Thought I would use the thread where I was asking for advice to give you all updates on the "Pinball Loft Arcade" build!
If interested, stay tuned here for updates and links to my blog on the progress we are making.
Below are questions I was asking a few months ago - but now we are well underway on the build so skip the first post and find out what's been done!

Lots of work but going to be worth it
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After spending almost 2 years in a temporary house that was already sitting on our ranch property, we are finally beginning our build of the new house
It will not have a basement for various reasons so I was left to decide to spend significantly more to add my 1,500 sq/ft gameroom as a grade level part of the house OR ... Simply build it above the (large) garage that will already be there.
So, above the garage it is.

Attached is layout and drawings of the space:
- 48 feet wide by about 31 feet deep
- Drawing shows 40 games now - spaced about 6" to 8" apart - could probably squeeze as many as 45 games in there in a pinch
- (I know they look close together but each PB sample is drawn at a 36" x 60" scale so the examples are larger that a real PB)
- I will build a small workshop/parts closet in the corner
- No restroom (dowstairs right at bottom of stairs if needed)
- Dormer will be 48" wide and will go out to the back of the house onto a shallow deck
- One thought is to use one corner of that deck with a DIY lift (winch/unistrut/platform)
- Another thought is to use a version of JoeGrenuk and his "pinball escalator" (tow it up the stairs!)

See Joes awesome work here

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-many-pins-upstairs#post-1862961

My plans so far:
- Ambient, color changing lighting that will be indirect (I have a complete HUE set) in nature - dedicated switch
- Bright work lighting that will be very direct (to work on games)- dedicated switch
- 9 dedicated 20 amp runs so I can run 5 games per circuit
- Individual "Etekcity" type electrical remotes so each game can be remotely and independently controlled
- Physical disconnect box so I can pull that lever and completely decouple the games from the electrical grid in the home (lighting)

To make certain "the floor will hold the weight" my builder will employ a structural engineer
I'm using this math:
- 45 pinballs and 20 people above garage
- 45 x 250lbs each = 11,250lbs
- 20 people x 175 lbs = 3,500lbs
- Pinballs will be distributed (see image) about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3rd in the room with 2/3rds of them along supporting exterior walls

In prep for all this, I have a series of questions:
1. How do you get games up there? Alone?
2. Any conveniences that are a "must have" in your gameroom?
3. Fooring preference when your upstairs? Does it matter?
4. Lighting recommendations? Placement, type, etc.
5. How do you deal with the windows with games in front of them? Blackout? Leave as is?
6. Paint color schemes (oh boy ... can of worms here!) Light (why?) Dark (why?) Other ...
7. Electric remote controls you are in love with (Etekcity seems to work well but I'm open to others)
8. Anyone using a physical electrical disconnect? (needs to disconnect and create a minimum 2" gap between contacts)

And, of course, I welcome any and all thoughts/opinions/warnings/considerations
Thx guys

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We started here ... cutting the hilltop on our 40+ acre ranch to pour footers on our new home
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I got inspiration from you all on Pinside and from rotordave who was kind enough to offer advice and blueprints of his designs
These are some of the images from "Show us your gameroom" thread that inspired me

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We are here now after 5 months. Started in October of 2018

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Now onto the juicy stuff ... the Pinball Loft Gameroom!
Here we see the crane lifting the (over 40 feet long) trusses that are engineered to hold the weight of 50 pinball machines +25 people
The laminated beams they rest on are enormous and had to be lifted by crane also
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Here's a Youtube video of one of the trusses being set. The engineering to put that many games on a second story over a 5 bay garage required MANY more of them than normal and spacing closer as well

Now fast forward a bit to framing is completed, roof deck is on, roofing is done and it's my turn to step in
I did all of the wiring in the room except for setting the panel.
I wrote the electrical diagram on a 3x5 card, then created a more accurate one in Excel
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When you run LEDs almost 200 feet, everything changes ... I have ordered test parts and amplifiers to get ready to the final install
I'll report back on this later - I added 6 dedicated outlets at ceiling height to accomodate this

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Finally! A picture of the room. It's at night because that's the time I was mostly over there after work laying in over 1,000 feet of 12/2, 14/2 and 14/3 wiring
Some of these images show outlet placement and dressing. Note the dedicated dual 4 gang switch boxes (all the yellow wires!). These switches run to 8 total dedicated 20 amp circuits with each handling around 6 or 7 machines in total. I can turn the "room on" in banks of 6/7 machines at a time or flip all 8 switches at once to light the whole room up. Running dedicated circuits adds tons of time and much more wire of course because EACH circuit is a "home run" back to the panel and each circuit "only" handles about 3 outlets.
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Room is prepped to receive sheetrock. Floor covered in tar paper and all insulation is in
They insulated the entire house in ONE day!
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Sheetrock arrived last week and in a day and a half (max) the entire 1,900+ sq/ft was done!
The area above the garage is about 48 x 40 deep or so, this includes two small storage areas at the back at about 6' wide by 20' long
So ... the Pinball portion is about 45 x 34 or around 1,500 sq/ft
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Short video of them stuffing the sheetrock into the house!

