edited on 12/17

Some of my favorite discussions on Pinside are the ones about home game rooms (especially the Lets See Pics of your Game Room thread). I enjoy seeing what people have and like to get ideas for myself.

Finally this summer, it was time for me to get mine. Currently my game room is in the basement. Decent size, but has space wasters such as a full set of steps in the middle, furnace, hot water tank, oil tank, washer & drier, well water pump, etc. Low ceilings, cement floors, very few outlets, underpowered outlets, support columns, etc. Well all is about to change.

They started this week with the excavation. We are adding a mudroom to the house which will connect to the garage. House is higher than the driveway, so its 8 steps down and 5 steps up to the second floor which is the new game room. Steps are in the mudroom to maximize floor space in the room. I'll have a small 1/2 bath and a small kitchenette in the front corner. The rest is open space for games (no support columns). 28' x 36' with 8' walls and 15' cathedral ceiling..... Big Guns will fit with no issues (if I ever decide to get a Big Guns) Power outlets up the wazou including the walls and the floor (for islands of games), reinforced floor so the weight won't be an issue, and heating and cooling for the temp changes of New England.

I'll post progress pics as the construction moves along. Estimated completion date is early December.

before it started (I did start the demo on the shed):

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Ripping up the driveway

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Digging for the foundation walls :

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garage is four feet less (house is 40x28 and the garage is 28x36)...however the house has the angled roof on the 2nd floor that cuts away from space where as the garage doesn't....plus the mudroom.

footing was added yesterday

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Exactly.....there will be benches to take off shoes, coat hangers, baskets for hats and gloves, etc.

Right now everyone walks right into the kitchen.....no place to put shoes or jackets, so it gets wet and dirty fast.

Frames for the concrete walls went up yesterday (they were working on them this morning at 7am too). Won't be many more updates for a while because they are going to be taking a break til late Oct to start on framing (working on another project somewhere else for the next few weeks)

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its not....probably 8 from the driveway to be on the house and mud room level, then another 5 to get to the second floor.....kind of like a split level house. The driveway is lower than the first floor but higher than the basement floor, so its not a full set of steps up.

no heated floors......the budget was way beyond what we wanted to do

We will have a gas furnace with forced hot air and an ac unit for those hot summer days.

Wall forms are off....back filling starts this week

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Not anymore...... will be either a 36" doorway or 48" into the gameroom....plus no more crazy 90 degree turn to avoid the deck steps or the corner of the metal bulkhead doors (aka the Sideart Slayer).

well they filled in the trenches and added the gravel (and dug out where the columns will be). Slab will be poured next week. Not very exciting right now......framing will start in a couple weeks.

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poured the slab yesterday morning........ a little more excavation and then framing in a couple weeks

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It had dried before I got home to write in it

Well they starting framing....here's some photos from yesterday's construction

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The mudroom is the space between the garage and the house......there will be steps going up (8 risers) from the garage floor, then from the mudroom to the game room there are 5 risers.

unfortunately rain has arrived in NH, which slowed down yesterday and cancelled today and tomorrow

However the sub floor is in and half of the exterior walls upstairs..... crane for the roof is coming next Wed

Last two pics are from the kitchen door which will soon lead to the mudroom

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Bite your tongue

I saw there were a few accidents between exits 3 and 1.......they had cleared when I went by but still heavy traffic leftover. For a brand new highway, the drainage needs some work

They are going to box it in with heavy insulation, and all of the hot air ducts will run under there as well. There are no windows downstairs either and the furnace will be running, so it won't be too cold to start with. I went with carpet upstairs instead of tile to add a little warmth too.

Here's progress pics from the end of last week 10/24

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What it looks like as of this morning 10/29

Starting to take shape

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Might have to angle them a little, but it should get 4 in there....though the back half will be storage (wood pellets), workbench, furnace, etc

there's a ton of width so the cars wont come close (plus we will never back in)...however I would like to paint them with a fun color.

