The planning and built of My Gameroom

[ckong]

It started with a Donkey Kong cab, back in October. And we are now only a few months further in time, but my classic game collection did already grow to six cabs, including the upcoming Star Wars cockpit. And I’m sure that there will be more cab purchases in the future (thanks DartNuno and all the others for infecting me).

And besides the classic cabs I already had 5 Japanese candy cabs and a few Mame cabs. Until recently I could store most of the cabs in an empty room in my house, but that empty room will now very soon become our master bedroom.

Therefore most of my cabs are stored somewhere in a storage facility. I only have one Candy cab and DK in the house. What a shame.  

So, it is really time to get a gameroom. But we don’t have space for that in our house. However, we were already planning to built a shed to store our bikes, garden tools, motorbike, etc, and I think that it will be a good idea to combine it with a gameroom.

The idea is to built a wooden shed and insulate it from the inside. The largest part of the shed, where the gameroom will be located, will have an attic. Therefore I will also insulate the ceiling of the gameroom (which is the floor of the attic).

The outside will look similar like this, although doors and windows will be located a bit different:



The inside will be an exact copy of this:



Yeah, dream on Erik, there is no way that that will happen. ‘But I am allowed to catch that atmosphere, am I not?’ Sure, go ahead and do your best. By the way, I got this photo from the website of Peter Hirschberg (http://lunacityarcade.com/photos.htm ). Peter, I hope that you don’t mind that I used one of your beautiful photo’s to document my dream.

So, in this topic I will document my gameroom dream, plans and built. I hope to get a lot of useful information and other input.

[ckong]

As mentioned above the shed will have a wooden structure and outside, which will be built by a professional builder. The builder will only built the outer walls and the roof. I will do the remaining work, like insulating the floor and the walls, make extra walls and rooms on the inside, put an attic in it, take care of the electrical system, etc. Fortunately I have some friends to help me if I get stuck.

This is the floor plan after the builder left the building. The outer measurements of the shed are 10 meters x 6 meters, the ceiling of the gameroom will be 2.35 meter high.



Note: the separate room will be built by me. This is only two walls and a door. That I can do!

And here is a first blueprint of how the gameroom could be arranged:



A little explanation: on the left side there is a separate room for garden tools, bikes, etc. On the top left there is room for a desk or bench and this will also be the place where I will have room to play (retro) console games. The brown box left to the frontdoor is a cabinet to store game PCB’s and other game related stuff. In total there is room for  about 15 cabs (which means that I have to be very picky about future cab purchases), of which one is the Star Wars cockpit (bottom right). Between two windows there is room for my Star Wars Pachinko.

On the top right there is a room (without a door) where I want to line up my Candy cabs. I want this to be separated from the ‘classic game department’ because Japanese Candy Cabs have a complete different look and feel around them. See this picture and you know what I mean:

 

I want to create that atmosphere more or less in this separated room. But I will not put a door in it because I want people to be able to walk easily in and out.

All this stuff is just a first blueprint. I haven’t decided anything yet  and I am curious about other people’s opinion.

[HaRuMaN]

I like it a lot, especially how you plan on separating your candy cabs...

I only have one candy cab at the moment, it sits between am EM pin and an old Pachinko machine.

[TheShanMan]

I will enjoy following your progress. I'm currently converting a 2 story shop into a 2 story gameroom (something non-arcade upstairs, like air hockey or pool table). It's got finished walls and fully insulated, but I just recently finished adding circuits to handle a large number of games and am about to get HVAC installed. Then will come the blacklight reactive carpet (I already have blacklights all over). Fun stuff, but frankly I'd rather be either working on games or playing them.

[ckong]

I will enjoy following your progress. I'm currently converting a 2 story shop into a 2 story gameroom (something non-arcade upstairs, like air hockey or pool table). It's got finished walls and fully insulated, but I just recently finished adding circuits to handle a large number of games and am about to get HVAC installed. Then will come the blacklight reactive carpet (I already have blacklights all over). Fun stuff, but frankly I'd rather be either working on games or playing them.

sounds pretty cool, but what is blacklight reactive carpet?

[gnateye]

like in the first pic, it glows under black light

[Donkey_Kong]

Beautiful Roof!

[ckong]

Beautiful Roof!

Yes, thanks. We call this kind of shed a nostalgic shed. You see it very often in the area where I live, also on houses.

[Gorotsuki]

Wow.
That shed is twice better
than my house.
Your going to have one
terrific game room.