If he was good, and the pricing wasn't crazy, I'd absolutely hire someone to upgrade my garage-pain-cave.

Stuff I'd def be interested in:

- Replacing the lighting with great LEDs
- Superior flooring (although my puzzle cheap rubber mats work extremely well!)
- Painting/decorating walls. Maybe even with a huge poster of Hawaii or something like that like LS pain cave.
- Hardline ethernet to my house for super fast Zwift and netflix
- Anyone who is gonna install and endless pool would love to have someone help get it optimally setup including splash protection

All this isn't hard stuff, but would take wayyyy too much of my time with a family right now for me to do.

People pay for interior designers all the time. So why not?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

 

I could have have sorda built my own pain cave. I think there very well might be a market for bespoke pain caves.

Some good suggestions already for what they would want. Maybe also ceiling fans, wall mount fans, wall mounted TV's, split AC unit, floor to ceiling windows for that view of the mountains, garage doors at each end for air flow .

I think that would maybe be a bit more what he would want to pursue. I am not sure if there would be enough of a market in a single city though, so you would likely have to travel to keep a full schedule.
I guess the better question would have been, "would you pay a lot for a pain cave build"

I personally wouldn't but I think the key here would be "is it pretty?" If your friend can take a space that most wives would probably consider an eyesore in the home and transform it into something functional AND pretty then you have greatly expanded the budget for the project. Also if he could design in some kind of way to make it not smell like a pain cave that would bring the ladies on board too!

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God's in his heaven, alls right with the world -Nerv

Plenty of McMansions have a fitness/workout room. Usually this was where the elliptical or weight rack gathered dust, but there is a decent market for making these room visually and functionally attractive.

Typical upgrades:

-Flooring (ex. Parkay) and matting
-Mirrors (plus a bar for dance/stretching)
-TV mounting, audio systems
-Storage (bike hanging, cabinets/shelves for gear)
-Extra outlets and stronger wifi (wired or mesh network)
-Improved HVAC
-Space planning (positioning of equipment)

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Personally, no, but I built my own in a 350 sqft room in the basement, then again I'd never invite another man into my home to do something I can do on my own. But yes, there's probably a decent market.

Any general contractor can do any of this, so why would anyone hire someone that has to travel from out of town?

That's pretty much the reality of it. Maybe he could catch on with a GC that does upscale renovations and upsell the reno to add another couple hundred SF to a basement that would be the pain cave, but by itself I don't think it's valid and nothing the carpenter the GC has on payroll already can't do.

Now if we're talking an actual shed to drop in someone's back yard that is an all in one pain cave MAYBE it's feasible but you run into a lot of permitting type issues with separate structures and such. Ignoring those issues, a decent 16x20 shed is like $6k to buy from somewhere but only $3k worth of materials, he could stick build it and rough it somewhere else, bring it all to site and assemble it. Figure all the gadgets inside (TV, heat/cool, electrical, lights, trainer, mill, endless pool ($10k?) maybe although shed would get bigger and need plumbing) he can buy all that and mark up 10%, so you're selling the whole thing forrrrr like $25 to 30k? Making maybe $5-7k off it? Eh, not a bad idea for a one off but doubt you'd make a living.

Yes, I would. Personally, with work and 2 kids I don't have the time. Some specialization is good so understanding the needs for the owner of a pain cave is always a plus. There is a market for garage makeovers, so maybe combing garage/pain cave/shed or something like that. The shed business is pretty big in northern states with peoples desire to park their cars in the garage and needing a place for bikes, etc.

I probably fall on the DIY side, we converted a spare bedroom into a pain cave at my old place, have a temporary garage pain cave set-up right now, and have configured the basement in our new place that is being built so that I can easily convert that into a pain cave...

That said, as people have mentioned that most general contractors could build you something, but there's something to be said for specialized expertise... Plenty of people hire interior designers, but if you're designing a specific type of space, there's an advantage to people who context specific experience or expertise. People more familiar with the niche will be able to suggest options to the client, and talk about the pros and cons, whereas someone who just builds, might not be able to help the client out as much.

But if your friend really wants to make money, Pre-Fab is the way to go. As others noted, people won't pay for someone out of town to come and spend weeks doing a job for them, but there have been a number of companies that have sprung up to capitalize on mass work from home directives due to COVID, by creating pre-fab office pods that are beautifully designed, and then shipped to you on a truck, and then installed in your yard (you deal with the permitting and setting up a slab/electrical), in some cases with some option for customization. Some of those companies have started to move towards fitness spaces, as I've seen one company that has started to do a yoga room option... But gym pods could easily be a thing, with options for SBR, Cross-Fit, etc. the basics of the pod/shed could basically be the same, but the internal configuration would differ depending on sport set-ups. It's a balance, but typically most of them aren't ready made, and instead are made to order, so people would expect to wait 30-60 days for fabrication and then shipping/installation. So really it's making a really pretty prototype, kitting it with high-end equipment, and getting a good photographer and a a nice web-site. Obviously if there's a steady stream of orders, they might need help to keep up, although you could reduce build costs by sourcing stuff in bulk too..

They need to host a show on DYI network or HGTV.... I'd watch that....

There was an episode of Property Brothers where one of the must haves for the home owner was a bike room.
I watched the whole episode just for the 3 min they talked about bikes.

https://thescottbrothers.com/episodes/forever-home-205-sally-david/

Not the same thing, but on Curse of Oak Island this week, one of the brothers was riding Zwift while in quarantine.

For the fun of it I'm going to take a stab at pricing it out shorthand and see what seems realistic for profit. Figure suburban area for material prices.

Shed (just the shed) - 16'x20', 3/4" plywood sub floor, T-11 siding, shingle roof, figure concrete sonotubes with PT framing at the bottom. Single door, couple windows - $3,000. Add extra for aluminum siding or anything to match house.

Interior finishes - Sheetrock walls with insulation, floor (composite wood), hard ceiling - $2,500.

Electrical - 100A sub-panel, plenty of outlets, dimmable LED lighting, cabling for TV/PC interface, wireless access point, $2,000. Still need a local electrician to provide a feed out to the shed, pull permit, etc, figure another $3k for a trench, conduit, breaker, termination, permit.

HVAC - DX ductless split with heat pump. Northern part of country probably need electric trim heat. Couple fans for kicks. $2,500.

Goodies - TVs (2, one for movies, one for Zwift/TR/Whatever; $400 each), treadmill $2,000, Trainer $1500, various strength training free weights, bands, $500. Total goodies $4,800.

Straight up materials call it $15,000. Mark that up 10% so we're at $16,500. Labor I'm going to use $50/hr just as a base. Shed will take 3 days (24 hours). Interior, day for sheetrock, day for mud, day for sand, day for paint, day for floor, 5 days total. Electrical 2 days. HVAC 2 days. Misc cabling, goodie setup, 3 days. Total of 15 days. 15x8x50 = $6,000 labor. Seems a little low, I know trades would be higher hourly but I just wanted to use round numbers.

Materials $16k + labor $6k = $22k.

Endless pool would throw a total wrench in it all, you'd need a bigger shed, better heating/cooling to control humidity, waterproof materials inside plumbing and drain out to the shed. I have no clue what one costs but I'd say another $4k in materials, $6k in labor for the install and plumbing, then whatever the cost of the endless is.

With all that said, it would be a fun project to do during COVID for some side income.