Those are being saved for the walls upstairs

Art...check (got over 100 pieces waiting to hang up...all arcade related)
Refreshment area...check (will be a kitchenette and a small table in front of that window)
Big screen....check (just had a thread about tv vs projector....going with a big tv in a designated area)

basically 1/2 the room is pins and games, while the front half is the tv area, kitchen, bathroom, pool table , dome hockey, and bowling alley (and the "poker room")

Might have a few more pics this week, but next week the inside starts so there will be more activity

Not right away but in the plans.

Well its vaulted, so I'll have a pair of ceiling fans to spin that hot air around. Those fans will have black lights in them. For the rest of the ceiling, nothing planned. I don't want to make it too junky with hanging stuff. I may have them install a pair of brackets to hold the rear theatre speakers in the tv area, but thats it.

Ask and you shall get....this is in the basement right now in the "old" arcade

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Nope....built it from scratch.....real Brunswick alley (seconds) and real pins

No, would be an extra $3-4k so that got scrapped

was a little over a $1000 ......... I got the alley boards from a fellow pinball collector friend (however Lumber Liquidators has cheap flooring that would work too). They were seconds as the manufacturer drilled them wrong (can't use in a real alley but perfect for mine). The pins are $1.50 each at the local bowling center. Can of white plastic spray paint ($5) and some red electricians tape ($2) made them like new. Double florescent light fixture in front of the pins ($20 bucks), and a few hundred in lumber. The ball return is 6" pvc sewer pipe (over $100 total for that). The AMF pindicator and dot matrix bar were not needed but didn't cost that much (both off ebay cheap). Some rope ($10), pulleys ($20), vinyl kickboard (for the gutters) ($15), and a pair of recycled rubber mats for the sides ($20), and BOOM..... homemade alley

Take away the pindicator, dot matrix screen, and the pvc pipe ball return (I did that because it crosses over under the alley due to the water pump and support column), and it was not much at all.

I had some candlepin alley plans that a company sent me....the rest was just figuring out how it would be done. I based it on skeeball, so the alley is around 12" high (whatever the exact skeeball height is) and the player stands on the ground and bowls like skeeball. The string pinsetter is based on european and western asian bowling lanes....also similar to Pro Striker machines in arcades. The ball return is gravity fed...the ball pit is angled to the side and the balls run down on a track consisting of two 1/2" diameter pvc pipes until it goes into the 6" diameter pipe. Right now the AMF Pindicator is nothing more than lit up for show.....I have ideas on how to individually light each pin based on the standing ones, but haven't bothered to try it yet. The string to reset the pins will get replaced with cable....the string was the prototype to test and I never changed it out.

Video of it in action.... the strings in front will eventually be cleaned up and hidden from view above as having it hang looks like crap (but it works)

view from the side door....I made a side door in case we want to play without the strings...they unhook and I have another set without the eyehooks. The door makes it easy to set them up.

Weekend pics.......roof is done too (can't see it in the pictures). When I went outside this morning at 7, there was the team of builders (5 of them), plumbers (2), electricians (2), and gas company (1). Bathroom is being built now as well as the kitchenette. We walked through the game room and planned out all of the outlets

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only 5 steps up and an extra wide doorway.... having a moving company take care of the basement to garage game parade

there's only 5 steps from the second floor to the house main floor....the driveway is way lower than the house. The path from the driveway to the front door may/may not have any steps (haven't decided landscaping yet). Will be a couple to get into the house though, but I think its only three (depends on landscaping there too).

Ed, I get tired just looking at your steps

Anyone have any ideas for wiring multiple TV's in the room? I have a cable box in the main tv area, which will have HDMI output. If I want to send that to three tv's, whats the best way? There's regular coax to the other two tv's (the main tv is next to the box so it will get the usual HDMI cable). One tv is a good 50' of wire away, the other about 40+' away. I thought about hdmi to coax, but its hard to find much for that. I see HDMI to cat5 and back, which seems promising. Some converters (extenders) have two cat 5's, some say you only need one. Keep in mind I couldn't care less about quality and sound from the other two tv's, just the main (which should be fine because its the short hdmi cable)

Extra boxes is not an option.....I pay so much to Comcast, these extra TVs might be used a couple times a month at most....not worth the $24 extra/mo.

