Man Caves & Man Crates

This post is for all you Cow Spot reading dudes out there. I was contacted by a company called Man Crates to create a design board for their Man Cave Makeover Campaign. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to revisit our outdoor kitchen a year later.

To me, a man cave is to a man what a giant walk in closet with an island, a chandelier and a whole wall of shoe storage is to a woman.  Or maybe that's just this woman. Regardless, this is their happy place, a space all about them and their hobbies, friends and weird boy obsessions. Because our house is on the smaller side, there really wasn't a room available to dedicate to a man cave for Brent. So we decided to turn our back deck into an outdoor kitchen/man oasis. For those of you new to the party blog we DIY'ed ourselves an outdoor kitchen last year. Long before we actually began working on the project we created a design board to organize our thoughts.

Brent was the driving force behind this project. He was very specific about certain things he wanted, all of which were very much man - grill, TV, pizza and the outdoors.

There was a specific rhyme and reason for every single element on the board. Let me show you around...

• We got The Big Green Egg for a wedding present from Brent's coworkers and this gift kicked off the idea for the Outdoor Kitchen. 

• After honeymooning in Italy, Brent came back bound and determined to have his own pizza oven. 

• Brent's Dad had given him the grill the Christmas before and it fit perfectly within the design.

• We loved the organic look of cedar siding with concrete countertops mixed with stack stone. The various textures are not only aesthetically pleasing, but hold up extremely well to the elements.

• Extra storage was a must for all of Brent's grilling tools, of which there are many. 

• And of course no man cave is complete with out a ginormous freaking TV (complete with surround sound of course).

Here's where we started:

And a lot of dust, tears and sweat later here is the finished product:

And we can't forget the icing on the cake.......the TV and it's house:

Over the past year we have enjoyed the heck out of this space. Georgia football has been watched, ribs have been smoked and pizzas have been made. This space is truly the gift that just keeps on giving. Speaking of gifts, I wish I would of known about Man Crates last year when we completed the project because their "Grill Master Crate" would of been the perfect present to christen our outdoor kitchen.

Man Crates truly is God's gift to anyone challenged with the task of purchasing a gift for a man. Man Crates has created a wide variety of themed crates, including the Personalized Whiskey Crate, Retro Gamer Crate, The Bacon Crate, NFL Bar ware Crate and for you Walking Dead fans out there the Zombie Annihilation Crate. You simply pick the crate that best suites your man and the crate will be shipped with a crow bar to open it up! A man's dream....just like this post.

To read all about our Outdoor Kitchen project, check out the various posts below:

Outdoor Kitchen Part 1

Outdoor Kitchen Part 2

Outdoor Kitchen Part 3

TV in a Box

All photos are my own.The design board was made with Olioboard - check out more of my boards here.