About two years ago, I came up with a brilliant idea.

My wife worked at home as a journalist, but her home office was in a cramped little room at the back of our house. It was cold in the winter, hot in the summer and too close to kids, distractions and, as she pointed out, me.

We had an old detached garage, however, at the back of our property. The garage was built somewhere around 1920 to hold a Model T, and while we could get our modern, full-sized family car inside if we inched forward with care, we couldn't open the doors once we did so. Unless we were willing to go out and get a Model T, it was useless as a garage.

I spent the next year-and-a-half ripping apart the garage and rebuilding it as an office studio, with French doors, heated floors, even a minibar alcove in the back. I put in high-speed Internet, two phone lines and cable TV.

Whenever we'd have guests over, they'd peer out the windows and ask for a tour of the little place out back. It was more comfortable, and more impressive, than our actual house.

It was just about the moment that I was putting the last nail in place on a piece of trim, after 18 months of plodding, sometimes discouraging labor, that my wife announced that she'd be working full time, at an actual office with real co-workers, and that she wouldn't need the home office anymore.

At first I stared in disbelief, then shock, then anger, then tears. I went through all 12 stages of grief over pointless home renovation in about 60 seconds.

Then it hit me. For months, every guy I'd shown the garage to had remarked what a perfect male getaway it would make. You know, a "Man Cave."

It had everything I needed to sustain a happy life: cable TV and a beer fridge.

Sure, I could label it as my "writing" studio, but as anyone who has ever tried to write something can tell you, with cable TV and a beer fridge, there was little danger of any actual writing happening.

My wife, who would like to see me do more writing and less talking about writing, or drinking beer, agreed wholeheartedly. She said she'd move all her stuff out, and I could do what I wanted with the place.

When my oldest son came home from college for Christmas, we had to go out and get a fold-out couch so that he could sleep out there.

We went from store to store, looking for something my wife and I could agree on. I picked out a nice heavy leather sofabed, something that looked like it belonged in a den.

My wife, however, made such sad faces, as if I was threatening to kill her puppy, that within minutes we were writing out a check for a puffy pink-and-white striped cotton couch with flowery complementary pillows.

And somehow, my wife's stuff never made it out. Flowery pictures and ribbons are everywhere. Gingham curtains still hang on the windows.

There's a big bulletin board collage of kids' fingerpaintings, family photos and mementos.

Every surface is covered with cute knickknacks.

One friend called it the Richard Simmons room -- male, but only by a technicality.

The other day, I had an electrician out to fix a bad circuit breaker in the garage. He came in, looked around for a minute, then remarked on what a cool idea it was to turn the little building into a room:

"Me, if I had something like this, I'd turn it into a guy's room, you know? Someplace I could get away from the family!" he said.

"Yeah!" I said proudly. "This used to be my wife's office, but now it's my Man Cave!"

He stopped short, clearly a little nauseous that I'd actually used that word to describe it. He suddenly seemed uncomfortable to be alone with me.

"You know!" I said, "like the Batcave, but..."

Dead silence.

He looked around the room at the gingham, the dried flower arrangements, the pink sofabed. "You pick out that couch yourself?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

I shook my head sadly. My wife, I explained, had overruled me on that one.

"Hmmf!" he snorted, turning back to the fuse box. "Some Man Cave, pal!"