That just got done. Going with a single cat 6 (instead of the dual 5's). Can't wait til the sheetrock is up. Hopefully I will snap some pics tomorrow morning......with the time change, its dark before I get home and I forget to go out before they all show up at 6:45

OK, I forgot I had a few pics at night..... not the greatest, but shows some progress on the bathroom (kitchenette is the outside of the wall...they are back to back)

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They weren't the cheapest but not the most expensive...highly rated and a pleasure to work with. They are wicked efficient. I blink and BOOM!....HVAC is installed with the furnace

We are looking at about 60' of line to one tv and about 45 to the other

few more pics of the progress..... rough electrical is in, plumbing, cable, cat 6, hvac, I've got steps now, some siding, and the farmers porch is in progress. Windows and doors are up too. Visually its no longer exciting, but we are less than 4 weeks away from completion

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I've had a half dozen people IM me about the cost....I don't mind saying it.

When the project is all said and done... $160k.

Now before you say WTF....keep in mind that there was a ton of extras added to the project beyond the garage that added up

we had all of the doors and windows replaced in the house
we had the oil pipes/lines and some outdoor water faucets moved outside of the house
we added the mudroom
we added a big deck in the back
we added a farmers porch in the front
we upgraded all the windows, doors and storm doors from the basic model they were going to get
electrical upgrades beyond belief
we had the floor made to hold all the weight
we requested 8' walls upstairs so the games cleared everywhere
vaulted ceilings in the garage and mudroom
repairs to the house in the back from last years ice
landscaping of the front year
removal of old shed and many trees

Remove all that extra stuff and the garage wasn't very costly

We did get pretty much exactly what we wanted.....plus the house stuff needed to be done (the windows were original to the house from 1985). Saving on heat will offset the cost. I could have gone smaller, but then what good is a new game room that can't hold everything. The plan is to retire in this house, so we have a few decades left to enjoy it before that happens.

the front of the game room is mostly a tv area and some open floor space...plenty of room for a cot

final layout (outlets are yellow dots, tv's are purple dots). The yellow dots in the middle are floor outlets (quad). I have five running down the center and one in the TV area for the kids to plug in crap or people to plug in electronics without tripping on cords

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They are not cut out yet...electrician was there this morning so they might be there when I get home. Wiring below is ready but he was waiting til the ceiling guys finished before putting bigger holes in the floor

Insulation up (minus ceiling)

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with ceiling insulation...outside is done too

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sheet rock this morning and the back deck is almost complete...we also have power in the bathroom

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I'm starting to get like my kids at Xmas.... can't wait. We picked out the tile flooring and carpet. We had wall colors but changed the flooring colors so back to picking wall colors. Lighting, kitchen and bath fixures, are all set. Cat 6 and coax in the walls, speaker wire in the walls. Booking the movers later today to haul the 6000 lbs worth of games up the steps to their new home

The official answer is.... too much

Dec 3rd is hopefully move in day.....with numerous parties scheduled shortly after

Thanks..... I did this thread because I love looking at everyone else's game rooms. Same games inside but so many different ideas and themes. My wife rolls her eyes everytime we have to spend a little bit more...she's been supportive of this (especially after we get our first snow storm and her car is dry inside). She does not support the Vanilla Ice themed 'Ice Ice Bathroom'... but I stood firm on that

here's a few more with the first round of mudding.... its slowing down since its now the detail work.

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all painted and the tile floors are in.... kitchenette and lighting is going in now (hopefully will have more pics tomorrow). Did a light green to brighten up the room, a light gray for the mudroom, and a blue arctic ice for the Vanilla Ice inspired Ice Ice Bathroom

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Ceiling is staying white

It sure does... Matt can come by and dump on Monday (thats when the toilet gets hooked up)

Whats wrong with a light green?....makes the room look bigger and brightens it up.