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Sheetrock is all up and waiting to be finished. In the meantime, here are some more design details:

I've had to start planning my title layouts - widebody vs standard and head heights, etc.
Plus ... decide what games should be "featured" as you enter the room

So ... about a month ago, I was searching for "life size action figures" and stumbled on Spidey here
He is just shy of 8 feet tall and will be one of the first things you see when you enter the room - right next to the SMVE!

Also found a nice condition Rock-ola 488 and filled it with hits from 70s and 80s - that goes in the corner

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Some more loft design details to share:

First, the height of the lower part of the garage is 9' + so ... that and the fact that the Pinball room is also 9' high and combined this drove the overall stairwell ceiling deck height waaaay up there. It was so high up we wondered how we would change light bulbs.

Then it dawned on us. Why not cut that ceiling height down, add a sleeping loft - like built in bunk beds?
Folks can climb up there and sip a glass of wine and chat while others play PB or we can use it as a spare bunk when the house is full!

So that's what we did - it's interesting that I named the Pinball room the "Loft" before the idea was even hatched - funny how things work out

Here's an image of the inspiration. Of course, it wont have the bottom bunk, just the upper
I built in switches in the upper to shut off lights once you're up there
I added outlets to charge your phone/tablets
I added 3 total mini can lights and will probably run some HUE RGBW bulbs in there
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Now the picture of how it looks all sheetrocked in. If you bunk in there, you'll find just enough room to sleep toe to toe (it's 11+ feet long) as long as you're not super tall. The bunk area is about 45" deep so you "could sleep" side by side but will need to know each other really well
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Electrical details:

First we have the switch boxes for the 8 dedicated 20 amp circuits that will power the machines
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Now the main supply panel ... 200 amps to run all the machines, lighting, fans, a fridge and the dedicated/zoned HVAC system to keep everyone cool
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Main "light switch" box as you enter - gives control to everything at entry

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Finishes. Probably the hardest thing for any of us to choose, right?
Originally, the PB room was supposed to be left "out of scope" and out of the budget. I would finish it alone and later

That did not happen.
Thank goodness

So as we slowly came to the conclusion that it WOULD get completed as the house was done, we needed to shift our thinking
I was originally going to use the raw Advantech OSB flooring and just paint it - but with Pinballs and such, I abandoned that approach
The reason was that I began to find very affordable flooring

Sams Club specifically has 14MM laminate flooring WITH foam backer "pre-installed" on each piece for about $1.79 Sq/Ft.
So I picked a color (Driftwood) and picked it up - the picture is just one pallet because each weighs about 2,000lbs.
I needed exactly 2 pallets or 132 boxes - too much weight and too big for one load!

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Now onto a complimentary paint color and boom - Natural Linen is a nice neutral match AND ... as you know, you won't see much of it in the room to due to the heights of the games

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Pics of completed sheetrock install. Still needs mud and finishing work but all the sheets are up!

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Supplies for the LED perimeter lighting.

This will be around 200' of 10MM 5050 LED lights at 4 watts per foot power consumption
To reduce voltage drop and make certain the brightness is even, I'll need to run parallel runs of 32 feet each AND, importantly, I'm using 24 volt stuff. More expensive than 12 volt but necessary.

The LED strip will be mounted about 5" down from the ceiling and in many cases will be the sole light supply while in the room playing games. I've installed a smaller version of this at my previous home and that is how we used the room 90% of the time. As you can see from my previous posts, I've got plenty of regular lighting when it's needed for working on games, etc. (over 20 can lights in the ceiling)

I'll be using 2 of these silver "Meanwell 600 watt" power supplies, 4 of the RF receivers and about a dozen reels of the 24 volt LED strips.
Each PS will drive a little under a hundred feet of LED lights or about 375 watts - well within the tolerances of the PS
All of the RF receivers will be linked and will receive signals from a wall mounted RF transmitter (not pictured)

Thinking of using MDF as my wall mounted molding to hold it all - we'll see.
Plan would be to rip 4" sections from an 8' sheet and use my router to create a 10MM mounting channel. If I go this route, there would be no need to first add a nailer strip like you do when you install crown for this application. Plus the squared off look of the MDF is more appropriate to the room as I do not have/want crown molding anywhere in the house

Details and testing to follow ...
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Great comments all around:

