Well, the time has come. I have too many machines. They are too loud in the house. Something has to give. I had two options:
1) Sell them all. Get out of the business. Move on.
2) Move all the machines into an upstairs bedroom.
3) Start an arcade business! BUY MORE MACHINES. Everyone WINS!
4) Convert a single car garage bay into a 14 x 19 ft Arcade Room!
1 is a terrible idea. Choosing this one is called giving up on life.
2 is also a terrible idea. I would lose a room currently being used, and then theres moving machines upstairs, which is horrible.
3 is such a good idea, but I'm incredibly lazy. So maybe not so good.
4 is maybe expensive, but who cares, I can't take it with me!
So, I planned out about a 13.5 x 18x5 room in Sketchup first, complete with the fixtures that are already there (garage door, water heater, etc):
That looked pretty good, maybe a little tight, so let's throw the room together:
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Ok, so that all looks good. More than good. This looks like my little slice of heaven. Plenty of room for pins, plenty of room for my arcades. A place to hide when my wife or kids are going crazy. I can lock the door from the inside even. Everything sounds magical about this.
NOTE: This is where I usually stop my daydreaming. But, I have a real problem. Too many pins, my house can fit 4, I have 6 keepers. So. SOMETHING is going to happen. Remember the 4 options above?! Welp, Here we go..
So, I had a GC buddy of mine swing by and estimate building the wall, running some Electrical, and doing a Mr. Slim Mitsubishi Mini Split. The price came in under a newer Stern pin, so.. WHY NOT!
Well, I'll tell you why not. Cleaning out a garage is a royal PITA. So much old sh1t lying around. Had to go clean all that stuff out. Here's the before picture of the garage (mostly) cleaned out. It was too embarassing to take pictures before I did this. Remember, these pics were taken AFTER we removed the 3pins, one arcade game, work bench, cabinets, and other random crap that noone actually needs to own.
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So, we pulled the trigger. Framers are here. More details to follow as they come.