– By Sharon Thatcher –
Remember when a garage was nothing more than a big box with walls, ceiling and a floor? And a shed was a littler version of the same? Customers wanting one didn’t ask for much more than a space to store vehicles or an odd assortment of tools.
But somewhere along the line, circa the early 2000s, the common garage and shed began to evolve. Secondary buildings took on an entirely new look and purpose. They became places to store and display collections, or as private getaways for family and friends.
The market for these souped up sheds and garages, variuously called hobby shops, toy shops or man caves, quieted a bit when the Great Recession reared its ugly head around 2008, but the builders we talked to said it never really went away, and the market is once again growing slowly forward.
In this issue of Rural Builder, we decided to show off some of these special buildings.
Family retreat in Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, where tourism and hunting are popular, hunting cabins and lakeside recreational buildings have been part of the landscape for decades. What has changed, however, is the number of people wanting more than just a basic shack or garage. What starts as a simple structure now often quickly morphs into something with more comfort, style and amenities.
This growth has prompted one builder, Meyer Buildings Inc., Dorchester, Wis., to create special marketing and a new branch of the company to capture that growing popularity: Meyer Recreational Buildings.
“We were building them upon request and then we noticed we were doing more of them progressively every year so we just decided we were going to market towards those and take them a little bit further,” Jeff Meyer, president of the company said, adding: “No other company markets the full turn-key product. They’ll build the shell and then stop. But we will do the full design or we’ll take a custom design, something the customer finds online, and change it around to our construction style.”
Meyer Recreational Buildings was started with hunters in mind so most of its website (www.meyerrecreational.com) offers plans that are targeted towards hunters, such as a scent containment room for hunting gear. Now, however, Meyer crews are getting requests for customized cabins and retirement getaways from 600 square feet on up to 2,000 square feet.
Low maintenance is a key request. “As people are looking to retire, they don’t want any maintenance on the exterior, so we’re doing steel exterior, steel roofing,” Meyer said.
The Meyer family knows firsthand how these buildings can evolve. Jeff’s father Don built his personal man cave in northwestern Wisconsin two years ago. As the typical project of this nature goes, it started out as a 40×64 foot modified post frame meant for storage. “It started as a maintenance shop and storage for the boats and lake toys,” Jeff said, adding, “Then the more family members got involved, it turned into a rainy day rec room with surround sound, projection screen TV and shuffle board court. Obviously with a projection screen TV we all needed to watch the Packer Games so now they have satellite TV, a full bar with a popcorn maker and pizza oven.”
Barn board is used for interior accents in the bathroom, coupled with a painting technique perfected by Jeff’s mother for staining cedar tongue and groove to duplicate the look of old barn board. This affect also predominates the bar area.
With two MWI lighted cupolas, a McElroy standing seam low-sheen 24 gauge roof, LP Smart Side siding, vinyl shakes, step fascia, and a turkey tail roof design, this building offers both comfort and style. Man cave or family cave, this building is a welcome retreat.
Lodge-style in Michigan
Next door in Michigan, which shares a similar vacation and hunting culture as Wisconsin, Keith Pinkleman, who co-owns Lynnman Construction with Tom Flynn, is also seeing an increase in demand for man caves and toy shops. Although it isn’t a major part of their business, Pinkleman said they have witnessed the evolution of the trend from a few requests in the early 2000’s, to the 2008-2009 slump and the current gradual reemergence.
“We built a couple of those in the early 2000’s, then in ’08 and ’09 that just shut right down because people were reluctant to spend money,” Pinkleman said. “But the last two years people have started building that type of building again, whether it’s in the backyard of their house or whether it’s on their secondary home or on hunting property, that market has started to come back around,” he said. “I think people are starting to think: ‘well, I guess it’s o.k. to start spending money.’”
Typical are lodge style buildings with a back area for storage and man cave space upstairs or downstairs. An attic truss system in one recent project helped accommodate a three bedroom area for guests.
The age of the client is not a factor in Pinkelman’s area. “I see it all,” he said. “Some are retired, some are younger than I am. They’re in their mid 30s on up through the 60s.”
The typical size is 30×40 or 40×60.
