apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Humidor, check. TV too large for room, check. DVD's, check. Our spare bedroom is my SO's "man cave" Its the only room I'm not allowed to decorate and a concession I made when we moved in... he has it "decorated" with army stuff, Spawn action figures, and old west decor. Its terrible. I just close the door and take 100 square feet off the house.

Man cave= key to survival when living with a man

Of course, I have my play room in which to retreat...

hahaha, I think I might have the start of one in my new place. The man and I moved into a two bedroom less than three months ago and we decided to break the rooms up so that, rather than an office and a bedroom, we each kind of get our own personal room/space. My room, which acts as the sleeping area, has my clothes, keyboard, desk etc.. all my stuff. The other room has his desk and clothes, a futon, his PlayStation, his laptop and a flatscreen mounted on the wall just above it. He has also started showcasing his collection of Air Jordans and other basketball paraphenalia, and is thinking about getting a little fridge to put under the desk. I guess this would be considered a man room! Little did I know such a thing was happening under my roof until you put a name to it!

I actually really love it this way. We both really value our "alone time". I tend to sing after work, so I can easily get privacy without bothering him, and he can play video games all he wants without having to worry about whether or not I wanted to watch The Office. We each have our own closet space and choice of decoration. Plus, there's the regular living room which acts as a shared space.

my guy is a musician and a producer, so luckily his "man room" is his studio. far away from here. BUT he likes fine decor, so i got help decorate and i don't mind spending time there.

Yeah, we have one, too. It's "his" room, although it's where my computer and desk is, too. However, I get to decorate my desk and a shelf above my desk. The rest of the room is his. And it's TERRIBLE, with model cars, skulls, beer signs, etc. At least I get the rest of the house.

Even though I am a lady, I do have a man cave. It is painted a deep brown, trimmed in dark moulding and outfitted with a 46" flat screen, zebra print rug , omfy oyster colored suede couch and my taxidermied piranha, Business and his alligator buddy, Rick Johnson.

This is where I watch tv and in the winter time, read books and magazines. It is a small (10' x 10') room so it is extra cozy. My dad likes to sequester himself in here when he and my mom come to visit as do all of my guy friends.

Well, not quite a 'man cave', more of a 'geek den'.

The geek den contains my art studio, Dad's office, a Sony Bravia, surround sound, vast DVD collection, and more video games than you can shake a stick at.

Plus things like the Nightcrawler statue and Star Trek posters.

ETA: This geek den is a haven of geekiness away from my mother, who is totally Not A Geek.

Seaside, that sounds utterly amazing. Photos?

I wish our apartment had the space for a man room, but it's okay that it doesn't: my boyfriend is not particularly masculine and I'm not particularly feminine. We tend to agree about decorating decisions (lucky, right?). He doesn't insist on displaying his baseball card collection because he doesn't have one, and I'm fine with his Playboys in the bathroom because I, too, enjoy reading the articles while pooping. And I don't have any desire to paint the place in florals, so he doesn't feel out of his element anywhere in the apartment. The giant HDTV in the den/office is a shared resource. It works out well.

haha! My boyfriend and I just moved in with his best friend (so we could get a bigger place) and one of the things I actually brought up was the possibility of a "man room." They prefer "man cave" but whatever. Anyway... futon (I tried talking them into taking one of our couches up there, but nope), recliner, huge TV, xbox, tons of DVDs, deck for smoking their cigars, and there is talk of a mini fridge. They do their thing and I can go downstairs and veg. It works out!

My whole apartment is a mancave. I love it.

Such interesting feedback! I don't live with my boyfriend, but if and when that happens, I'm thinking a "man cave" is will be teh first topic of discussion. We both like our alone time, but his need for it is pretty intense.

My husband has his room in the house to do with whatever he wishes: huge honking tv, chairs you can sleep in during a marathon of Sunday football, and side tables for sandwiches and drinks. It actually is pretty comfortable, even if it isn't the most stylish room in the house. It makes for a happy, well-balanced, peaceful home: everyone has their space for their "time".

Can someone who has experienced this phenomenon shed any light on the purpose of two (or more) TVs in one room? I get having one big one, but can people really watch two at once? Do they watch one screen with each eye?

