Chad's gameroom project - Drywall hanging / subfloor complete + new pics

[ChadTower]

EDIT:  I asked Haruman to move this so it could become a full project thread.  We haven't had many full on gameroom project threads so I'm going to document this one.


I'm in the process of finishing my basement to mostly be gameroom and media area.  Black light carpet is part of the plan.  What I'm not decided on, at this point, is how to manage the black lights.  The ceiling at this point is exposed joists.  I want to put in some cans for regular lighting, probably sectioned off on 2-3 switches, but I haven't figured out a good way to mix the black lights into that.  How have others done this?

At this point I'm figuring the best way might just be to add a couple too many tracks of switched can lights with the plan that they won't ever all be on at once because some are black.

[ChadTower]

Anybody?  I can't be the only person who has put black light carpet in during a remodel.

[eds1275]

How big is the room? What are you going to do for a ceiling? Drop tile ceiling, drywall, leave as is? How's the height down there? If a tiled ceiling or drywalled, you could have them on alternating circuits - so every other light is on one switch and have one be regular and one be blacklights. This would probably work best with pot lights.

Or were you trying to use track lighting with a mix of regular and blacklights in the same fixture? I don't think I've ever seen one with configurable lighting like that.

[ChadTower]

How big is the room? What are you going to do for a ceiling? Drop tile ceiling, drywall, leave as is? How's the height down there? If a tiled ceiling or drywalled, you could have them on alternating circuits - so every other light is on one switch and have one be regular and one be blacklights. This would probably work best with pot lights.

Or were you trying to use track lighting with a mix of regular and blacklights in the same fixture? I don't think I've ever seen one with configurable lighting like that.

Good thoughts.  I'm trying to lose as little height as possible so I'm going with shallow cans between the joists.  I am not dropping a traditional ceiling.    The joists will get painted and I'm going to tack strips between them with tiles there.  This will, of course, leave some amount of pipes/ducts exposed but trying to drop a ceiling below them would be too low.  Not having lighting protruding from the ceiling is a priority here since I'll be moving games around and some of the pins and Atari cabs would not clear hanging fixtures.

The area is roughly 23' x 13' without much if any external lighting.  At this point I'm thinking that if I can manage it some shallow cans might be the best way.  Due to a crossbeam the room sort of separates itself, to the eye, across the width.  I am trying to decide if good lighting would need two or four white cans on each side.  Either way I would want each half of the room switched separately for white lights.  I could live with all of the black lights on one switch. 

I am far from familiar with lighting types, though, so I would love any suggestions.  Recessed is preferred by far.  I'm going to see if I can get a pic or two of the area for context.

EDIT: 

It's hard to get a good pic of the whole room.  Every time I get far enough back there is a pole or a staircase in the way.  And I know we still have some clearing out of stuff to do.  For the time being I'm just working around that stuff until I get to the drywall.  And the bed/coolers/heater are the things we just put there because of Hurricane Sandy. 

[ChadTower]

I just measured and the joists have 7" from the subfloor to the bottom of the joist.  If I factor in the plans I have for the ceiling then I figure there are a ton of different can types I can put in there.

[eds1275]

Totally. You can even save $$$ by purchasing the "contractor pack" which is usually like 6 lights for the price of 4 or whatever.

There is a great example here of track lighting used with exposed joists and the joists and area painted black



And again with white



Track lighting looks great in the black one - I think it's raised up a bit so the lights are just peeking out below the bottom of the joists. The post you have there near the stairs is an excellent place for a sconce. Instead of trying to hide your wiring, perhaps go the other way and make it look intentionally industrial - use BX cable for your wiring and conduit etc.

[ChadTower]

Hrm.  I sort of like the idea of the black with track lights.  The only real issue I see is that we get dust coming down from the floor above.  I was hoping the tiles would catch that.  But I really like the simplicity of the black there and the fact that I could change that lighting in the future if I want.  I could also move the lights around. 

[lilshawn]

the only thing i can suggest is getting fixtures with a chrome reflective surface on the ceiling side.
that way you aren't wasting light lighting up the ceiling, it will be reflected down and you will get a more satisfying and brighter glow.

