My home was built in 2000 and had a large unfinished basement with decent ceiling height. In late 2007, after years of putting it off, my wife and I finally decided to turn it into finished living space. We did most of the work ourselves with the assistance of my father-in-law Bob and his huge colection of power tools.
Now, after a year and a half of weekends and evenings, it's about 90% finished. The bathroom is incomplete and there's much more decorating to be done, but it's close enough to be enjoyed and finally looks good enough for me to share some pics with my blog buddies, so here goes.
THE GAME ROOM - This is the main room you enter when coming down the steps. There's a foosball table, an arcade game, some pinball machines, a slot machine, a dartboard and a variety of fun and funky decorations.
We chose a commercial grade vinyl plank for the floor. It's very rustic looking, durable and waterproof. Together with the greenish color on the walls it gives the room a cozy Irish pub vibe that my wife really likes.
THE PINBALL COLLECTION - From left to right we have Black Hole, Haunted House, Sorcerer and Dungeons & Dragons.
THE ARCADE GAME - This is my MAME cabinet custom built for me by Dream Authentics. It's a full size arcade machine packed with over 70,000 roms (games). Yes, that's right 70,000! I have nearly every arcade game, every Nintendo game, every Super Nintendo game, every Nintendo 64 game, every Gamecube game, every Sega Genesis game, every Atari game etc. etc.
Never in my life will I play them all, but if you were over and remembered one from the old days we'd be able to play it within minutes. That's all kinds of awesome when you're having a party. My favorites right now are Joust, Gyruss, Tempest, and Galaga.
DEPECHE MODE "SHRINE" - I'm a huge Depeche Mode fan, so I decided to display some of my memorabilia and favorite albums in this 5'x5' corner spot. My uncle Jimbo even helped me replicate the BONG 13 loudspeaker from the band's Strangelove record cover. Thanks again Jimbo!
POSTERS, POSTERS, POSTERS - It's a cheap way to add some life to the room and show off some things that I enjoy. From a Dragon's Lair video game poster autographed by Don Bluth, to Led Zeppelin's iconic Stairway To Heaven door poster from the 70's, to Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reagan, I cover a lot of ground (and walls) with posters.
THE THEATER - The theater is set up and pre-wired for a 92" projection screen and wall mounted Bose surround sound speaker system, BUT... I ran out of cash. So for now we're making due with a little 27" flatscreen and an old Sony speaker set up I had laying around. The TV and DVD's are run from a Dell Media Center PC, which also makes this an excellent spot to enjoy my MP3 collection.
Movie posters adorn the walls and cover several decades and genres. We selected: The Matrix, Titanic, The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The Godfather, Pirates Of The Carribean, Star Wars, Tombstone, The Lord Of The Rings, Ferris Buehler's Day Off and Herbie Fully Loaded. FYI: I found that Movie Posters USA had reasonable prices, great selection, and remarkable after sale service. I can't recommend them enough.
We used futons because they were inexpensive (out of cash), and also because they are versatile. You can make two rows of seating, or fold down the first row and make a huge chaise, or fold down both rows and make a huge bed for my daughter's sleepovers. It works out great for us.
The back of the room is dominated by a custom built media shelf to hold our CD and DVD collection along with various books, LP's and boardgames.
THE OFFICE - My office subterranean lair features a nice desk setup, a Dell PC running Windows Vista, a bookshelf for my Dungeons & Dragons collection, a futon sleeper sofa, and my musical equipment.
We really enjoy the new basement! Everytime my daughter has a new friend over you can hear them freak out when they get to the bottom of the steps, and when she had a sleepover last fall, I overheard her friends telling one another that it was the best sleepover they'd ever been to.
That was a big part of the reason for doing this, so our daughter has a safe place to hang out with her friends as she enters her teen years. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. (-:
I'll change out these pictures and/or add more to this post as things progress towards perfection.
UPDATE: Here's a picture I found of me and Bob amidst the forest of lumber we'd built.
A few things:
1. Damn, that's awesome!
2. Depeche Mode rocks!
3. We have the same taste in posters - I have The Matrix, LOTR, and Star Wars in my basement.
4. Damn, that's awesome!
Posted by: Wyatt Earp | January 22, 2009 at 12:48 PM
*heh* Like it. Muuuuch neater than "my room". "My room" isn't in shape for pics right now. Yep. TONS of stuff strewn all over as I again sort for give away/toss/sell/keep and the keep pile(s) into catalog and to long term storage and catalog and to accessible shelving.
It's my techie room. Only one midi keyboard/controller right now (it's an available space thing), but since I don't use it for actual _playing_ but for playing notes into music transcription, that's OK.
Ditched three computers from my techie room in the last few months, now just the paring down of good, usable but no longer needed equipment that's scattered all over (_THERE'S_ where that old scanner went! *heh*) *sheesh!* I have three old(er) but still functional scanners to deal with. One's better than the scanner in the AIO that's currently on the network and so will be kept in reserve for higher quality scanning, but the others? Lovely Daughter doesn't want one and Son&Heir has one of his own he's satisfied with.
Into the sell pile.
It's nice to see my desktop every now and then. And the adjoining table (with audio rack that includes amp, AMR mixer, turntable, tape dubbing, CD storage, etc.) has been alternatively mostly cleared off/stacked 3'high with "stuff" to sort all week long.
And then there's the 6.5' tall, 6' wide bookcase filled with books, notebooks, software and what computer parts, disks, etc., aren't in boxes or on the floor under the table (or my desk). Other wall/floor bookcases/shelves similarly populated.
And this is actually better than in some months!
Good on you for being so disciplined about what you allow in "your" room. :-)
Posted by: David | January 22, 2009 at 01:59 PM
Thanks Wyatt. Yes, I think it's awesome too.
Glad you dig DM. I've been hooked since the mid 80's.
What? Wyatt Earp doesn't have a Tombestone poster? WTF?
Maybe if you find yourself about 10 hours west of Philly someday you can stop by and hang out with me.
Posted by: Woody | January 22, 2009 at 02:01 PM
David, I'm not quite as disciplined as this makes me look... In order to create nice rectanglular spaces out of the very irregular basement I created five rather large closets / storage rooms. Those are full of all kinds of stuff.
My wife being a big scrapbooker has it all sorted out and stored in plastic tubs though, so I suppose it's still somewhat organized...
Glad you like it. I LOVE it!
Posted by: Woody | January 22, 2009 at 02:16 PM
Waiting for an invite to play foosball again. :-)
Posted by: Rick | January 22, 2009 at 08:25 PM
Knocka, you never need an invitation. Anytime bro... anytime.
Posted by: Woody | January 22, 2009 at 09:52 PM
When is the 1st Annual "Small Blogger Conference" going to be hosted in your basement? And can I get invited?
Posted by: WAMK | January 26, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Good idea! I'll keep that in mind.
Posted by: Woody | January 26, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Your game room is perfectly amazing! The pinball collection amazed me the most. Did you custom built it? I'd love to have that one in our entertainment as well and as much as possible a World of Warcraft version would be best.
Posted by: wow gold | June 30, 2009 at 12:39 PM
Thank you!
Do you mean to ask if I built my MAME cabinet? I had it custom made by Dream Authentics. They DID make a few custom arcade cabinets for Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of WOW though. Here are some pics:
http://www.dreamauthentics.com/excalibur_gallery/images/image053.jpg
http://www.dreamauthentics.com/excalibur_gallery/images/image054.jpg
Not sure if they'd sell you one or if it was just for Blizzard, but I saw the finished machine sitting in their warehouse when I picked mine up, and they were really beautiful.
Posted by: Woody | June 30, 2009 at 04:31 PM