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Custom Steel Woman Cave

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steel quonset hut with gray painted arches, wood endwalls and large gray garage door

By now, many people are familiar with the term “man cave” — a place for a man to store things and do “man stuff” like watch TV or work on projects. A man cave is a masculine respite.

But women need a place to do “woman stuff” too, and a space like the hall bathroom simply doesn’t cut it. Usually, small children or pets try to get in there too!

For Vickie Brewer, a retired law enforcement officer, who lives in Tijeras, N.M., a SteelMaster structure was the answer to her quest for a custom steel woman cave.

Brewer’s log home in Tijeras rests amidst a picturesque, tranquil landscape where the land stretches to meet the sky. Sunrises and sunsets are the kind of scenery artists brush to canvas; even local residents marvel at the strands of blue, purple, orange, yellow and silver that stretch across the horizon.

Hold up a minute. Silver? Did we mention silver?

We sure did. Silver was the color of the metal and steel arches of the graceful yet powerful 30’ x 30’ SteelMaster building on Vickie’s property. The top arch span of her SteelMaster woman cave was coasted in silvery aluminum Galvalume Plus — that is, until she painted it the color of tree bark.

That’s part of the beauty of owning a SteelMaster building. Some folks like the no-maintenance, rust-proof sun reflective exterior. Others want to jazz it up a bit. And since Vickie has a creative streak and didn’t mind putting in the extra effort, her SteelMaster woman cave will be brown, just as she envisioned. And why not?

When SteelMaster caught up with Vickie, she was preparing to embark on a 10-day fishing adventure. After her trip, she planned to come home and finish reorganizing and implementing her other ideas to create her ultimate woman cave.

Vickie had two other buildings on her property, a 12’ x 16’ and a 10’ x 8’ when she decided to consolidate and build a stronger building. They get a lot of snow in Tijeras, and Vickie will be prepared now, thanks to the snow-load bearing capacity of her SteelMaster.

She says she liked the idea of a Quonset HutTM-styled roof, and came upon a link to SteelMaster while browsing online. Even better, the link was to a sale! Vickie’s only concern was the delivery cost. After all, steel and metal are heavy materials. When she found out the delivery cost was included in the sale price, it made the deal Project Specialist Ryan Allen offered her too sweet to pass up.

Her kit was delivered in April of this year.

“Five of us put the arches up. Mind you, two of us are women in our 60s,” Vickie said. “We decided to put up half an arch at a time, because it was easier to handle. We assembled the sections on the ground. It took only five days to get all 15 arches up. The back wall took one day.”

Vickie consulted a friend in deciding how to proceed with the front wall.

“I wanted to use half-sawed log wood to match my home, [but] we did not want to put any stress on the existing structure,” she said. “We tacked some small pieces of wood to longer bolts. Then we built a front frame so we could build the overhead space for the garage door. After that part was done, we cut each of the sawed logs to fit.”

Vickie gave SteelMaster another call when she was thinking about painting the exterior of her building.

“I wanted to paint the building because of the area where I live is heavily wooded,” she said.

Vickie said she found Allen and the SteelMaster team “very helpful.”

“We washed the building with soapy water and added some vinegar to etch the metal,” she said of the painting process. “It took four hours to paint it with my spray-gun using paint with primer. I think it blends in beautifully now, and all my friends think it looks great too!”

SteelMaster’s steel and metal pre-engineered buildings are designed for a broad range of residential and commercial applications including homes, farm buildings, garages, workshops, agricultural storage, Quonset HutTM buildings, airplane hangars, RV storage, roofing systems, carports, military buildings, commercial warehousing, and industrial storage as well as a wide variety of custom building applications including athletic facilities, correctional facilities, safe and secure disaster relief buildings, man-caves, retail stores, churches, bus stops, smoke shacks, and even livestock-friendly shelters and feed areas.

SteelMaster is thrilled to be able to add woman caves to our list of the building uses our customers have invented. Vickie says she may even paint the arch of her building in camouflage print. A camouflage woman cave — now that would be something else!

– Tammy Kistler
Tammy is a freelance writer and resides in Hampton Roads.