Gameroom finally coming together...

[bishmasterb]

I've been working on the gameroom in the basement for a while and it's finally starting to come together. I've still got a lot of work to do, but thought I'd share some pics of the progress so far.

For the past two months I've been building a large oak cabinet to hold my bartops and console collection. The centerpiece holds the consoles and a CRT television, and has a cavity behind the consoles to hide all of the cabling.

[bishmasterb]

The wiring center for all of the consoles, as well as a DVD player and my CED player (which still works amazingly well considering...).

I'm using an 8-way composite/component electronic switchbox. I use the component inputs for switching between the RF consoles (since I don't have any consoles running component) and the composite for the newer classic systems, which gives me the capability to switch up to 16 consoles with how it's currently configured.

[bishmasterb]

My bartop collection finally has a home.

[bishmasterb]

The drawers have built-in dividers for cartridges and controllers.

[bishmasterb]

Finally, there isn't much in the theater room yet except the television. The Mario quilt on the wall was done by my wife.

[solid187]

Looks amazing.  The woodwork looks fantastic.  Next, we need to beef up your home theater (the audio portion).  Great job.  I bet the WAF is quite high as well. 

[ChadTower]

That is really cool, especially the bartop section and the quilt.  Very very nice.

[slycrel]

Impressive!  I'm jealous, my eventual gameroom is still in the wiring stages.  And has been for over a year.  =)

[ChadTower]

Would your wife be willing to make more things like that quilt?  That thing is hella cool.  I would buy things like that.

[bishmasterb]

She'd love to make more quilts like the Mario quilt, however they are fairly expensive to make. Normal quilts have repeating patterns that enable the sewer to stitch blocks many at a time. With the style of this quilt, each block had to be individually stitched. Something like this quilt, which is a king size, and uses 2" squares would probably run around $700-800, and that's valuing her time at probably close to $5/hour overall. 

PM me if you're interested though and we can discuss it. Reducing the size of the quilt would save some on materials of course, but you probably wouldn't want to lower the "resolution" any.

[Bleagh]

That quilt is awesome!   I love how it looks in the tiny pic.

Be sure to check the full size image.

[ChadTower]

She'd love to make more quilts like the Mario quilt, however they are fairly expensive to make. Normal quilts have repeating patterns that enable the sewer to stitch blocks many at a time. With the style of this quilt, each block had to be individually stitched. Something like this quilt, which is a king size, and uses 2" squares would probably run around $700-800, and that's valuing her time at probably close to $5/hour overall. 

I'd be perfectly happy with one that takes far less individual squares, if possible, as I suspect others would be.  Then again I know little about quilt making.

[polaris]

She'd love to make more quilts like the Mario quilt, however they are fairly expensive to make. Normal quilts have repeating patterns that enable the sewer to stitch blocks many at a time. With the style of this quilt, each block had to be individually stitched. Something like this quilt, which is a king size, and uses 2" squares would probably run around $700-800, and that's valuing her time at probably close to $5/hour overall. 

I'd be perfectly happy with one that takes far less individual squares, if possible, as I suspect others would be.  Then again I know little about quilt making.

but you know what lowering the resolution would mean. less squares = crappy picture. 

[ChadTower]

Not if it isn't made out of squares any longer.  One big actual mario shaped piece seems like it would be easier.  Not all quilts are made of a grid.

[shardian]

Not if it isn't made out of squares any longer.  One big actual mario shaped piece seems like it would be easier.  Not all quilts are made of a grid.

I think you are missing the point of quilting.

Anyways, my wife is a very good crocheter. She might be interested in making something like that in an afghan form. I've mentioned she could probably make little plush characters before and they'd sell.

[polaris]

to cut two mario shapes out of material would be easy, hell i could do that. but it wouldn,t look anything like the one above and i thought that's what you wanted , my mistake.

[ChadTower]

I think you are missing the point of quilting.

The phrase I used was more things like that quilt, not more quilts.  The talents are there for other types of projects, clearly.

