When I decided to create my man cave, I decided to use a rustic design. But there are many other types of man caves you can create. This article is going to focus on what is needed to create a contemporary man cave.
First, you need to choose a color that is from a natural pallet. If you want to, go ahead and use an accent wall. Then you need to choose what uniform colored flooring to use. If it’s wood, you will want to either go with a very light or very dark color. Then choose furniture (couch or sectional, entertainment center, floor lamp, and others) that obey the contemporary rules of solid colors, dark sleek colors, and textures. Most importantly, minimize your wall decorations!
You are here because you are curious about how to create a contemporary man cave. You probably already know, but first I want to describe what a contemporary man cave may look like.
What Makes a Man Cave Contemporary?
Like I have mentioned in a previous article, a contemporary room is a room that focuses on and simplicity. For furniture, less is more. The contemporary man cave will also deliberately use lines and angles.
One thing that is important when designing a contemporary room is the focus of the room’s space. Unlike other designs, the focus of a contemporary room is the space itself, not what is in the space. If you are going for maximum contemporary points, this is important! You are going to want to stay away from intricate designs and patterns
Building a contemporary man cave is a little off the beaten path. Usually, when we think about man caves, we think of displaying all types of things on the walls. In a contemporary room, we need to be strategic in what we are displaying.
If this doesn’t sound appealing to you, hear me out. I was in your shoes when I first built my man cave. After doing the research for this article, I kind of wish I gave build a contemporary man cave more thought.
What Contemporary Colors Should Be Used In Your Man Cave:
Before I even start, I want to say that this is my least favorite part of designing a man cave. But this is an important step to take seriously. This first step of creating a contemporary man cave starts with narrowing down your colors. Don’t you dare think about wallpaper or wood paneling in a contemporary man cave. That like, negative 100 contemporary points. We are going to stick with solid colors.
Like I mentioned in a past article, we are going to want to paint three of the walls your primary color, and then you can have an accent wall. To choose your primary and accent wall color, narrow your search to natural colors. The Sleep Judge gives a bunch of suggestions, for bedrooms. But of these colors, the ones that would look great in your man cave are SW7674 Peppercorn, Sherwin Williams, Vintage Charm, Benjamin Moore, Sparrow AF-720, Benjamin Moore, Fizzle, DE5715 Dunn Edwards, Benjamin Moore 1509 Spanish Olive, Gladstone Tan 1106, Benjamin Moore, and Pewter 2121-30, Benjamin Moore.
These colors all fall under the natural color palette. My suggestion to you is to find two colors that look decent together. Then choose one to be an accent wall. This helps add a little bit to your man cave with have to add anything at all to the room.
Personally, I find the whole color thing the most boring part of these design things. So if this isn’t your favorite thing either, I hope you made it this far. Now it’s time to talk about the actually interesting stuff.
What Are the Unique Features of a Contemporary Man Cave?
Use Uniform Flooring In Your Man Cave:
Something that you are going to want to think about for your man cave is the flooring you want to go with. This can be a tough decision to make. I have written an article that talks about the different options you have based on the location of your man cave.
Whatever flooring you go with; I would suggest going with something that is largely uniform in color. As much as I love wood grain, that goes against the idea of a contemporary room. If you end up going with some form of wood flooring, color matters. Based on the wall color you chose; contemporary design usually suggests that you go with either a light-colored wood or a very dark-colored wood.
Use Sleek Metals In Your Man Cave:
A word that gets thrown around a lot when talking about contemporary design is sleek. In my opinion, there is not much that is sleeker than metal. The question is how to integrate this metal into your room without adding clutter.
When I first designed my man cave, when I heard the contemporary, I just thought of this sterile-looking room with a pitiful amount of furniture. Since then, I have learned that isn’t the case. You can find some awesome looking things with chrome and silver metals. Make sure to stay away from metals that look like rustic metals. By that, I mean the darker and rougher metals.
In the spirit of getting the most contemporary points, try looking for lighting, furniture, or an entertainment center that has some awesome textures with metal. These are some of my favorites.
Think Carefully About Your Man Cave’s Furniture:
Like I have said already, one of the core things that make a room contemporary is the room’s open space. So, take some time and think about how you can keep your man cave’s floor space open. If you are going for a contemporary look, you probably aren’t going to have a couch, two recliners, and a beanbag in your man cave. Well, you totally could, it just wouldn’t be true to the contemporary name. At the end of the day though, your room so go wild.
It’s not just the quality of furniture that’s important, it’s the color and texture of that furniture that gives you the most contemporary points. It’s worth looking for pieces that are really deep and intense in color and have texture to them.
Floor lighting, and entertainment center, and a couch or sectional are the absolute essentials for your contemporary man cave. If you choose to add anything else that takes up floor space, remember the importance of color, texture, and metals.
Take It Easy on the Decorations In Your Man Cave:
This one goes against every fiber of my being. If you have been reading my content, you know that the thing I love about man caves the most is displaying the things we do and are proud of. As you can probably guess, adding a bunch of stuff onto the walls is not the best way to decorate a contemporary man cave.
Because lines are an important aspect of contemporary design, floating shelves are probably going to be your go-to for decorating. It is also worth finding other decorations that incorporate the chrome and silver metals we talked about earlier.
To stay true to the contemporary design (and get the most made up contemporary points) try to limit yourself to having two things on each wall. If there is not enough space in between the things you are displaying, your walls will feel cluttered which is against the idea of contemporary design.
Final Thoughts:
Building a contemporary man cave can make your room unique. From what I can tell, there aren’t many contemporary man caves out there. Make sure every element you include in the room is needed and serves a purpose. I jokingly mention “contemporary points” in this article because, at the end of the day, there is not really a judge for if your room is or isn’t “contemporary”.
But by including contemporary elements, you can add an awesome feel to your man cave. I hope you give the idea of building a contemporary man cave more thought than I did!
Until next time,