(Topic ID: 290085)

Building out a Game Room

By yaksplat

3 years ago


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    13
    #1 3 years ago

    So, my addition project on my house is going to getting underway soon and me, being me, I'm thinking about the potential basement game room that i'm going to have. I will have a very large space of about 2550 square feet. Not all of it can be game room, but there's a decent area that will be dedicated to pins and games.

    So, there will be a Tiki Bar off to one side, a home theater, office, gym, server room and massage room, but the rest is available for games. I've been playing with layouts and trying to maximize the space.

    So I'm looking for feedback on the arrangement, spacing, etc... What would you add? What would you remove? Throw it all my way. I'd rather have too much feedback, than not enough. All games are assumed to be 30" by 60".

    This will be a long build out. I have 6 games currently and won't have 25 over night.

    Games will be brought down the straight staircase from the garage or outside and the main access from the house is the spiral staircase to minimize the footprint of the stairs.

    pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png

    #2 3 years ago

    Wow, wish I could have a space like that.

    Here are a few comments, feel free to ignore them if you don't find them useful...

    1) It's unclear from your diagram if the yellow area around the pool table is a wall or not. If it is a wall, then you don't really have room to play the pinballs in the top row. If it's NOT a wall then people can't play those machines (safely) while someone is playing darts. Why not move the darts to the north of the pool table - for safety sake.

    2) Consider having the door to the office open the other way (into the hallway). It will give the office extra space without really losing anything.

    3) If the spiral staircase is the real entrance to the space (and the straight staircase is for loading/unloading), maybe you should consider making this a ramp instead of stairs. It would make loading easier and might then make the space wheel-chair friendlier.

    4) If you really plan on having 20 or more pinballs, you might want to consider a workshop type area for repairs, etc. If you have 20 machines, there will always be one or two that need some work. Having a place for that would be nice - I don't know what work space area you already have, but even if you have a nice garage workspace, moving machines back and forth would suck.

    5) Is the "hallway" that leads to the home theatre there for sound dampening and/or light shielding? If not, it seems to take up a lot of space. Maybe there is a better way to use this space without losing anything.

    6) Replace spiral staircase with "bat-pole".

    #3 3 years ago

    My only suggestion would be to account for an extra wide door for basement access to make your life easier when moving things. Also, take into account your stairs, and turns/landings, and railing to make things easier on yourself. I also think using sound deadening sheetrock would be a great plus in the home theater area to prevent sound bleed between the areas, assuming there will be simultaneous use.

    #4 3 years ago

    Is there enough room under the straight staircase (at the back end) to put your server there - and free up that server area for other stuff? Or do you already have that space planned for storage or something?

    #5 3 years ago
    Quoted from mbeardsley:

    Wow, wish I could have a space like that.
    Here are a few comments, feel free to ignore them if you don't find them useful...
    1) It's unclear from your diagram if the yellow area around the pool table is a wall or not. If it is a wall, then you don't really have room to play the pinballs in the top row. If it's NOT a wall then people can't play those machines (safely) while someone is playing darts. Why not move the darts to the north of the pool table - for safety sake.
    2) Consider having the door to the office open the other way (into the hallway). It will give the office extra space without really losing anything.
    3) If the spiral staircase is the real entrance to the space (and the straight staircase is for loading/unloading), maybe you should consider making this a ramp instead of stairs. It would make loading easier and might then make the space wheel-chair friendlier.
    4) If you really plan on having 20 or more pinballs, you might want to consider a workshop type area for repairs, etc. If you have 20 machines, there will always be one or two that need some work. Having a place for that would be nice - I don't know what work space area you already have, but even if you have a nice garage workspace, moving machines back and forth would suck.
    5) Is the "hallway" that leads to the home theatre there for sound dampening and/or light shielding? If not, it seems to take up a lot of space. Maybe there is a better way to use this space without losing anything.

    All feedback is welcome

    1) Yellow square is the playing area of the pool table. I actually just threw the darts on there a few minutes ago. North wall makes more sense.
    2) Good call, that door should open out. I may shift it further out too, down the hall.
    3) That many steps is roughly an 11' decrease in elevation. I'll most likely work out a track/sled system with a winch for hauling games up and down.
    4) There is actually a 675 sqft workshop right at the top of the stairs that's over most of the home theater. So I will definitely need the winch.
    5) Hallway is a combination of a couple things. Soundproofing is one, and the other is completely obscuring the home theater entrance. Secret door, with a creepy dungeon hallway. I'm big into theming things and making them more fun than just functional alone.

