Man Cave, Sorta

I didn't get any cards today, it is a Sunday after all, but yesterday I did some rearranging in my downstairs level. My grandfather died  a few years ago and I grabbed his desk and put it in storage. My wife was in the storage and it was annoying her so I took it out and set it up in the den. I pulled a dresser out as well and kind of made a "man cave" even though it really isn't. It's still a usable room with a couch and TV but nobody really uses it. I also can't leave my cards out all over because I have a stupid cat that likes to chew on cardboard, so I can't even leave the boxes of cards out because she'll chew on the boxes. When it's all said and done, I can only do so much because the room was painted red when we moved in and we never changed it. I'll probably rarely use it but at least I got to move my cards out of storage to where I can access them easier. My books were in the bedroom on a shelf and it gave my wife some of her shelf room back.

Here's is the aforementioned desk. As you can see, it's pretty nice, and huge. You can also see the red walls. The wife and I picked up a few things that could go on the walls and still match, plus I snuck a few things in as well. We'll go left to right on the desk.

This is my stack of magazines, programs, folders, ect. They are acting as my book ends until I can find a decent set that go with the room. The card books shown are (L to R) Tier 3 collections are in the first 2 books, and the last book has my Michigan collection as well as auto's and relics that are team collections and not player collections.

Next to the books, on the desk shelf are 2 bats that came from the Louisville Slugger museum that my mom picked up for me. The helmet was from the greek fries that I got at the last Sox game I went to, earlier this year. There's also my DVD's from the 2005 Sox.

The stuff on the top middle of the desk isn't really anything yet. The lamp was just thrown there to get it out of the way.

If you know my collections, than you are really confused by these 3 items. They were also my grandfathers and my grandmother gave them to me. On the left is a mug commemorating Mark McGwire's race to 70 HR's back in 1998. The middle is a Coke bottle with the St. Louis Cardinals on it and on the right is a Joe Montana beer stein. In case you haven't figured it out, he was a Cardinals fan, and a Notre Dame fan. As much as it pains me to have a ND alumn on my desk, I figured it was ok since he is one of the all-time greats, and he's in a pro jersey.

Beside that shelf and to the far right of my desk are my other card books. (L to R) Paul Konerko Collection, Tom Seaver Collection, the rest of my Tier 1 Collections, and the last 2 books are my Tier 2 Collections. As I said before, I don't have book ends so I'm using my Scott Podsednik bobble head for one on this side.

A little better view of the bobble head, or at least the box. When I get an actual room, I may break it out of the box.

Next, I'll go from left to right up on the wall above the desk

This photo is of myself, my brother and 2 cousins back when we were in little league. My grandmother made these for all 4 of us boys. I'm on the left and Sluggo is the other in yellow for the regulars who may know him by name.

 

These are above the right side of the desk. We picked these up at Hobby Lobby along with some stuff below.

As you can see, next to the desk is the dresser I pulled out. In the top drawer are my non-collection cards and Baseball Collection, 2nd drawer is full of empty boxes and such, 3rd drawer contains the Vintage Collection and the bottom drawer has my White Sox Collection in it.

Above the desk and dresser are these other 2 from Hobby Lobby. My wife did a pretty good job of picking all this stuff out that went with the walls. That's pretty much just one corner and wall of the room which I have claimed as mine but if you look around the room on shelves and walls, I have other stuff laying around.

There are a few Michigan things, it's hard to put that stuff up because of all the red in the room.

Last but not least, this is above the couch. Another Hobby Lobby pickup by the wife.

I have a bunch of other stuff that I could put up but a lot of it is in boxes in storage and I'm not going to drag all of that up until I actually get my real Man Cave, which will be in a year or 2 when I start kicking kids out and taking one of their rooms. For now, this little corner will do when I need to work on cards (or to be honest, get away from the wife for a bit.)