The Beginnings of a Man Cave

It's every man's dream. A place they can call their own. A place where there are no girls allowed. As Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber best put it, a place where, "A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called..." my basement.

A great friend of mind decided that as a house warming gift he would give me a dart board. Great present, right?! The problem was, I hadn't played darts since college and I knew I would end up putting holes in the wall.

I looked at etsy.com for dart backboards but they were all expensive and not wide enough. So I decided that making one would be pretty simple.

I went to the store and bought 1/4 inch plywood measuring 4x4 as the backing. I also bought some 1x2 pine boards for the frame (enough for a two frames, one to hold the plywood and wrap the felt and another to place on top of the felt for a frame look) and black spray paint. To round it all off, I went to JoAnn fabrics to buy some green felt to make it look, "legit".

All in all the materials cost me around $45 and about 45 minutes to put together.

I started by measuring the 1x2 pine boards by 4 feet lengths and cutting 45 degree angles at each end. I then pre-drilled holes into each one for the screws to hold the frame together. I put this frame aside until i assembled the backboard.

For the 1/4 inch plywood, I created another frame to secure the plywood onto. After that I placed the felt around the frame and plywood and began to use my heavy duty staple gun to keep the felt tight.

Once the felt was on, I was ready to place the initial frame (the one with 45 degree angle cuts) on top of the felt and again pre-drill holes for my screws. Before I screwed the frame on, I spray painted the frame black for a nice flat finish.

Once it was dry I screwed the frame onto the plywood for the finished product. I also took some scrap wood from the 1x2 pine and drilled 3 holes into each one and attached it with krazy glue to the board to hold the darts (of course painted the same colors as my college, Go Mason!).

Below is the finished product. I wish I took pictures along the way but didn't think about it until just now as I drink a glass of Gold Label and play darts alone, in my man cave.

Side note, my first attempt at throwing a dart was about 23 inches down and to the left of the actual dartboard. Glad I choose to make it 4 feet by 4 feet!

Hope this helps you realize that some things can be made for cheaper than just outright buying it online or in a store.