    6)bat pole would be fun...but also hard to climb back up

    #6 3 years ago
    Quoted from mbeardsley:

    Is there enough room under the straight staircase (at the back end) to put your server there - and free up that server area for other stuff? Or do you already have that space planned for storage or something?

    That actually ends up being a half bath under the stairs. Server room actually needs two racks in a cooled room, with enough room to maneuver the racks.

    #7 3 years ago
    Quoted from Mr_Tantrum:

    My only suggestion would be to account for an extra wide door for basement access to make your life easier when moving things. Also, take into account your stairs, and turns/landings, and railing to make things easier on yourself. I also think using sound deadening sheetrock would be a great plus in the home theater area to prevent sound bleed between the areas, assuming there will be simultaneous use.

    Stairs are 4'6" and all doors are 3' wide. Currently, the widest door in my house is 32", so I could definitely use 36".

    There's going to be a lot of sound deadening in the theater

    #8 3 years ago

    Great space! I would switch the home theatre and the tiki bar area around. Everybody loves to hang around the bar and it would be great to remove the walls and have the bar open to everything else. Then you soundproof the crap out of only one wall and door for the home theatre.

    This would also give you more room for more pinball machines or other cool stuff.

    It looks like it will be amazing whatever you end up with.

    11
    #9 3 years ago

    Here's my unsolicited feedback from building out a basement game room:

    Pool tables take up an enormous amount of space. They are hard to move, expensive to have set up and do require costly maintenance if you use it regularly (new rails, re-felting). If you have a pool table, make sure that radius is clear of all obstructions. Nothing worse than playing pool via "house rules" because the table needs a cheater stick, etc. due to improper clearance. Have space for two spectators chairs on the wall next to cue rack. A small ledge on the wall to sit drinks on will be the best thing you can ever do in the proximity of a pool table. It discourages the inevitable guest (or family member) that sits a drink on the table and ruins the felt. If you love pool, it's a great thing to have. If you want it because it's "cool" or seems to be the thing to have, you will regret it. Buy a good table. I mean an antique Brunswick. Everything else is shit. 9'. 8' in a pinch. Bar tables (7') are like shooting on a postage stamp and 10' are unwieldy and only for really serious players. You can get a really nice antique Brunswick for $2-5K depending on your taste. CL and FB marketplace are your friends.

    No darts with the pool table. Put dart board next to bar. It's a pub game after all. Spend the money on a good commercial electronic dart board, ideally with a computer player like a Valley IQ. Game does the scoring for you. You don't have to have someone else to play/practice. And soft tip only, particularly if you have kids. I'm not a fan of steel-tipped darts. They bounce out and will put a hole in something you value at some point (personal experience here). Buy 4-6 sets of reasonably good darts ($50-70 per set) and have an ample supply of flights, tips, etc.

    I will throw out a wildcard. Shuffleboard. They are huge. But they are absolutely gravitated towards if you have parties. It's an easy game to immediately grasp and takes no real skill to start (but a hell of alot of skill to play well). A close second? Ball bowler. I swear, people who won't touch a pin or arcade will run up to these things.

    I think you have dedicated far too much room for the gym and will regret it down the line. Literally everyone I have ever known who has dedicated gym space stops using it. You may be a dedicated body builder, so your mileage may vary. But a massage table area? That's another pin or seating.

    Lots of seating. Seriously. If you are building this as your Fortress of Solitude, cool. More power to you. But most people like to show off their stuff and/or use it as a social hub. You can NEVER have too much seating. Not enough seating discourages people from camping out and enjoying themselves. A dedicated theater loses extra seating because it is walled off from the rest of the basement. Dedicated movie spaces are a space hog. Multi-use theater spaces are more efficient.

    There you go. Advice you didn't want and probably think is terrible.

    #10 3 years ago

    I used to play pool on a nightly basis and I love pool. I play it every chance that I get. I see the pool tables that go up for sale locally on CL and if I had the space, I'd immediately buy one. That all being said, I have space laid out for a 9' table there and an 18' x 14' area there for around the table.

    I have a electronic soft tip dart board, and it could really go anywhere.

    I have considered shuffleboard as it's a blast to play as well as a bowler and air hockey.