[ChadTower]

Do you think flat black would solve that too?  Hell, if I did flat black for the paint, then I could come back later and UV paint some Berzerk robots and stuff.   

[Hoopz]

Wouldn't flat black just absorb the light instead of reflecting it?

[ChadTower]

Wouldn't flat black just absorb the light instead of reflecting it?

I guess that's the question.  That is rough lumber, though, and I don't want to have a semigloss ceiling with a billion imperfections in it.

[BadMouth]

the only thing i can suggest is getting fixtures with a chrome reflective surface on the ceiling side.
that way you aren't wasting light lighting up the ceiling, it will be reflected down and you will get a more satisfying and brighter glow.

Actually, for the regular lighting in bars, home theaters and gamerooms, I prefer to light up the ceiling (or edges of the ceiling) instead of having direct light.
The atmosphere is better when it's dim with indirect light.

My place is just a rental and isn't finished unless you call the walls and floor being painted finished.
I've built a pretty nice bar in it though.
It just has bare sockets attached to the joists. I experimented with various low wattage bulbs and found all of them to be eyesores.
Ended up using these and like the result:

Of course, this is in an unfinished basement.

For the blacklights.....
I'm sure you already know that incandescent black lights like what would fit in track lighting aren't real black lights and are just normal bulbs with purple glass.
They won't light up anything that normally responds to blacklight.  I'm not sure how the compact florescent ones measure up or how many it would take to get the same result as one 48" tube.  I'd do some experimenting first.

I like the idea of painting the rafters flat black.
I'm a bit jealous of the blacklight carpet.  I watched a 6x6ft patch on ebay for a year and couldn't bring myself to lay out the money for it.

[ChadTower]

Hrm.  We keep coming to the same conclusions here that my research is revealing.  The two goals are sort of at odds with each other.  If I add in the desire to use dimmers on the white light it gets even wonkier.

I wonder if there are fluorescent fixtures I could get between the joists.  I do have 48" ancient fluorescent fixtures there now but they are ancient commercial things that hang way low.  They would be useful for experimenting, though.

It's probably time to order some carpet samples and see how they do in various lighting.


EDIT:

A second thought.  If I go with the idea above and make the ceiling somewhat industrial then some black, but decent looking, 48" shop lights could work.  That way I can have dimmable white and true UV fluorescent tubes.  I get the best of both worlds that way and it would probably look decent with shielded 12-2.


Badmouth, can you elaborate on that bulb picture?  It's hard to tell what that actually is.

[BadMouth]

I have one of these mounted to the side of a rafter parallel with my bar.


It does a good job of lighting up clothing and florescent plastic cups.
I think four carefully placed ones would probably do a good job on a dimly lit medium sized room.
Of course, take the word of someone who actually has experience covering a whole room first.

For a while I was kicking around the idea of painting a dancefloor on the floor with blacklight paint.
I found out that the companies that make the paint use special high power blacklights for their pics and product demos.
I don't know how much more expensive they are but they definitely make things pop.

[matsadona]

I would try UV LED strips. Cheap and easy to mount.

Here's an example:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5m-UV-395-405nm-ultraviolet-black-light-5050-SMD-LED-150LEDs-500CM-STRIP-WDJB-/261119459876?pt=US_String_Lights_Fairy_Lights&hash=item3ccbeec224

Must admit that I haven't tried it myself yet, but I'm about to do that soon.

[ChadTower]

I bet that's more for close up lighting than ceiling to floor.  But that does look like it would mount on the underside of a pinball cabinet very nicely...

[ChadTower]

Okay, since this seems like a great thread for future people to search out...

...let's put some real info in here.

I just ordered samples from AstrocarpetMills and CarpetBargains.

Hoopla Black ($1.78sqft): 

Pizzaz ($1.78sqft): 


Night Life ($1.49sqft): 

Fiesta ($1.49sqft): 

Galaxy ($1.60sqft): 

Prism ($1.60sqft): 

Retro ($1.60sqft): 

[Hoopz]

Ask Saint what carpet he used?  Remember his decade old thread asking us to guess what he was doing in his game room?  I know he had put the same type of carpet in it.

