A builder’s handmade hideaway
In a household with five women, Phill Brophy sometimes feels a little outnumbered.
Luckily, he has a bolthole – a snug cabin he created from scratch, in the back garden of his New Plymouth home.
The house sits at the top of a steep section, terraced in three levels, and his man cave is on the second level, with a massive deck beside it.
It’s got the feeling of a grownup tree hut, with views out to sea on a good day from the covered deck, which looks down into the back garden.
Just about everything in the building, apart from the roof, framing and floor, was recycled.
Brophy hates seeing reuseable materials and interesting or quirky items tossed away.
‘‘I just like saving old stuff.’’ Luckily, he’s a builder, so has the perfect skills and often comes across treasures on the job bound for a skip bin.
Others are ferreted out from car boot sales and Trade Me.
Inside the building, revived weatherboards off a house he demolished give a cosy ambience, and it’s clad in old corrugated iron he bought secondhand.
More recycled timber has gone into shelves displaying a collection of old tools and other curios, including an ancient book press he bought off Opunake High School that weighs 80 to 90kg.
A former bank-safe door that took four guys to move is the man cave’s front door. ‘‘I seem to collect very heavy stuff,’’ he said, adding the former bank is now the library at Eltham.
‘‘At 250kg, the door was too heavy for the ladies to open, so I brought it home,’’ he said. ‘‘Noone is going to steal my beer.’’
Most of the eclectic items around the room have a story.
He found a length of carved timber, originally part of a fireplace surround, under a dairy at Opunake while doing a building inspection, and the owners gave it to him.
‘‘It’s 140 or 150 years old,’’ he said.
And a pointy little church window was rescued by his father, who had it hanging in the cowshed on the family farm throughout Brophy’s childhood.
The chunky weathered timber he made into doors that enclose a dart board came off the cowshed itself. ‘‘With a bit of sanding, it comes back to life,’’ he said.
His other treasures include some wood roses (Dactylanthus taylorii), a letter opener off the HMNZS Monowai (his grandfather gave it to him), ships made of horns, and the exit sign lights from the Rahotu Hall that were being thrown out when it was renovated.
He built a recycled timber frame around an old bathroom cupboard door to hide the modern meter board. ‘‘It is white and plastic, and I don’t like white and plastic,’’ he said.
The rustic light shades are made from steel mesh, which he stomped into a box to shape.
Although it’s officially his man cave, the cabin is enjoyed by everyone in the household.
‘‘This is really for family events, and sometimes a few mates come out here for a few beers. We’ve had a few parties here, even had a band once.’’
His partner’s daughters gather with their friends for beer pong sessions most weekends, and there’s a special event coming up to welcome a new baby called Thomas.
‘‘I’ve just become a grandfather a couple of days ago, and we’re having a welcome to the family gathering here.’’
If you have a man cave or a woman cave in Taranaki that we could feature in a story, please contact catherine. groenestein@stuff.co.nz