My fiance and I lived with my mother for awhile before getting our place...we used to keep two TVs in our room (combo bedroom, our living area, dressing room, and computer/study area - the bed had to be used as a couch at times). One was for playing video games while the other wanted to watch television or if we could not agree, we both could watch different shows. One of us just had to wear headphones.

We have a room in our apartment that is my fiance's space...he doesn't watch much television in there but he loves having a place to put his computer, his little geek toys, etc. We have a daybed for company but he's got me talked into selling it and getting a futon so he can play video games in there more comfortably. I'm allowed in since sometimes I like to read in there while he's on the computer so we can talk without having to IM each other from separate rooms.

my brother has a "man cave" filled with several humidors, a bar, big tv, stereo system, laptop, & almost every type of video game & station from the 80's up to today. last time I visited in December, we sat around smoking cigars, drinking martinis, & wearing robes (his had a big bad chinese dragon on it) while playing atari and mario games! oh yeah, we watched bruce lee flicks too! Almost heaven!

I have corralled all the man cave items to one area - his desk in our shared office. Unfortunately his mother keeps dropping off items from his childhood: old sports memorabilia, plaques, trophies, etc... in her efforts to clear out her basement. And like mother, like son my guy just can't part with anything so the cave is slowly growing in volume. Whats a minimalistic girl to do?

We are working on the man room/cave right now. we bought a house and are finishing the basement we took down some walls and a new paint colour, some new lighting and building in shelving for all of the equipment and dvd's. adding in sockets for the bar fridge and the fireplace!

some paint and it will be where DH and his buddies watch UFC and play poker on a monthly basis, and i get to leave the house while they do it!

One commentor brings up a good question: what about the man who wants to get away from his gay man?

My man room has DVD collections (with manly movie makers such as Resnais and Techine), work/craft tables (drafting manly DIY projects, of course), sketch books and sketching tools (to draw hot naked chicks, of course), and a sewing machine. In the garage, I built a full gym, as well as storage for building stuff. My porch has plants, a table and chair for eating breakfast outside, and an ashtray for smoking big manly cigars (but mostly Marlboro Reds). I have records and CDs, but my sound system is by no means surround (they are however Bose). I feel so weirdly feminine, yet masculine as well. Am I normal, or am I crossing the tranny line for not following the guidelines of a man room?

somedudeinvicenza: LMAO! ;-)

"Am I normal, or am I crossing the tranny line for not following the guidelines of a man room?"

Not hat there's anything wrong with that.

call me young and naive... but isn't it preferable for a guy to feel comfortable in the whole house? for a couple to work together to make compromises so it's 'their' house rather than 'her house and his room'? I'm all for a casual room where all of the ugly electonics (for both sexes) go if there's space, but it would bother me if my boyfriend felt so out of place in the rest of our house that he had to have a separate room to 'be himself'. but maybe I'm being totally unrealistic and am just lucky to have a boyfriend who was fine with leaving the star wars action figures at his parents house...

foodefafa, do you live with a person of the opposite sex?

The point of this isn't where you send someone becuase they don't feel comfortable or can't be themselves in the rest of the house. The point is to have some space of your own where you can be alone, or with you friends if you so desire.

We each have our own space, but 90% of the time we spend together in the living room. Sometimes you just need your own space...

I am trying to convince my S.O. of a "man shed." But alas, I'm the one who loves all the things listed as a "man room" and he wants to use them too!!

I think that every person needs to have a space to call their own, even if it's just a chair with a table and a light. People tend to focus on the "man room" because throughout much of the country decorating a couple's home is seen as the domain of the woman.

I know of a couple where the reverse is true. The man rules the aesthetics of the house with something of an iron fist, and the woman is feeling a need for a space with her aesthetics.

In my house there is much more of a partnership (we have very similar tastes). We do have our theater, which could be considered my domain, but it's not "boyz only club". There is a definite masculine stamp on the rest of the apartment that makes me feel comfortable and at home.

yeah its called the bathroom

i'm comfortable with the rest of our apartment, heck i picked out a lot of the things in it, and if we had room i would still want a "man cave"

it would not have a humidor (don't smoke) and sitting around in robes with dragons on it doesn't really sound like a good time (a little too will ferrel in wedding crashers).