1) Yes, I plan on adding the UV inhibiting (nearly 100% reduction) film to all windows
2) You guessed it, the windows ARE my expansion space (and the main floor has room for 6+ more)
3) Last space was also a very light wall tone, with white ceiling. Worked out great there. The floor was medium/dark Acacia hardwoood

All comments and suggestions are appreciated!
Now is the time to get this right

Great idea. I'll get with my electrician as they start to make the panel up

Happy Easter everyone! Because it's Easter, I did not get too much done on the build today BUT accomplished at least one critical thing

I had been searching for the perfect barnboards to install on the face of the sleeping loft in the Pinball room

The Home Depot "barnboards in a box" was nice but felt like it might look like a million other homes when done

I really needed 1/2" stock as well because that it how I set the relief on my electrical boxes when I installed them

Then it hit me that cedar fence pickets were 1/2" and cheap and pretty good looking too.

So I checked to see if Home Depot had any that were not pressure treated - boom - they did!

for about $1 per square foot they have #1 grade Incense Cedar fence pickets. They are 6 feet long and to use them for wall decor, you just need to trim the dog ears off to make the ends square.

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Only problem? NOT kiln dried. In fact, opposite - super, soaking, dripping with water - wet!

So I dropped them in a pile in the pole barn until (today) I could get to them to stack for air drying

Got 'em loaded in the 4 wheeler and off to the barn shed area that we use for hay storage for the horses - I'm temporarily hijacking the back part
Stacked them up with some 2x4 on end between and added a fan
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Look at some of the grain and colors in this wood - it's going to be awesome!
Skip saw marks in the wood - rough marks, knots and all!
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Great question ... actually looking for suggestions. I'm inclined to stain but only lightly and then seal with a mat finish sealer

See previous posts for floor coloring - any help appreciated

Thanks for all that and the images help a ton. Lots to consider there and a variety of options. The gray does help connect to the floor

Escalera. I also have a 12' x 10' deck out the back so "if" I needed to add a lift I could add it later

Spidey is made by Rubies out of NYC. They were a Marvel licensed limited issue item and hard to find "at a reasonable" price. I've seen them at $5,000 and up but I got this one for much less. That single purchase led to the purchase of my SMVE ... such a disease

Keep the thoughts and feedback coming - all is helpful as we finalize the space

First coat of mud on in the Pinball Loft today.

In addition to mudding the Loft, the sheetrock guys also did the following and in only 6 hours AND with just 3 guys:
- They hung the entire ceiling and most of the walls of the 1,900 sq/ft garage below the Pinball loft
- They hung the ceilings of most of the main house (3,500 sq/ft)

Holy moly

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Second coat of mud is on and all the sheetrock in the house is hung as well.

Chris asked me to take a picture of the storage area behind the pinball room. I saw him peaking in there and lingering for a second.
When I took a look, I knew immediately why ... the HVAC unit looks like Iron Man hanging out in there

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Awesome job! Thanks for all the pictures. That looks like what I had in mind and if I build it, I've now got a head start
Thanks again and congrats on finding an effective way to get your games upstairs!

Testing wood moisture levels in the pile today. Looking to get the cedar boards to around 8% or so before I move them into the space once the HVAC is up and running. Trying to get as little shrinkage or swelling as possible. I'll be painting the sheetrock dark brown behind the planks to hide any gaps as well.

Out of 18 boards I tested in total, all were under 10% already except for 2 which were in the 15 range.
For any that remain high when I need them, I'll just set aside as I bought quite a bit extra

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Bought some artwork for the room to go with Iron Man and Spider-Man. Like I need more art
I've got a storage area full of it ready to hang and some new Wonka pieces at the framers - oh well, at least I can pick and choose what to put up

These were very inexpensive and you can still get them at Hobby Lobby. They are lenticular and very well done
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In the "pause time" as I wait for sheetrock to finish, I've been crazy busy on the ranch too
Today, Chris and I put up another 200 feet of 3 bands of electrobraid fencing to cut one of our 3 acre paddocks down to a smaller 1/2 acre area
We have a horse that is in rehab and needs to be contained and kept closer to the barn
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This is a temporary setup so I sleeved the 4x4 posts that support the electrobraid.
When we are done, we can unhook the pins on the terminated ends, slide those 4x4 posts our of the sleeves and insert a "dummy post" that is just the depth of the buried part with a cap on top and put all the parts in the pole barn to deploy later if needed
We got the holes dug, sleeves cemented in, the endclamps on, the 4x4 stringer post fence guides on and electrical connection made in just 2 hours
I just tested it and we are getting north of 7,000 volts - should keep the horses off it
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Lastly Tami and I took a well deserved break just before dinner and walked back along the trail past my shooting range
What a beautiful night at around 75 degrees with a little breeze.
The sun was just beginning to set - what perfect weather

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Amen and no complaints. The ranch work never ends but it’s outdoors and I love it