    So there are compromises in this basement. My wife wants a gym and a massage room. We have a friend that's a massage therapist and she'll be over every couple weeks. I bought my wife a table and this space would not go to waste on her. If she can deal with me building this monstrosity of an addition, she deserves a hideaway from me and our 3 boys.

    We already have the gym equipment around the house that gets used, but not efficiently. I do have to look into that space for optimization.

    The bar area is also walled off, but now I'm thinking that it could be quite cool if I could completely open that space up on demand. Give an engineer a solution and he'll find you three more problems.

    #11 3 years ago
    Quoted from Sleepy:

    Great space! I would switch the home theatre and the tiki bar area around. Everybody loves to hang around the bar and it would be great to remove the walls and have the bar open to everything else. Then you soundproof the crap out of only one wall and door for the home theatre.
    This would also give you more room for more pinball machines or other cool stuff.
    It looks like it will be amazing whatever you end up with.

    I had tried to put the home theater over there. The problem is that I have a chunk of existing foundation, which can't be moved, that would cut off the back side of the theater, but it'll be fine for the bar.

    One thing that has helped was oversizing the beams. This reduced the number of columns from 26 to 5. Those 5 can easily be hidden away in walls. W8x24 beams are roughly $24 per foot, so the cost may double for the steel, but it will allow much greater spans. However, the reduction in the number of columns will save me $2000. It's nearly a wash. Lifting the larger beams is a different story. I'm planning on lifting one side with a track loader and the other side with a car jack and stacks of 4x4s. Just a little bit at a time.

    I've tried many different layouts to come up with this one.
    pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png

    #12 3 years ago

    For instant crowd attraction, and sympatico with your creepy hidden theatre entrance, how 'bout a rollaway Tesla coil and steam punk Faraday cage?TeslaCoil-1200x900 (resized).jpgTeslaCoil-1200x900 (resized).jpg Too big? Maybe just a small Van de Graaf generator would do....

    #13 3 years ago

    It feels like you have too much wasted space for hallways.

    Have you tried putting the theater on the north wall (assuming top is north in your drawing). Rotate the room 90 degrees, and it will fit into the corner bump out very well. Then, you can have the door on the east end that would still be hidden.

    Move the massage room and exercise room to the east wall. You'll have closer access to the bathroom this way as well.

    As an off the wall idea--how about a lift platform through the ceiling, directly into the work room above? That would make moving machines up and down a breeze.

    #14 3 years ago
    Quoted from yaksplat:

    Stairs are 4'6" and all doors are 3' wide. Currently, the widest door in my house is 32", so I could definitely use 36".
    There's going to be a lot of sound deadening in the theater

    By the time you're done, you'll never want to see a 5g bucket of Green Glue a 5/8" piece of Type X drywall ever again!

    Quoted from yaksplat:

    That actually ends up being a half bath under the stairs. Server room actually needs two racks in a cooled room, with enough room to maneuver the racks.

    I thought I was bad with a 51U 4-post. What are you putting in there?

    #15 3 years ago

    I wouldn't want my bar area stuck back in the alcove like a closet.

    It's hard to tell if you have a door planned for that area or not, but that would make it even worse. Also the row of pinball machines also further separates the space. Im just more of an open concept guy, i actually built my basement into a multipurpose open room... bar/arcade/theater. Projectors have come a long way... you can light up a large screen in a fairly bright room even. Awesome for sports get togethers or just general having friends over. Movie nights are just a family thing at our house. So if you wanna go full on theater mode, hit the remote to drop the blinds and don't let the kiddos play pinball during the movie. Picture quality of my setup is incredible in dark room mode, and still nice with just the lights off in that area. I couldn't imagine having all separate rooms myself.

    Another thought is, can the gym move to the garage level? maybe add an extra bay for that. Thats where ours is and we really enjoy being able to open up our gym to the outside. I get making the wife happy, but the room dedicated to message table seems like its gonna be a huge regret down the road.

    I know a handful of people who have had spiral staircases and absolutely hated them. FYI.

    #16 3 years ago
    Quoted from djblouw:

    It feels like you have too much wasted space for hallways.
    Have you tried putting the theater on the north wall (assuming top is north in your drawing). Rotate the room 90 degrees, and it will fit into the corner bump out very well. Then, you can have the door on the east end that would still be hidden.
    Move the massage room and exercise room to the east wall. You'll have closer access to the bathroom this way as well.

