Building a man cave...advice needed

[SMACKDAB]

If you can't have naked women in it whenever you want, it's not really a man cave when you have to give half of it to your wife when she divorces you.

Just my 2 cents.

[Neylus]

Every guy needs his mancave.

Mine is the basement:

60" Plasma

Surround Sound

Blueray Player

CD Player

PS3 and Wii (kids play this the most)

Pooltable

Foosball Table

Airhockey Table

Leather sectional couch

Panthers and Beer Neon Signs

3 Vintage Arcade Games

Wife is not even allowed down the stairs....except to let the dog out the back door.

Throw in a full band set-up and theres my dream.

[Carolina Husker]

LED>LCD>Plasma

no

[TerriblePizza]

LED>LCD>Plasma

The parts that make up a man cave are pretty obvious, TV, Pool table, etc. So I'll take the next step:

What theme are you going for?

Personally I'd give my mancave an overarching theme that's very telling of you. What kills me is when someone has way too much stuff in their cave, and none of it agreeing. Golf clubs over here, Porsche pictures over there, Log cabin motif for the bar, and a modern entertainment center. You don't want your cave to look like the walls of an Applebee's.

Couple ideas I've had for when I have my own place:

-My grandfather flew Corsairs in Korea, and I got a lot of his Navy paraphernalia when he passed (Flight Jacket, Helmet, Headphones, Model aircraft carrier, various and sundry paintings of planes and ships), so I've always considered having a Navy themed bar with that stuff on display.

-A Panthers cave is pretty obvious, but it's so hard to find Panthers stuff in D.C., it would be a pain in the ass to stock it.

-Egyptian (although Ozymandias from Watchmen did it already), Comic books, American Muscle cars, beer, and Poland, to name a few.

That Navy theme is a great idea. Get some of his medals, flight jacket and stuff framed and mounted on the wall.

I can dig that.

[charlotte49er]

looked at 4 houses today...one had a massive bonus room upstairs. literally enough room for a pool table as well as a theatre area and a work area. The other 3 had typical bedroom sized extra rooms.

Be careful with a pool table on a second floor. I have seen where some of them are so heavy they literally cause the floor below to sag. You may have to add additional bracing to the room before.

[Niner National]

LED>LCD>Plasma

You do realize an LED is just an overpriced LCD don't you? The only difference is the light source is an LED bulb rather than a fluorescent bulb. Aside from that, the technologies are identical, which is why you now hear them referred to as LED LCD's. The whites on LED's has a bluish hue to because LED's naturally have a bluish hue. It's something I'm sure they'll eventually make better, but for now LED is a ripoff.

I'll still take a plasma any day. Lower cost, better colors, faster refresh, faster response time (.001ms compared to 2ms of the best LCD's). Only downside to plasmas these days are slightly higher energy usage and slightly darker picture. There is a reason why most sports bars you go to have plasmas rather than LCDs.

[SorthNarolina]

Lucky' date=' I have to work on my fiancee's PC every time she has an issue with it .[/quote']

when i was home during christmas break a family friend made me come over during the pats/panthers game to fix something for him. He was a mentor when i was younger so i didn't mind. But still tech savy people get so much questions and favors asked.

[SorthNarolina]

Make sure you invest a lot of you buget into the speakers. A good set of quality speakers will last you about 10 years, don't get an "all in one" option. Get the cheapest reciever you can find that is still from a reputable company and then spend about $1000 on a good set a of speakers if you can afford it. You probably won't have a tv lasts as long so it's a better value.

Oh and don't get BOSE, they are a quality product, but awful value. The simpliticity and convienience isn't worth the premium.

The cheapest TV brand you can go is probably vizio. Don't get anything cheaper than that.

Build the gaming pc yourself, it's way too easy to build a pc to not do it. And when it's a gaming pc you save about 30-40% of the price for %200 more performance. Make a seperate topic on that to ask on what parts you should get. Also check out the site tomshardware.com for help.

If you can't buy it all at once, save the gaming pc for last. The xbox and ps3 are expected to last until 2014-2015. So you can get your gaming fix through that until you get enough money for a pc.

