The Ultimate Man Cave

First off I am sure you are wondering, why in the world would we destroy an indoor pool?

The indoor pool would have been  awesome and some people pay big bucks to have an indoor pool; ours on the other hand would have cost us big bucks to keep and to maintain. The foundation was cracked, the heater did not work, it leaked into the basement, and it would cost us tons of money to upkeep or to fix. Constantly trying to maintain the large pool was just not something I wanted to do as a newlywed, nor was it something I was willing to pay big bucks for.

          Sorry,  I did not do a good job of taking pictures, guess that means I was working to hard!

This is when we decided it was time for Demolition.

There wasn't much we were going to have to do, but we did have to break the brick edge to level the floor. This would help anyone with their anger management. You wouldn't think that slamming a hammer as hard as you can, and watching the brick break off into a bunch of pieces would be that fun, but it was!

Once we chipped away all of the brick edge, and cleaned out the inside of the pool we started working on the false floor.  I know what you are thinking how in the world do you do that without the floor falling through  ( I thought this for the longest time). Luckily, I have an amazing dad who helped Nate and I work on the entire room, we are so very grateful for him because without him we might still be working on it! We put beams, floor joyces, every foot of the length of the pool. This is what would protect us from falling through.

Once we had the floor joyces in, we screwed plywood over them to create a bottom for the floor.

      As you can see the dogs make their way into the pictures because they wouldn't leave our sides while we were working. 

Once we got the pool area covered, it was time to paint!  This was a perfect opportunity for us to paint because All we had to do was cover the glass doors and windows and take off the trim. We decided to keep the trim that was already there, but repaint it a cleaner white. Since we were not concerned with the floor, because it was going to be covered, the men (my dad, Nate and my brother) sprayed on the new "Stratton Green" color.

I was away on a business trip and I left the paint up to Nate, I have absolutely no idea what the real name of the color is but he called it "Stratton Green". Stratton is his hometown and he wanted the color to match his school colors. I am glad he did because the color looks fantastic, and I will definitely let him pick out paint again. 

After the paint was applied and the trim was painted a flat white, we hung the trim back up.

The next big project in the room was a ceiling. We decided to put in a drop ceiling. Fairly easy to put in, just takes some time, patience, and an eye for straight lines (which Nate had)!

 The beginning stages of the ceiling my brother Kase and Nate screwing the side pieces to the wall.

All of the metal beams had been hung

Before adding in the tiles, Nate did some electrical work and put the lights in

 Putting in the white ceiling tiles 

Once we got the ceiling up we started to put in the floor. We ordered Laminate Wood floor from Lumber Liquidators. We had to drive to Kansas City to pick it up but it was nice to spend some quality time with Nate in the car. 

My dad and Nate working hard to put in the floor. 

Once we got an area done Becker decided that was her spot

The floor took us a couple days to get finished, then Nate had to add some outlets around the room. I was so amazed by how easy it was. He hid the electrical wires with metal pipe, then I painted it green to match the walls. You can hardly tell, and it give the long wall some spacing. 

It looks so much better with the outlets. 

We are still working on the man cave to make it homier, looking to add some seating, a shuffle board, a bar area, and of course the most important item  a TV.  Not only is this important for Nate to watch all of his games out in the man cave but it will be nice for me to be able to sit in our living room and NOT watch basketball for a month straight. 

It looks pretty bare but keep checking in for more pictures updating the Man Cave!

If you can think something cool or a DIY project I could make for the Ultimate Man Cave, please let me know. I would love to hear some of your ideas.