    I see what you're saying about the hallways. Here's an alternate with the entire middle and right side wide open for anything.
    Bar area opened up and no longer walled off.
    pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png

    Quoted from djblouw:

    As an off the wall idea--how about a lift platform through the ceiling, directly into the work room above? That would make moving machines up and down a breeze.

    Possibly, post inspection

    Quoted from Purdue:

    can the gym move to the garage level?

    Nope, way too cold/hot/humid. Already have 4 bays and they're all accounted for.

    Quoted from Purdue:

    I get making the wife happy, but the room dedicated to message table seems like its gonna be a huge regret down the road.

    It's also her space to do whatever she wants in it. A 12' x12' room isn't that big in a 2500 sqft basement. Worst case, I rip it down and leverage the space differently.

    Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

    I thought I was bad with a 51U 4-post. What are you putting in there?

    Whole house audio, few 4u media servers, a bunch of homelab stuff. It might be a single rack like yours, but for the first time ever, i want to easily access everything and not regret making the space too small.

    Quoted from clodpole:

    Maybe just a small Van de Graaf generator would do....

    We'll see

    #17 3 years ago
    Quoted from yaksplat:

    I see what you're saying about the hallways. Here's an alternate with the entire middle and right side wide open for anything.
    Bar area opened up and no longer walled off.

    Looks better to me.

    In your "I dont know" room, either split it in half and put the server room in there, or you can make it your secret entrance to the move room. Maybe behind a bookcase that opens.

    And the bar is now in more of central area, so anyone that is sitting there isn't cut off from everyone else in the room

    Just be careful with the pins that close to the pool table.

    #18 3 years ago

    Your I don’t know space looks like a great workroom. I know you mentioned having a space identified above the theater (needing a winch) but that sounds like a lot of hassle vs just rolling a game into a room on the same level.

    #19 3 years ago
    Quoted from djblouw:

    you can make it your secret entrance to the move room. Maybe behind a bookcase that opens.

    That's exactly what I'm thinking.

    #20 3 years ago
    Quoted from yaksplat:

    Whole house audio, few 4u media servers, a bunch of homelab stuff.

    Whoa. I want to see those. My media server is 4U with 32 drive bays. I only have 15 of the occupied, but I have 45TB of data. I'd love to know what you're storing over there!

    27
    #21 3 years ago
    Quoted from yaksplat:

    I'm looking for feedback on the arrangement, spacing, etc... What would you add? What would you remove?

    Best I could do.

    pinballroom (resized).jpegpinballroom (resized).jpeg

    #22 3 years ago
    Quoted from ThePinballCo-op:

    Best I could do.
    [quoted image]

    Why so many gaps?

    #23 3 years ago
    Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

    Whoa. I want to see those. My media server is 4U with 32 drive bays. I only have 15 of the occupied, but I have 45TB of data. I'd love to know what you're storing over there!

    A have a couple tenths of a petabyte, but i also backup everything 1 to 1 on a separate backup server. With storage being so cheap I don't mess around with RAID. The rebuild times on 8TB drives are way too long. If something goes bad, I just do a drive swap, pop a new drive in the backup and then run a backup.

    I have A LOT of media

    #24 3 years ago

    Wouldn't you be able to have more pinball AND more room for pool if you combined the two areas? I have played pool in small rooms and it is not fun when the cue bumps against the wall when you are trying to make most shots. I would think that a bigger area with pinball/arcades on the wall and the pool table in the middle would maximize the space for both hobbies.

    Additionally as a logisitics thought, if the budget allows I would ensure there was a paved route to the back steps where you are bringing pins in. Moving pins over uneven hills and/or mud is no fun.

    Also, congrats! I hope you have fun with your new space! Don't forget to decorate your arcade accordingly.

    #25 3 years ago

    Do you have anything with dimensions on it? I'm looking at the theater and can't figure out how big it is.

    #26 3 years ago
    Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

    Do you have anything with dimensions on it? I'm looking at the theater and can't figure out how big it is.

    16' x 23' The drawing with dimensions starts getting cluttered but here's an overall view of the foundation.

    pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png

    #27 3 years ago
    Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:

    Additionally as a logisitics thought, if the budget allows I would ensure there was a paved route to the back steps where you are bringing pins in. Moving pins over uneven hills and/or mud is no fun

    There's actually a garage entrance to the steps or a straight line entrance from outside if a 90º turn isn't possible. Outside there's a sidewalk and flat ground.