However my man cave would have my computer setup, all of my art supplies o i actually had room to use the. drawing space, screen print setup, anything else i wanted. Hang my snowboards on the wall for storage and most likely put posters up too. Not that my wife has a problem with my posters but we already have a bunch throughout the house, and i have a huge collection, so i would love to just cover the walls in them.

Would it be my space, most likely, my wife is not an artist and doesn't need my supplies, so it would be pretty much be mine.

In your list of things for a traditional man cave (i'm not a traditional guy... but i wouldn't mind this addition) you forgot stripper pole. Essential...

In a previous home which was quite large, my man's room was known as the 'fort' ... no women allowed. It housed the gym equipment, desk, TV and a lot of sports pictures, trophies etc. He loved this room and when he wasn't home I used the treadmill and (jokingly) was only allowed in there to clean! Now his 'fort' is a smaller bedroom with a small shrine to his Habs, a treadmill, weight bench and smaller tv. He doesn't use this room much at all!

Amed studio - my father-in-law has a sort of "man nook" (open plan house) with, um, three tvs? Maybe four, I forget. He'll usually have a few different games on at once because he gambles on sports. When the grandkids are around, they can play video games with headsets on one tv while the adults watch something else. Personally, it drives me nuts, but it works for them.

We kind of have a man cave, although the rec room serves most of that purpose (big tv, etc). Husband has a poker room instead, with a slightly smaller tv, a ginormous poker table, and dry bar with mini fridge. It's painted hunter green and he's put his hulking antiques (which don't really fit in the rest of our MCM/modern house) and hunting/rustic art down there. He hosts poker once a week, so it's not a bad use of space.

I think a "man cave" is usually a room where the wife doesn't get to vote on the decor -- so the husband (and I use both terms generically) can have all the tasteless awful things he wants to live with and it can be hidden from people with taste! (Hence the plaid recliner chairs, humidors, sports junk, tacky bars, etc.)

Not all men require caves. Some are happy with dens and offices and shared spaces. "Man caves" are a special subset.

My partner has what HE considers a kind of man cave -- the techno version. (No humidor, I could never live with any kind of smoker. No plaid chair, he hates plaid more than me. No sports junk, he's not into that. No beer fridge, we generally only have a beer in restaurants now and then, seldom at home.)

His space is a home theatre. Two tiers of leather recliner chairs (black) with dark red walls and dark red drapes on the single centered back window. Acoustically balanced space. 7.1 surround sound. 110 inch front projection tv. Pitch black with the door closed, can lights on a dimmer remote. BluRay DVD player. The works! (Plus, because I just HAD to, an old time theatre popcorn popper -- which we probably won't ever actually use due to the unpleasent cleanup task!) I like the room, too, but when I'm home alone, I prefer to watch tv on the 42 inch in the living room... so it's really his.

yes, I do live with someone of the opposite sex. when we need to be alone, we go in separate rooms, but we don't label them by gender. granted, we don't even have space for that at the moment, but I don't see a need. I'd much rather have shared rooms with various purposes, like a library, an office, a studio, a game room-- not 'my room' and 'his room'.

and I do think many (not all) 'man rooms' imply that a guy doesn't feel at home in the rest of the apartment. as Max mentioned, decorating is 'traditionally' the woman's responsibility and many women tend to completely take over and disregard their partner's tastes. if the decor elsewhere doesn't reflect the guy's taste at all, if he needs to go to a certain room of the home to do what he wants... it seems to me like he's being bullied.

I'm all for couples spending time apart, but the idea of a 'clubhouse' with a 'no girls allowed' sign on the door that's an act of rebellion against the rest of the household seems a little juvenile to me (you send kids to a playroom, not husbands). it perpetuates the 'boys will be boys' myth, the hen-pecked husband escaping his nagging wife stereotype, antiquated gender roles, and to me a lack of active communication within a couple. I'm sure for some couples it can work very well and may be the best option, but I think it's purpose should be questioned.

Hmmm, I guess "Man" = An aesthetically challenged, arrested adolescent with terrible taste, right? How cute...

I'm with foodefafa on this. If you need a "clubhouse" and are over 18, you might want to think about growing up a bit, it think.

A man cave is an adult playroom. It's geared toward comfort, not beauty, and that allows us to really enjoy ourselves rather than worry about cleaning up all the time. It becomes gender specific only when a certain hobby needs to be represented, like poker or hunting.

