This Guy Built The Coolest Man Cave For Only $107. You’d Think He Spent Thousands!

“Every single guy grows up with high aspirations and ambitions to build the absolute perfect mancave. Sure, we like the wife and kids and all, but let’s be honest, where do we go to get away from it all? The mancave.

A mancave is an almost sacred place that gives you back the freedom you once had. A mancave is essentially a glorified porcelain throne that men can escape to, with more stuff to play with. It can be a place to prove you’re the manliest man alive.

That being said, man caves can go a little overboard, costing thousands and thousands of dollars. Well, this guy needed a man cave to get away from it all but was on a budget. You’d be amazed at what he does with a mere 170 bucks and some pallets.

It started out as a tiny storage room with absolutely nothing in it. Not the place you’d want to hang out. A local metal company was throwing away their shipping pallets, so he picked up about a dozen of these shipping crate walls for free. He then took a hand-draw knife to give the boards a rustic look. Here, the boards are starting to cover the bare walls; they have a rough finish on them, mimicking an old cabin.

He had to be creative with some of the interior pieces. He’ll create a false ceiling so the plumbing is accessible, and he needed a way to hide the support columns to stick with the design. Notice the hole in the wall leading to a storage room on the other side of the wall. Remember that for later.

He decorated the fireplace with stones that he found on the side of the road, essentially free, and fitting the old cabin perfectly. He did a center beam for the false ceiling to rest on. This is one of the few pieces of wood he purchased. He then aged and stained it for a rustic look.

He made this end table to store all of his knickknacks and collectibles; he calls it his “Table of Contents.” The floorboards are the same wood used for the walls; he ripped them down to three inches and cut the ends in a tongue-and-groove pattern.

He wrapped the columns with faux support beams and added a lock joint for visual detail, giving this old cabin a hand-built look. The floor is complete. The room took about six weeks to complete, with at least half that time used scavenging for usable materials. The total cost in purchased materials was $107. The contents in the room are worth a lot more than that, but he’d been collecting them for his whole life.

Take a look at the window; that’s the hole that leads to the storage room. He used a high-definition graphic and made a faux window to look through. He actually installed a light behind the window that you can turn off to simulate night or day.

Most of the furniture was made from free reclaimed wood. The fireplace is fake, but he put real burn marks on the stone floor. He also added a light and real ashes to give it a fireplace smell. Everything in the room is antique or vintage in some way.

The scrapbook under the window is full of hunting pictures spanning from the ’40s to the ’60s. He glued the seams of the floorboards together but left them free from the concrete below. This makes the floor creak a little, mimicking a real old cabin floor.

He skimmed the backside of the basement door with a quarter-inch plywood to save on weight while keeping the exterior looking like a normal door. He plans on finding a very rustic doorknob to swap out. The light switches are actually spent .357 Magnum cartridges.

Even the pots and coffee kettles have authentic-looking burn marks, like they’ve been hanging over a flame. He’s often asked what’s in the “Table of Contents” – simply a bunch of knickknacks that don’t fit the hunting theme, but he still loves to play with. He keeps them out of sight but accessible.

The thing I love most about this mancave, besides the fact that it only cost $107, is that it’s not your typical modern bar look. He went for an old rustic cabin on a river, and it’s something we don’t see very often.

This looks like a place I would love to unwind and relax in, a place to get away from it all and take in the smells and views of the mountains. You’ll probably have to use your imagination a little for that last bit, but it’s part of the fun.”