Whether it’s a bachelor pad or a McMansion, a man’s home is his and his alone–until his significant other moves in.
At that point or quickly thereafter, the living room Barcalounger is relegated to the basement or donated to charity. Motorcycle posters are replaced by impressionist prints. Baby nurseries and sewing and laundry rooms usurp TV rooms. Cigar smoking is banned. Ditto for bowling trophies, pinball machines and baseball card collections.
Oh, men are still allowed in the home, but their bachelor decor is history, and their manly territory transformed.
Sam Martin, author of the new book “Manspace: A Primal Guide to Marking Your Territory,” experienced the phenomenon, as many males do sooner or later. And he built a manspace to take care of the problem.
“I built my manspace–a 165-square-foot shed/writer’s studio in the back yard–after writing my first book at a desk in the living room of our small house,” said Martin by phone from his Austin, Texas, home. “My oldest son, Ford, was 2 at the time and was just learning how to reach onto the top of the desk to pull the keyboard off. Papers stacked up, and my wife (photographer/artist Denise-Prince Martin) let me know about it.
“And, of course, when anyone wanted to sit in the living room, they’d have to contend with me, my deadline and my bad attitude.”
Martin finished the book, but, two years later, when he and his wife were expecting their second child, Wren, he knew it was time to get out of the house.
“There was a spare patch of ground in the back yard, so I went to work,” said Martin, a former editor at This Old House and Mother Earth News. “Five months, $3,000, a few banged-up fingernails later, I had a writing space that was all mine, a place where I call the shots and control the guest list. My commute is 20 steps and 20 seconds. The key to a great manspace is separation.”
Martin’s wife, understandably, loves his manspace, which frees up the house to be a house.
It was at this light bulb moment that Martin, now 38, decided to write “Manspace.”
“I sent e-mails to everyone I know, including my photo researcher and editor, and I got in touch with architects about hidden spaces where men can be themselves, or manspaces,” Martin said. “I was deluged with responses and had no difficulty finding great manspaces. In fact, it was difficult paring away the responses to select just 50 for the book.”
At 218 pages, “Manspace” is about those spaces men have staked out for themselves. Some are elegantly designed, others are uniquely handmade. There’s a photography studio in a barn, an English-style pub in a basement and a 10-pin bowling alley in a back yard. One guy built a home office inside a grain silo, while another constructed a Japanese tea room over his garage.