[leapinlew]

Cool! I was afraid you sold your bartops. Looks good.

[bishmasterb]

Cool! I was afraid you sold your bartops. Looks good.

Yeah, I'm pretty glad I ended up keeping them as well. Too much hard work to let go of!   

I'd be perfectly happy with one that takes far less individual squares, if possible, as I suspect others would be.  Then again I know little about quilt making.

I think some older 8-bit style images would look great, and could be done at a much lower resolution and cost much less. For instance the image below could be done with 2" squares making a quilt about 40 inches square (with borders). My wife says she could do something like that in the $175-200 range. That's individually stitching each 2" square, NOT using large pieces for the contiguous color blocks (which IMO looks poor).

Also, keep in mind that the finished product would not use flat colors, but we'd match contrast fabrics to those colors, so the overall look would be much richer and textured.

[ChadTower]

Considering I came within inches of building a patio on my house with that same pattern, I'm very very tempted.  Give me a little bit of time to think on that.  I may do it.

[emdkay]

yea, i thought you had sold these bartops!  change of heart?  i was willing to drive to california to pick these up!

[DonkeyKong]

I've been working on the gameroom in the basement for a while and it's finally starting to come together. I've still got a lot of work to do, but thought I'd share some pics of the progress so far.

For the past two months I've been building a large oak cabinet to hold my bartops and console collection. The centerpiece holds the consoles and a CRT television, and has a cavity behind the consoles to hide all of the cabling.

One question, where do you live and when is it game time!?  Sweet basement!! 

The custom cabinetry is awexome, and I tip my hat to your Vectrex ;-)  Hopefully you have a Sean Kelly Multicart for it.  Throw an overlay on there as well to give it some color.  My personal favorite all around overlay is the Scramble one.

NICE bartops!  I don't even mind that the pac-mans don't have ball tops, they are all gorgeous.  I never thought of the Vectrex as a bartop, but I would say it fits right in.

Now you just need an Adventurevision.

BTW: I've been TRYING for a long time now, to get my wife to let me mosaic tile the wall in our kitchen as a backsplash with old 8-bit and arcade sprites (space invaders, mario, donkey kong, some mushrooms sprinkled around).  Can you have your wife call mine and tell her it's O.K.?  Thanks.

[bishmasterb]

dk,

Thanks. We had a great game night on New Year's Eve BTW.

I've never even heard of AdventureVision, but it looks pretty interesting. I'll have to keep my eye out for one of those. There aren't any on eBay right now, any idea what one is typically worth?

Good luck with the wife. My wife thought the Mario quilt was a dumb idea until it got about half way done (working from the top) and you could really start to make the picture out. Now, she's incredibly proud of it and thinks it's way cool. Now, I just have to talk her into doing a matching Luigi quilt.

[ChadTower]

As a 10+ year console collector, lemme tell ya, an Adventurevision is like getting struck by lightning.  It's that hard to find.  Hard enough that you don't ask "how much do they go for", you ask "will I pay what this guy is demanding".

[DonkeyKong]

Yeah, the last adventurevision I saw for sale went for $2500 about 10 years ago.

If you happen to find one, just remember they are practically priceless.

Read up on how the adventurevision works, it's very intriguing.

Good luck with the Luigi quilt... I'm going to keep working on a compromise regarding my mosaic tile.  I was thinking a grayscale scheme would be good, but not shades of gray.  Something neutral though.

[specialmoose]

My bartop collection finally has a home.

Any construction pics? Plans?

Thx

[bishmasterb]

moose,

I sent you an email to your address on file. Is that the best place to send the plans and pics to? They're quite large (about 10-15MB). Let me know.

[phishpac]

you have a virtual boy.. that is sick.

i always wanted one of those... tennis was the bomb!

[urbecrisch]

Basement looks really crisp and clean!  Great Job!  I hope mine turns out as well as yours.  Also love the color scheme and the "windows". Oh yeah... and all those games