You need to build the pc at the right moment, don't build right before new technologies are being introduced. Prices are crazy with pc hardware. Sometimes they shoot up due to supply issues.

Make a plan and run all the cable and wire beforehand. Paint the room a darker color. Wiring isn't that hard just read an article, having kids with small hands helps. Make sure you have phone and internet wired up there too.

Make sure you have enough power outlets, anything money you spend on upgrading is not a waste.

[Mesmer]

http://www.fathead.com/nfl/carolina-panthers/deangelo-williams/

lol sweet do it

[Happy Panther]

We got the house with the big man cave. unfortunately once I got honest with myself about how much cash i needed for the emergency fund I have around 7k left for the mancave. Turns out this doesn't go far

FYI I am the oldest first time homebuyer around and have been saving for years and years.

So I bought

Wine fridge $2k

65" plasma $2.2k (Panasonic Viera)

"Executive" desk and chair $1500

Couch (still picking probably around 1k)

Already have a Tv hutch/stand

Big items still to buy.

2nd TV. leather chair and ottoman. Treadmill. Surround sound system. Poker table. Xbox and Playstation. Pinball machine. Lots of other stuff

LED>LCD>Plasma

The parts that make up a man cave are pretty obvious, TV, Pool table, etc. So I'll take the next step:

What theme are you going for?

I have been thinking about this. I think I am going to go for some sort of pub/cigarbar/wine theme. You know leather chairs, mahagony, old school stuff. Not sure the one word for this. Pretentious stuffy man things

Be careful with a pool table on a second floor. I have seen where some of them are so heavy they literally cause the floor below to sag. You may have to add additional bracing to the room before.

Yeah so the owners had a pool table and moved it out. Not going to put a new one in.

Make sure you invest a lot of you buget into the speakers. A good set of quality speakers will last you about 10 years, don't get an "all in one" option. Get the cheapest reciever you can find that is still from a reputable company and then spend about $1000 on a good set a of speakers if you can afford it. You probably won't have a tv lasts as long so it's a better value.

Oh and don't get BOSE, they are a quality product, but awful value. The simpliticity and convienience isn't worth the premium.

The cheapest TV brand you can go is probably vizio. Don't get anything cheaper than that.

Build the gaming pc yourself, it's way too easy to build a pc to not do it. And when it's a gaming pc you save about 30-40% of the price for %200 more performance. Make a seperate topic on that to ask on what parts you should get. Also check out the site tomshardware.com for help.

If you can't buy it all at once, save the gaming pc for last. The xbox and ps3 are expected to last until 2014-2015. So you can get your gaming fix through that until you get enough money for a pc.

You need to build the pc at the right moment, don't build right before new technologies are being introduced. Prices are crazy with pc hardware. Sometimes they shoot up due to supply issues.

Make a plan and run all the cable and wire beforehand. Paint the room a darker color. Wiring isn't that hard just read an article, having kids with small hands helps. Make sure you have phone and internet wired up there too.

Make sure you have enough power outlets, anything money you spend on upgrading is not a waste.

Great advice

http://www.fathead.com/nfl/carolina-panthers/deangelo-williams/

lol sweet do it

i just might

[Mesmer]

i'm serious though whenever I get a house and I put my man cave together I'm gonna have so much dumb poo like that on the walls

[Niner National]

good choice on the 65" Panasonic Viera and a good price. Get your mounts from Firefold in Concord and save yourself a lot of money. Get your HDMI cables and any other hookups from there as well. Don't buy into the hype about monster cables or any other "premium" cable; it's just hype. The impact is minimal at best.

[Happy Panther]

Cool i'll look into firefold

[SorthNarolina]

good choice on the 65" Panasonic Viera and a good price. Get your mounts from Firefold in Concord and save yourself a lot of money. Get your HDMI cables and any other hookups from there as well. Don't buy into the hype about monster cables or any other "premium" cable; it's just hype. The impact is minimal at best.

yeah all the gold does is help conductivity by preventing corrosion which isn't a serious issue. Unless your a videophile to the point of illness they aren't worth it.

That reminds me of the famous car from the 90's the McLaren F1. The engine bay was lined with gold because it's the best heat reflector. It's funny how over the top they went to get the best.