The single man can just about keep his stuff anywhere he pleases, whether it’s his collection of vintage beer cans, his motorcycles, his baseball memorabilia or his pinball machines. Austin-based writer Sam Martin approaches ManSpace: A Primal Guide to Marking Your Territory with the point of view that, eventually often after he gets married and has children a guy’s stuff has to vacate the living quarters and get farmed out to the garage, basement or attic, which tends to farm the guy himself out to the domestic outback. This entertaining and wonderfully illustrated volume details the efforts of approximately 50 males who set out to create their own unique, in-or-near-the-home manspaces to suit such passions as collecting, sports, electronics, music, painting, woodworking and arcane hobbies, or simply to create a new kind of private hangout.
When in-house space isn’t available, these ingenious fellows even take to the backyard, as the author himself did, designing and building a 165-square-foot, fully functional office, only steps from his home life but worlds away in his mind. Some guys, like film and TV writer Bill Kerby, married in middle age, knew from the get-go that he’d never yield space to his new bride. The solution? They purchased a house with a backyard cabin, which he transformed into an arty, yet wholly masculine living quarters where his stuff abounds, including a classic old barber chair that his wife banished from the main house. ManSpace is a spectacular idea book with marvelous visuals and witty text, and it might just get a lot of guys to thinking. Definitely a cool gift item for that creative male who loves his stuff.