[eds1275]

Galaxy & Retro are the ones I like

[ChadTower]

Ask Saint what carpet he used?  Remember his decade old thread asking us to guess what he was doing in his game room?  I know he had put the same type of carpet in it.

Heh, I actually did that in his gameroom thread, but he doesn't seem to be around much lately.

[Mysterioii]

I'm sure you already know that incandescent black lights like what would fit in track lighting aren't real black lights and are just normal bulbs with purple glass.

They actually do produce SOME ultraviolet light, though they're not very efficient at it... at least, that is if they're using Wood's glass or a coating with the proper filtering characteristics and not just a dip in cheap purple paint.  They're basically a regular broad-spectrum core, and the Wood's glass or filtering coating blocks most of the visible light.  I'm sure there are cheapo versions out there that don't use the right materials, that's probably what you've had experience with.

Regular incandescent bulbs put out a fair amount of UV, that's why they screw up things like Wii controllers even though they have a UV filter. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_light

[ChadTower]

I did some poking around Lowe's on the way home.  I really like the modular nature of some of the track lighting.  I think I'm going to go with 96" tracks, two on each side of the basement, and start with 2 lights on each track.  Then if I need more, I can add one to each track, and two if really necessary.  They work well with a dimmer, should fit well between the joists, are black and will match a flat black painted ceiling well.  They work with dimmers which is also good here.


I can put in 2 48" shop light fixtures, black and low profile, in between the tracks.  That should be enough black light to mix in with dim white light so we get both reactive carpet (and maybe painted shapes on the ceiling) and still be able to walk around. 


Total SWAG on the cost is about $500-600 for all of that since I'm doing everything myself.  That does not count the new circuit work that these lights will be hooking into.


For the track lights I am thinking these give me a good amount of light, if mounted well will barely protrude from the joists, and are fully adjustable in all directions.  The 96" tracks are $19 each, the power modules are $7 each (one per track), and the light heads are $17 each.  I'm having some trouble coming up with good images for the products so bear with me. 


 




Heh, my 13 year old son is vacuuming all the cobwebs from the ceiling now so we can do the flat black painting over the weekend.  For whatever reason he's really enjoying the vacuuming. 

[Drnick]

I know why he's enjoying the vacuming - Its'a Luigi Time.  He's playing out Luigi's mansion in his head 

[ChadTower]

I know why he's enjoying the vacuming - Its'a Luigi Time.  He's playing out Luigi's mansion in his head 

You have no idea how true that might be.  My kids are obsessed with Luigi's Mansion.  He made me a CD last week of mp3s from Luigi's Mansion and it's in my truck right now.  He used to have an oversized Luigi's Mansion retail display box on his dresser.

[Mysterioii]

Even though I'm a relatively old guy I still enjoyed Luigi's Mansion.  They should have made a sequel for the Wii....  the motion controllers seemed ideally suited for the Luigi's Mansion gameplay.  A while back I saw that they were making a sequel but it would be a 3DS exclusive (which I don't have, and have no interest in).  I guess it came out.  I just think they dropped the ball by not doing a Wii version...

[ChadTower]

I completely agree.  I enjoyed that game a lot too.  I'm a sucker for first party Nintendo games. 

Last night I started painting the ceiling flat black using a combo paint/primer.  This is definitely going to need two coats.  The wood is sucking the paint in like it hasn't seen moisture in 40 years (which is entirely possible).  I spent 90 minutes brushing about 10sqft.  I'll get a pic posted when there is a bit more progress.

[eds1275]

You can buy rollers for staining/painting rough surfaces. They have a huge nap on them that gets into all the nooks and crannies of wood grain. Might be a faster way to go, just have someone behind you with a big brush to catch any drips and to get the corners.

[ChadTower]

There are a lot of nails sticking out from the hardwood flooring upstairs.   If I were to bend them upwards it would make taking that flooring up later on a lot harder.   

[lilshawn]

anybody who's ripping up hardwood has a tough job ahead of them anyways.

knock e'm flat.

[eds1275]

or get some end nippers and clip them. Or just paint them. Whatever works. I hope your project is coming along nicely! All my renos and arcade projects have ground to a halt due to lack of funds.