Featured here is a commercial man cave, a 30×56 foot bird hunting lodge in Laingsburg, Mich., designed from a Wick Building post-frame package with a breezeway, exterior wainscoting and a 4:12 roof pitch.
The owner of Dunn Creek Outfitters has pheasant and partridge hunts, but uses the lodge as a place where his customers “can have something to eat, watch TV and smoke cigars,” Pinkleman said. It also has a bedroom, bathrooms and a storage area.
A tongue and groove interior gives it a rustic look where hunters can kick back and indulge in the ambiance of a successful hunt.
Shops on steroids in Missouri
In Missouri, shops on steroids are also recovering from the ’08-’09 slump. Warren Bott, national sales manager for Worldwide Steel Buildings notes that utilitarian shops are turning into man caves. “The wife is saying ‘get your stuff out of the garage,’” he said.
Worldwide’s Heartland Shed Series makes it convenient for customers to build their own. “They can start with a building as small as 12 feet wide or as large as 100 feet wide and make it as long as they want,” Bott said.
Shown is a 30×40 open web truss, hybrid system with wood secondary framing. “We put our secondary framing on 2-foot centers so there is no internal walls that have to be built. That’s real key to someone doing something like this themselves,” he said.
Because the secondary framing is so close together, any kind of siding can be used including the sheetrock on this building, but coming standard is Central States metal panels.
Worldwide advertises its buildings as easy to assemble, “like an erector set.” The owner of this building took on the challenge, plus all the decorating tasks. This one contains an eclectic mix of collectibles that covers the walls and ceilings.
A Worldwide radio commercial explains that the owner calls the building his “manhole” and it is decorated “with all the stuff his wife tried to sell at a garage sale.” It includes two pin ball machines, two slot machines, a card table, a tapper connected to a cold keg of beer, a Hot Wheels collection, a television, three remote control airplanes and 25 old movie posters. The building also houses a fully restored 1958 Hilman Husky delivery van that’s one of only 250 left in the world.
From the photos, however, it’s obvious those items are but the tip of the iceberg.
As the owner humorously likes to say: “If you don’t like my decorating, get out of my space.”
And that’s a man law.
Weathertight in N.C.
As a provider of building supplies, Central States Manufacturing doesn’t always know the end results of the buildings they help create, but this energy efficient post frame in North Carolina is an exceptional exception. In terms of man caves, it’s big. With 800 feet of space built into the trusses, and an addition in back of the main building, it has 7,112 square feet to house a collection of vintage automobiles and petroliana.
T&J Brothers Construction Co., LLC, Cleveland, N.C., owned by brothers Tim and John Jancic, was given the task of building the big abode for old cars. It was sold by Mid State Metals, also of Cleveland.
The metal components were provided by Central States. It includes 29-gauge Panel Loc Plus, classified as Prime and with a 40-year warranty. CentralGuard colors were used: charcoal for the roof, light stone for walls, and taupe for the trim and additional siding.
Entry doors and cupolas were provided by Plyco, the garage doors from CHI Overhead Doors.
Energy efficiency was key among the owner’s requests and with approximately R30 insulations in the walls and R70 in the roof, the owner didn’t even need to turn on the air conditioner until the end of July last year. Remember, this is in North Carolina where summers can get hot.
Coming complete with a nice sized work space, this man cave doesn’t require much energy: it runs on the owner’s pure adrenaline.
An Indiana hobby shop
Lester Dealer/Rep Anderson & Sons Inc. completed this 48x56x18 foot clay and antique brown hobby shop in Oakland, Ill., with both an enclosed lean-to and open lean-to. Used for entertaining, the building has a kitchen, serving area, mechanical room and restroom. It features AJ windows and AJ walk doors and a Clopay Gallery Series 10×9 foot overhead door. The insulated building also sports a continuous vented ridge cap, gutters and raised lower chord trusses.
Mammoth man cave
This man cave in Faucett, Mo., was built with a Perka wood and steel hybrid Model 5400 building measuring 45 feet wide x 15 feet high. It has a special 12:12 offset roof pitch, 96 feet long.
Superior insulation is key to this building, relying on P-2000! to keep things warm and tight in cold Missouri winters.
A unique two-way fireplace is used for all-weather fire pit time. In addition there’s ample space for the owner to work on his planes, cars and trucks.