    #28 3 years ago

    How big is the server room? I can't get dimensions off the plans.

    #29 3 years ago
    Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

    How big is the server room? I can't get dimensions off the plans.

    7'7" x 5'8"

    #30 3 years ago

    You could always put the server room behind the theater in that space you have labeled as "I don't know". That corner is going to screw with everything in the theater anyway. You might also want to bring the wall in a little and put that support pole in a wall. That way you don't see it in the theater.

    At least that's what I did when I built mine. You can see them in the wall in this picture. You can also kick the wall back from the poles about 4 - 6" and bury them in a column depending on where they fall in the room.

    5a783df045b7e12599ceb6568ae9024b65a811c7 (resized).jpg5a783df045b7e12599ceb6568ae9024b65a811c7 (resized).jpg

    #31 3 years ago

    What are you using to draw up your layout? In the middle of doing my basement and have to say this looks good.

    #32 3 years ago

    I'm attempting to make the hvac as unobtrusive as possible with the theater. I'm going to run the vents parallel through the joists and hit the header outside the theater.

    In PA, are you required to fireproof the engineered joists? I have to in NY. I have three options. Lay rockwool between the joists, Lay drywall between the joists or apply drywall to the webs.

    The new location of the server room is attempting to use this odd space between the gym and a piece of existing foundation that i can't remove.
    pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png

    I think the "I don't know" might turn into the theater lobby/entrance/hidden entrance
    I've always wanted to pull a torch to have a wall open up.

    #33 3 years ago
    Quoted from dung:

    What are you using to draw up your layout? In the middle of doing my basement and have to say this looks good.

    AutoCAD. If you know a teacher or student, you can get an educational license.
    https://www.autodesk.com/education/home

    However, I don't know how the learning curve is, since i was a drafter 23 years ago while i was in school. You might be better off learning SketchUp. From what I've heard, the learning curve isn't bad. However, you can also get a copy of Revit from AutoDesk under the educational license. This will let you do everything in 3D. It's not bad to learn, but going from someone who is fluent in AutoCad to using Revit is extremely difficult. Revit was a company that AutoDesk bought, which is why the drawing process doesn't match how you do things in AutoCad. It's a complete process shift.

    #34 3 years ago
    Quoted from yaksplat:

    You might be better off learning SketchUp.

    I've designed and built many (mostly) rear screen folded light path systems for broadcast TV after getting out of the movie theater installation biz. I used SKP to draw the light path and the rigs to hold projectors and mirrors. The View, Colbert, Dr. OZ, Piers Morgan, Glenn Beck, Seth Myers etc, etc...
    SKP is an amazing tool and indispensable.

    Old View (resized).JPGOld View (resized).JPG
    #35 3 years ago

    First off, beautiful design work. Smart thinking to keep the exercise area, as well as the comfort items for your wife.

    Not sure how much pool (billiards) factors in to your social scene, can’t help but thinking that will be a lot of real estate occupied which you may come to regret. Hate to see that space used up and become an expensive storage table.

    Have you truly factored in adequate space for that number of pins? Seems a bit "packed in" from the CAD.

    Lastly, when do I get to visit?

    #36 3 years ago
    Quoted from Flowst:First off, beautiful design work.

    Thanks!

    Quoted from Flowst:

    Smart thinking to keep the exercise area, as well as the comfort items for your wife.

    I'm glad someone gets the happy wife thing.

    Quoted from Flowst:

    Not sure how much pool (billiards) factors in to your social scene, can’t help but thinking that will be a lot of real estate occupied which you may come to regret. Hate to see that space used up and become an expensive storage table.

    I'm going to buy a used table of FB marketplace of CL. There's so much churn of tables on there. If for some reason I get sick of the table, I'll just end up selling it off and converting the space to more arcade. Since I'm the one that will be doing all of the work, I have no problem ripping down walls or rewiring or anything else.

    Quoted from Flowst:

    Have you truly factored in adequate space for that number of pins? Seems a bit "packed in" from the CAD.

    I'm assuming 30" wide for every pin. All of my current pins are 22" wide at the buttons, so that would leave 8" between pins and about 2" between heads, give or take.

    Quoted from Flowst:

    Lastly, when do I get to visit?