Plus with all the crap I have to hang on the walls, you will hardly see it
Movie posters based on games, animation cels from video game cartoons (like Saturday Supercade), arcade marquees, pinball translites, playfields, frames of pinball key fobs, old Atari cartridge boxes of games that were in arcades (like Pacman, DK, Frogger, etc) as well as a ton of pinball game boxes.....its going to be an art museum up there

I wanted some color pop, but not a crazy bright color (like orange or purple). This also had to get the approval of the boss (wife) since the color can be seen from her mudroom. She also picked the color of the carpeting because the steps are getting it which also are within her mudroom. She had no say in the Ice Ice Bathroom...that has to keep with the theme. Was going to do all white but liked the look of the ice blue

When all the tv's are on with sports, it will become manly

Getting so close to finished.... going to have Thanksgiving dinner up there (after we clear it out and clean it). Carpet won't be installed til next week, so any mess on the floor is fine

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I will when I don't have to clean off my car from this snowstorm today

LOL, her side can be the "workshop"

Plumbing is finishing up today, carpet tomorrow, then the final electrical is Wed (they just need to finish the floor outlets that needed the carpet installed to level). Movers are coming Wed morning to get all the games up. Spent the weekend hanging 100's of arcade items to the walls....the green is disappearing. Pictures tonight. The Ice Ice Bathroom will be operational when I get home.

Carpet going in now... started to hang some wall crap (lots of it).... need to adjust and straighten it all out once its all up

Movers come tomorrow

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I'll get some good closeups once everything is done
Here's a brief summary of what's up so far

picture 1 shows the pinball promo posters and some framed fobs (also some Tron stuff like movie posters)

picture 2 shows the Dragon's Lair/Space Ace corner with posters, marquees, and animation cels from the cartoon shows. The far right wall is where the tv area will be and the posters are of arcade themed movies (Joysticks, The Wizard, Wreck It Ralph, Super Mario Bros, SF2, etc)

picture 3 shows the pinball translites and playfields with some rows of arcade marquees

I hated putting holes in the wall.....they were so smooth, clean, and freshly painted. But I've been saving this crap for years to one day hang up. Of course I have way too much so some things will be cut and go into the kids playroom instead

yes, there are floor outlets to have an island of pins. The wall to the left of the door as you walk in will have a few games too. the big wall will be where the bowling alley goes

Here's the aftermath of the movers....will get the legs on and arrange them over the next couple days. Also have to finish hanging more crap on the walls

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I'll take a pic tonight. They are metal quad boxes that have screw on covers for the outlets when not in use.

I have a team coming tomorrow to get everything assembled and leveled (bowling alley will take a couple weeks to move up there)

well 5 of us stayed up til 1am to work on setting these up......they have not been leveled yet, but we'll tackle that the next week or two. These still are not final as I still have some things to finish, but its close

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I don't have a Pinball Circus

WTF Matt...that was going to be later on

Ice Ice Bathroom pics (now that Matt spoiled it) The walls are arctic blue with white fixtures for that ice feel

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LOL, forgot that was there!
So when are you building the M.C. Hammer bathroom in your game room?

I am part of a bad movie crew group that watches the best of the worst movies ever made....Cool as Ice is one of them. I wanted to make the bathroom have a bad movie theme and ended up just going with V Ice

I should have more pics up tomorrow......I have most of the wall art up and the tv's are all hooked up. Figure its a good spot to do pics before the final push to complete the room (basically move the bowling alley up there)

With the exception of the bowling alley (which the top lane is leaning against the wall), the game room is done. There are a few spots on the walls where I need to hang a few more things (couple shelves on order for the kitchenette, electronic dart board, and a few frames that went missing in the turmoil), but other than that, I am up and running Now I need to level the games and fix the DMD on SMB that went out (swapped with a working one but its still out)

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bunch more

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another four pack

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final ones for now

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I said that last night when we had a game night..... should have gone bigger

Couldn't have a game room without one of those hanging

Yes it was real time.... broke ground on 9/18 and completed moving the games up on 12/3 (just in time to go on vacation for a week and not be able to use the room)

That's why I didn't say anything til we came back... plus we had relatives stay at the house

yes it is..... and an old Wizard of Wor medal.....wish I had a copy of the pics that got sent in too

Long story short......was modified as a joke, but everyone seems to like it so its been like that for about 4 months now