First post!

Ever since I got married and bought a house with a real basement, I've envisioned a "man cave" in the basement, some place I could retreat with friends and hang out.  A lot of the need for this came from nostalgia from the great times we had in the basement of my buddy Angus back in high school.  His basement was far from finished -- it had a ping pong table that we would set on top of an old pool table.  The basement was cold, the floor was often covered in cat pee, and you had to step over dirty laundry to get to it.  But you could show up at almost any time of night and find at least one of your friends down there laughing, playing games, and having the time of their lives.

It's been almost 20 years since we first found our way to that basement.  Our get togethers are limited to once or twice a year, but when we do congregate, we still like to disappear into the basement for a few days to recharge and feel like careless teenagers again.

This basement has become an obsession as of late, if only because my attempts at creating it were spoiled by mother nature.  So I thought it would be interesting to document some of the trials and tribulations and gallons of sweat I've put in to this dream.   Hope you enjoy.