    Well, it's all still dirt in the yard. I have to build the whole house addition above it, before anything happens in the basement. I think it's going to be a year at least to finish the addition. With the speed that permits go, I'll be happy if i have a foundation going in, in early June.

    #37 3 years ago

    Your project looks great, we are all looking forward to seeing pictures of the progress and completion.

    Just for basis of comparison, or why I am chiming in....My house in northwest NJ was built in 2003, but the basement was unfinished. Took me a few years to bankroll my way through the project (doing most of the work myself) and ended up with 1200 sq feet; Lost a lot of room to utilities and fireproof code requirements.

    I tried TurboCad to assist with permits, but gave up quickly in favor of graph paper as I don't possess your talent! Everything looked gigantic and wide open until the drywall went up.

    Original 3 pins grew into 16, and plan to squeeze in more. I struggle with keeping the foosball, skeeball and ping pong tables, but they are popular with the younger audiences during parties.

    I will work on finding pictures (and wont highjack your thread!) to share at some point. Nothing went as smoothly or quickly as I had hoped.

    Hoping your layouts above prove effective in getting that much "fun" into the project. That's a lot of electrical outlets to squeeze in there too!

    - Jim

    #38 3 years ago
    Quoted from Flowst:

    Your project looks great, we are all looking forward to seeing pictures of the progress and completion.
    Just for basis of comparison, or why I am chiming in....My house in northwest NJ was built in 2003, but the basement was unfinished. Took me a few years to bankroll my way through the project (doing most of the work myself) and ended up with 1200 sq feet; Lost a lot of room to utilities and fireproof code requirements.
    I tried TurboCad to assist with permits, but gave up quickly in favor of graph paper as I don't possess your talent! Everything looked gigantic and wide open until the drywall went up.
    Original 3 pins grew into 16, and plan to squeeze in more. I struggle with keeping the foosball, skeeball and ping pong tables, but they are popular with the younger audiences during parties.
    I will work on finding pictures (and wont highjack your thread!) to share at some point. Nothing went as smoothly or quickly as I had hoped.
    Hoping your layouts above prove effective in getting that much "fun" into the project. That's a lot of electrical outlets to squeeze in there too!
    - Jim

    Thanks! I have no disillusions on how much effort this project will take. My goal is to just get the addition dried in by the end of august. I figure that I'll iterate through a bunch of different types of machines. I have a crane and some pachinko machines that I'll end up putting in there. I figure it'll be in a permanent state of flux. It's funny that you mention the perceived size. Back when I was building houses I noticed something as well.

    When you first see the poured foundation, you think, wow, that's tiny.
    When all of the lumber is up and the house is closed in, you think, wow, this is huge.
    When the drywall goes up, you go back to, wow, this is tiny.
    When you start filling the rooms with things, you once again return to, this is huge.

    It's all a matter of perspective. My design of the house laid out in the yard with stakes and paint looks tiny, but I know I'm just seeing it in comparison to the huge yard.

    #39 3 years ago

    Make sure to plan enough outlets (and circuits) for the games. About 4-5 games per circuit. When I designed my basement, I planned on 4 pinball machines and ended up with 20+. Now I have too many surgeprotectors / extension cords. This includes outlets on walls for things that plug in like lit translite frames, neon beer signs, etc., TVs on the walls (cords running up the walls look ugly). I also ran speakers in the ceiling and associated wires with volume controllers on the walls (but lots of blue tooth options now exist). LED lighting can be used to great effect around the machines, walls, etc. I would also consider some other games other than pinball for guests - a multicade, 4 player pac man, pong, skeeball, are all more popular with 90% of my visitors than one more pinball machine

    #40 3 years ago

    Also laying out potential walls with painters tape on the floor and then game arrangements can really help.

    Room Arranger allows you do 3D room layouts and walkthroughs. I have been involved with different projects using that.

    #41 3 years ago
    Quoted from PrinzFred:

    Also laying out potential walls with painters tape on the floor and then game arrangements can really help.
    Room Arranger allows you do 3D room layouts and walkthroughs. I have been involved with different projects using that.

    Painters tape helped me greatly, definitely agree with this above. ^^^

    PrinzFred is spot on about the electric planning. Make sure you have a solid electrician working your electric. I tried the "friend of a friend" at first, and that was a bust obviously. Brought in pros thereafter, they work fast and solve other underlying issues. Worth every penny.

