men playing Call of Duty on a PS4 in a man cave – something that wouldn’t come to pass for another 2.5 millennia. 

The Evolution of the Man Cave

Garages and sheds have long been a male domain. Hobbies such as tinkering with a motorbike engine or embarking on a minor woodwork project meant that a man could be in the space for some time. You might put a radio in there to listen to while you work. That’s how it starts. A comfy ‘thinking’ chair follows. The moment the space can be officially designated a man cave is when the beer fridge goes in. Once the TV and the Console are installed and Dave from the Red Lion is coming around every Tuesday to play darts, your wife might start to put in some restrictions on how much time you can spend in your man cave, but you should be fine on Father’s Day.

Features of the Man Cave

Some of the features of a good man cave: 

• Comfort: You should be able to lounge comfortably while you play computer games that are too violent for the kids to witness. An old sofa (or just its cushions) that has done its duty in the sitting room can be moved into your man cave. 
  
• Entertainment: Computer games are popular, so are cue sports. Not many man caves have room for a pool table let alone a snooker table – barbilliards comes into its own here, because you only have to approach it from one side.
  
• Insulation: If you want to be spending as much time in your man cave in the winter as in the summer, you’ll want decent insulation in your garage. We have a range of thermally efficient doors that will help.
  
• Automation: Why do it for yourself, if it can be automated? Start by speaking to our team about automated garage doors or automating your existing garage doors.
  
• Beer: When all else fails, there is always beer.

Have a good Father’s Day, wherever you wind up spending it. If you feel like your man cave is lacking some thermally efficient automated doors, give us a call on 01603 787069 or drop by our showroom on the Sweet Briar industrial estate.

Make us envious, share photos of your man cave with us on Facebook.