[ChadTower]

I have been painting them so far but a pair of end nippers is a good idea.  I didn't know about those.  Now that a lot of them are flat black on a flat black background they're damn near invisible.  I have been wondering how I was going to do the wiring with all of those invisible slightly rusty nails in the way.   

[ChadTower]

Progress... most of that side of the basement looks like this now.  It looks better in typical basement lighting - the flash is unforgiving.  Not done yet and some areas will need a second coat.  The subflooring planks are so rough it's like brush painting english muffins. 

[ChadTower]

Carpet samples are in and I picked up a pair of 4' UV tubes.  I'm going to try and get some pics tonight but it might be tricky to get the visual across with a camera.

We did learn some interesting things, though.  The carpet samples are nice and reactive but they were not the most reactive things we saw.  With a pair of 4' tubes my white socks were super reactive.  My son's jeans had bright accents all over them that are invisible in normal light.  Any spec of dust in your hair is visible and your fingernails are a sickly bright yellow as are your teeth.

The key point for now seems to be that a specific black light carpet may not be necessary.  Any dark carpet with light accents might present the same effect.  I'm going to see if I can snag a couple of regular carpet samples like that.  I think it's worth looking into as it opens up a whole lot of options.

[Nephasth]

Looking good! I wish my basement didn't have a sheetrocked ceiling...

[ChadTower]

Got some pics of the samples under two 4' UV tubes.


1)  Samples and a sock in regular light.  You'll see why the sock is included in the next pics.




2)  Samples and a sock under two 4' UV tubes with typical camera on auto.  This one doesn't do the visual justice.




3)  Samples and a sock with the camera on a slightly longer exposure.  This one looks awesome.  In reality the visual is somewhere in between this and the previous photo.




Notice how much brighter the sock is than anything else.  That's pretty cool and does give me reason to play with some other things when we get around to decorating the walls and ceiling.  I am still waiting for two more samples to arrive from a different vendor and one of those is my preferred pattern.

[lilshawn]

they put phosphates in laundry soap to help make colors "brighter" also known as "bluing"

that's why your sock is going all nutzo. I use environmentally friendly soap. At the pub, even my white shirts just glow a dull purple while my buds are going blind from theirs. 

[CoryBee]

they put phosphates in laundry soap to help make colors "brighter" also known as "bluing"

that's why your sock is going all nutzo. I use environmentally friendly soap. At the pub, even my white shirts just glow a dull purple while my buds are going blind from theirs. 

woa

[ChadTower]

Okay... that whole half of the basement now looks like this.  Two coats on all surfaces, including the exposed wiring and ducting, took more hours than I care to remember.  The one unpainted spot will be painted when I remove that temp light switch.



It's nice.  In the basement lighting you lose all details in the ceiling and it's easy enough to lose track of just how high the ceiling is.  Next up is the light fixtures and the wiring for new outlets.

Haruman suggested that I theme the room "radioactive sock".  That gives me the mental image of a giant UV reactive Mike Wazowski and a huge button on the side labeled 2319.

[ChadTower]

Okay, now that that is done, I'm on to the details of the lighting fixtures.

What I want is to have zoned lighting all at one location.  There are two zones and two types of lighting.  Black light will be on/off and white light will be dimmable.  All four switches will be in the same spot.

I am thinking the black lights could be done two different ways.  One way they're just normal hardwired shop fixtures with two switches.  I am having trouble finding small black hardwired fluorescent fixtures, though.  A second way would be to put an outlet next to each shop light and plug them in.  These outlets would be switched.  The difference, I think, is that later on if someone else dislikes the black lights they can just unplug those fixtures and remove them.  Without desire for black light those shop fixtures are way overkill.

Another issue here might be code.  Is it proper code to hardwired a plugin fixture?  I want to do this straight up and have it inspected for insurance reasons.

[eds1275]

I don't think it would hurt to put the outlets up there and plug the fixtures in; on the other hand, if you do that maybe you could put the outlet boxes up there anyways with a cover on them and then cut the plug off of your fixtures and wire them in the box; if the inspector says no then put the outlets in and throw a plug back on the cord.