Nana nana nana nana na! Man-cave!

Wheee! Horray for me! Man-cave ahoy!

Last year my wife and I discussed how to keep our son safe from various dangers around our house. One of the big ones is my nerd-hole. I have scalpels, super glue, apoxy resin, hot-wire cutters, drills and all manner of small, easily swallowed pointy things littering the place. Not only that but I can be a very messy individual and as such my nerd-hole gets rather, shall we say, cluttered. All right it looks like a bomb hit it most of the time.

So my suggestion was that my Dad and I build in a section under the house for me to use as my nerd-hole. My wife's suggestion was to build a garage in the back corner of our garden (which at the time resembled certain untamed wilderness areas of South America). She insisted as she didn't want to hear me swear everytime I hit my head on the low beams under the house. Fair call. Also the garage will add value to the house. Garage it is, then.

We call in various suppliers and eventually go with Titan. While they aren't the cheapest up front, they wound up being so as they included full insulation and council fees with the total cost. Who knew that the best-in-the-business could also be the cheapest? Before we finalise anything, I mention to the guy that I know that our sewer line runs towards the location we chose for our garage. His reponse is to check with the council and make sure we know where the pipes go. If there is a line there, we need a special slab poured which will make it more expensive. We check and find out that not only does out own sewer line run that way, but so does the main line for the entire street!!! Bugger. We also find out that to avoid the extra cost of the special slab we need to get at least 2 metres away from the line. Double bugger.

So the garage is placed right next to the house behind our carport. In all, a better spot as it looks good there and I have less distance to travel to get to it. Nice. New problem: our land has a 0.5metre drop off at the point. We need a retaining wall and fill to make it level. That adds aout $3000 to the cost of the garage (cheaper than the extra $5000 that the special slab would have cost). New bugger. Still, in the end my Dad and I built a retaining wall (a very satisfying accomplishment) and it got filled and slabbed.

Last week, the garage went up. Yay! To say I'm excited to have my Man-cave is a bit of an understatement. I'm a big believer that everyone needs their own space. Somewhere they can say: this is my space, my stuff, my rules. Now any parent will likely know that it can be tough finding that kind of thing for yourself. Kids have their room. Parents usually share one with each other and, inevitably, their kids so having your own space to hide in every now and then is really, really important I feel. The added bonus of my Man-cave is that the space in the house I vacate will become Tash's Lady's Lounge. We intend on putting a lockable cupboard and new desk in there and she can start on her crafty stuff again. I can't wait until this weekend when I plan on setting up the Man-cave fully with power, lights and all my crap. Pics will follow soon.

Nana nana nana nana na! Man-cave!