I have a studio where I do yoga and sing, and I keep books and posters in there all related to music. This playroom is used for my hobbies; the type of "play" I love. Confining it to one space doesn't mean I'm rebelling against the rest of the apartment, it means the room has a theme and focus, and the decoration is reflective of that.

Don't judge the mancave so harshly unless you also have beef with men and women enjoying different pastimes. That's really all it's about.

"Don't judge the mancave so harshly unless you also have beef with men and women enjoying different pastimes. That's really all it's about."

Um, No beef here with men and women having different passtimes - it's just when one assumes that a mans passtimes must include a Laz-E-boy, sports trophies and several TVs that I get a little offeneded...

Well man caves get stereotyped - but I honestly think it's good for any guy to have that one spot to get away. I'd rather have my guy home and just off in a room with his friends having fun then out somewhere where inevitably one would dare the other to do something stupid.

As for designing a home, it should be up to both the guy and girl, but I think we all honestly can admit when a girl wants something bad enough the guy will give in. Homes tend to have that feminine touch that maybe some guys wouldn't mind at least a small room to get away to at times.

Well, a man needs a place to go to unwind after providing for his family all day at work... a good hearty meal cooked by his wife, a beer, maybe the swimsuit issue. And should his wife need him to babysit his kids, he's just down in the basement. Convenient! Not that she's ever ask him to do that, of course, since he's been slaving away at the office all day. But it's good to have your man close to home. If he was out a bar or something, who knows what might happen. He could even have an affair! It's not his fault, but there are all those wanton women out there in the world. You can never be too careful!

Obviously a man cave is the LEAST we can do to keep families together.

pdx01 -- Wow enough sarcasm there to make a thousand sitcoms

No one on here has said anything about worrying the guy will have an affair....or even come home drunk. Maybe you should read this topic's thread before posting.

I was definitely being ridiculously sarcastic here, but really I was just agreeing wholeheartedly with novabass and foodefafa. I have a real adverse reaction to concepts of "keeping" your man at home, "allowing" him a room, chuckling indulgently at his poor taste and "manly pursuits." It smacks of days gone by and gender politics I wouldn't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.

Good lord, they're our partners (in life AND home), not 12 year old boys to be restrained and manipulated. If I were a husband whose taste and interests was so ignored, discounted and ultimately pandered to in such an offensive way, I'd be pissed.

Then you really should talk to some men. My fiance is already talking about having one when we buy a house. Our tastes are very diverse - country traditional for me and he fits more minimal modern. His point has been my taste tends to work better for entertaining our families and our friends, so I have done most of the decorating with a few of his things placed in cool spots (like his flat panel hdtv and his coffee table in the main room).

If you aren't living in a mansion, someone has to give - we could have done half and half but we would have ended up with a mess. He preferred taking our extra little room and decorating it his style for himself - and I do enjoy spending some time in there with a good book if he's using the computer or playing video games.

Everyone who despises the idea of a man room - I have one question: do you live with your man? If not, then you really ought to keep out of a discussion since you know nothing.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

In my 12 years of cohabitating with my partner I've never felt that we had to label/ segregate our areas of the home. And we've managed to live, work, and entertain family and friends with a decor made up of things we each brought to the relationship and acquired together.

Why people can't just live in their home together, seek out alone time when they need it and not get all label-y is beyond me. But then, I'm also confused as to why "country traditional" style would be better for entertaining, so...

PDX01 -- My style is more convient, comfortably, homey...etc. He likes furniture that sits near or on the ground, so that wouldn't make for comfy spots for guests to sit and talk - especially with both of us coming from parents who had us at older ages (aka my mom is near 60 and she'd have to have someone pretty much lift her off the floor). We mix-matched the kitchen though - more of a country style table with more modern chairs. He's been quite happy just to take one room and fix it completely the way he likes. He loves to play video games in his free time and since we both agree the systems are not the prettiest, he keeps them in there. When people are over, we shut the door - if someone has to stay the night (his style room is also our guest room), we try to clean it up as much as possible.

Every Man needs his own space! My personal one is in my garage, though some might say my whole house is MANLAND! http://www.manlandsite.com