    Based on your layouts, you are going to have some amazing parties; Quite a bit of electricity running all at once too. Just wait until you have a beer in hand, and see everything lit up like a Vegas casino, the amazing sense of pride will hit you. The second electric panel with plenty of AFCI's will make life easy.

    #42 3 years ago
    Quoted from yaksplat:

    I see what you're saying about the hallways. Here's an alternate with the entire middle and right side wide open for anything.
    Bar area opened up and no longer walled off.
    [quoted image]

    Possibly, post inspection

    Nope, way too cold/hot/humid. Already have 4 bays and they're all accounted for.

    It's also her space to do whatever she wants in it. A 12' x12' room isn't that big in a 2500 sqft basement. Worst case, I rip it down and leverage the space differently.

    Whole house audio, few 4u media servers, a bunch of homelab stuff. It might be a single rack like yours, but for the first time ever, i want to easily access everything and not regret making the space too small.

    We'll see

    Looks like you're proceeding nicely.

    I think that you may want to look at the layout again and really go through how the room would be used. Imagine sitting at your bar and wanting to see a big TV or projection screen. Or how the traffic flows on the layout. I would put the pool table in the middle and move the pins to the walls. Remember, you need space around the table and that can double as traffic flow. Try a layout with the pins/vids/shuffle/bowler against the walls.

    #43 3 years ago
    Quoted from robotron911:

    Looks like you're proceeding nicely.
    I think that you may want to look at the layout again and really go through how the room would be used. Imagine sitting at your bar and wanting to see a big TV or projection screen. Or how the traffic flows on the layout. I would put the pool table in the middle and move the pins to the walls. Remember, you need space around the table and that can double as traffic flow. Try a layout with the pins/vids/shuffle/bowler against the walls.

    The pool table makes things tricky due to the space requirement. But that could very well work...

    pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png
    #44 3 years ago
    Quoted from yaksplat:

    The pool table makes things tricky due to the space requirement. But that could very well work

    I thought the same about doubling up the pool table area as circulation. If I had the space I’d try to squeeze the rooms to the sides and have pins and the pool table down the middle. The gym could be a room or just the space at the end of the row, or it could be adjacent to the bar either separated or combined. If not divided you can rearrange depending on how you use the spaces. You could also divide between the open bar and the pins as much or as little as you want...

    6442455A-F9CC-4C09-AD18-274017C57904 (resized).jpeg6442455A-F9CC-4C09-AD18-274017C57904 (resized).jpegBD0BE9D1-8286-4B60-A453-5BAB4A819DDA (resized).jpegBD0BE9D1-8286-4B60-A453-5BAB4A819DDA (resized).jpegEE7F7900-B48B-4BF4-B398-507C13E12426 (resized).jpegEE7F7900-B48B-4BF4-B398-507C13E12426 (resized).jpeg
    1 month later
    #45 2 years ago

    The construction, or should I say, destruction is underway. I set up a camera to take a pic every 30 seconds in the backyard.

    #46 2 years ago
    Quoted from Pindulgant:

    I thought the same about doubling up the pool table area as circulation. If I had the space I’d try to squeeze the rooms to the sides and have pins and the pool table down the middle. The gym could be a room or just the space at the end of the row, or it could be adjacent to the bar either separated or combined. If not divided you can rearrange depending on how you use the spaces. You could also divide between the open bar and the pins as much or as little as you want...
    [quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

    My vote is for the third layout.

    #47 2 years ago
    Quoted from Pindulgant:

    I thought the same about doubling up the pool table area as circulation. If I had the space I’d try to squeeze the rooms to the sides and have pins and the pool table down the middle. The gym could be a room or just the space at the end of the row, or it could be adjacent to the bar either separated or combined. If not divided you can rearrange depending on how you use the spaces. You could also divide between the open bar and the pins as much or as little as you want...
    [quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

    I like #3.

    #48 2 years ago

    Was I the only one eyeballing the lumber from the deck?

    #49 2 years ago
    Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

    Was I the only one eyeballing the lumber from the deck?

    The decking was shot. 27 years old. 3 spiral nails per joist with half of the joists spaced at 8" for a hot tub that the previous owner had. I couldn't give it away. I kept the 2x10's though. They were in decent shape.

    #50 2 years ago

    Where is the bathroom?

    A nearby bathroom is crucial imo.

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