Perfect man cave clears house’s clutter
Columnist converts car storage to a motorcycle gearhead’s Garage-Mahal
Since my son, the Basement Troll, fled the coop, my living space, such as it is, has dwindled down to two rooms.
Oh, I still own an entire threestory 1,800+ square foot luxury townhome (with four bathrooms). But single man and creature of habit that I have become, I have essentially limited myself to my living room recliner and a one bedroom/ bathroom crash pad upstairs.
The kitchen, save for a single burner turned on about once a month, grows mothballs, the taps in three of my bathrooms would likely pass more dust than water and I have a balcony I swear I have not set foot on in my 10 years of condominium townhome ownership.
Not that the rest of the rooms remain empty. Even as my hermit-like status reduces my personal space, my motorcycle addiction, er, hobby, has slowly taken control over the rest of the Booth manse. Indeed, even before said troll left a year ago, motorcycle gear, spare parts and three entire bookcases of motorcycle magazines had taken over the other upstairs bedroom while the master’s walk-in closet had become little more than a repository for spare Avon radials and a precious, recently-repainted gas tank.
And no sooner had he left the basement than motorcycle bits, like some slow-moving plague, started taking over his abandoned lair.
At first, the encroachment was innocuous, a couple of spare wheels here, a rare-as-hen’s-teeth Calfab swing-arm there. But, before I knew it, an air compressor was in the corner, a collection of used camshafts in an armoire and a ginormous Honda four-cylinder motorcycle engine, where his bed used to be.
It was an incursion too far, even for my gearheaded self. I had to admit it. I needed help. Desperately.
The only solution, of course, was to build a man cave, a garage so dreamy that not only would it reflect the beauty that is a Honda CB1100R, but it would somehow organize all the various and sundry bits that ten years of my Honda obsession had accumulated. Filters, pistons and power tools would meet epoxy floors, work bench and storage cabinets in one orgiastic gathering of organization.
Of course, I was limited by a) my journalist’s salary and b) that onecar garage in a townhouse.
I had desired a dream garage since I was old enough to turn a wrench, and was determined that a concrete and drywall artiste would render my hovel man-cave worthy.
Said artiste was Marc Javet of Premier Garage, whose first wallet-damaging revelation was that resurrecting an old townhouse garage floor would take more than a slapdash $100 epoxy floor kit. Salt, oil and the occasional brake line drip had given my concrete a pockmarked visage.
Dreams of a mojito-filled vacation to South Beach quickly went poof in two days of substrate, multiple layers of colour chips and epoxy. Despite the fiscal trauma, however, there was no denying the result was the garage equivalent of an Italian marble floor, my once renovated kitchen starting to look a little shabby in comparison..
But, the most important part of any material obsession is stuff, which, to be useful, needs organized storage space. I am not sure if the accompanying picture does the Booth garage any justice but I now have enough Windswept Pewter Premier Garage cabinetry to store an entire other motorcycle.
One set of shelves holds my oils and chamois soft cleaning gear. Another has enough engine bits to start a historic race team. Oily camshafts no longer litter drawers once reserved for Tommy Hilfiger; rear suspension bits and their equally oily damper rods are no longer spread on Brazilian Cherry floors.
There are even professional garage-like small parts bins so oil soaked hands needn’t sully bedroom carpets looking for a gasket.
The pièce de résistance is the butcher’s block workbench. Yes, the same thick slab of maple that wives and significant others covet for their dream kitchens is where I denude carbon-crusted cylinder heads and oil-soaked crankcases.
Somewhere, Martha Stewart is squirming. The plague of motorcycle bits taking over the house, however, slowly recedes.