Garage to Gameroom Remodel

[ashhaas]

It started a few months ago. My wife and I were house-hunting, and when I was looking around the garage in one of the listings she says to me, “This would make a great game room and studio for you.”

I was floored.

OF COURSE, I’d love to have a huge garage-sized area to call my own, but I’d never ask for it myself. It just seemed too greedy, but there it was. She had made the offer, and it didn’t take long before a major part of the house-hunting was me making sure that the garage was big enough to serve as my future game room.

We finally settled on a house, and I have begun planning. I have many inspirations to pull from. One was this guy:
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14630&d=1434500687

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14631&d=1434500687

Who made an amazing game room for table-top wargaming and miniature painting. You can read all about his room at this link:

https://wargamingworkshop.wordpress.com/gaming/wargaming-room/

His room is amazing, and I couldn’t design one better for miniature wargaming, but I want a room that isn’t so specialized. I want to be able to play regular boardgames too which would be served better with a lower table and comfortable chairs instead of stools. In the end I want a room that will allow me to:

play boardgames
play large table-top miniature games.
read and store comic books
display miniatures
display weapons (more on this later)
display instruments
assemble & paint miniatures & models
watch movies
play PC computer games
record music

So I need a much more general purpose nerd room, but I think it will all be possible. I’ll be starting with a two-car garage (about 25′ x 25′). As a garage it seems modest-sized, but if you can use your imagination and picture it as an interior room you realize how huge it is. An average bedroom can measure 12 x 12 feet, and this would be 4 times the square footage!

It looks like this:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14664&d=1434579802

The above image is facing east into the garage with the door open.

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14665&d=1434579818

…and here you are looking back the other way towards the closed door (facing Southwest).

So with that as a starting point, I want to pull off the look of an old English study. Something along the lines of this:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14634&d=1434500765

Okay…maybe that’s a little too over-the-top posh. I don’t exactly plan on sipping brandy, smoking cigars, and discussing the situation in the African colonies, but this is the basic overall style I kind of want to emulate, even if my room will be a bit more modest and contemporary.

With that in mind, it’s time to find a contractor and see what I need to do next. Wish me luck!

[ashhaas]

For your sake I’m going to skip a few months forward in time from my last post. All that you’ll be missing are countless meetings with my contractor, reviewing the plans, revising the plans, re-revising the plans, RE-re-revising the plans (etc.), and submitting those plans to get approved by Big Brother.

So, finally in the last few weeks actual physical work has begun:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14666&d=1434580166

That picture is taken standing in the Southeast corner and facing at the West wall that used to be the garage door.

They took out the garage door first and began framing in a wall. You can see the openings for an entry door on the left and two big 5′ x 5′ windows to the right.

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14667&d=1434580180

This one is standing in the entry doorway (Southwest) facing the East wall and Northeast corner. It was taken after the first day of framing was done and the workers had cleaned up and left. The window you see will be walled up; I’m planning on putting a TV there that will be hidden by a large painting that slides down into a cabinet. To the left of that will be a large sliding glass door that will someday lead to a deck. To the left of that is another window.

I setup the sawhorses to simulate where my gaming table would be. The computer chair is positioned right where the center of a couch will be (I drew out the roughly estimated dimensions of the couch in chalk on the floor).

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14668&d=1434580200

This one's standing in the Northeast corner, facing Southwest. They’re going to wall up the furnace too, so that it doesn’t mess up the classic, wood stylings of my game room. The South wall (to the left of the furnace and door in the above picture) is where all my hobby tables will be including desk areas for miniature/model paining, computer gaming, and audio recording.

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14669&d=1434580264
This is standing in the Northwest corner facing Southeast. There’s another big 5′ x 5′ window on East wall on the other side of the TV.

In the following week they put in the electrical wiring. The lighting controls will consist of 3 dimmer switches. One switch will be for general lighting (recessed ceiling lights). The second will be for a gaming table light which will be similar in style to a pool-table light. The third will control the top socket in all the electrical outlets. Into these outlets I will plug lighting for the bookshelves and miniature display cases.

So the idea with the lighting is that I can have a few lighting presets to create a certain mood:

Game Lighting: game-table light on full, ceiling and bookshelf lights low/off. I want this one to make the room look like the war room in Doctor Strangelove, where the table is bright, but the rest of the room recedes into shadow.
Museum Lighting: display case & shelves lights on full, ceiling & table lights off. This setting is what I will use for first impressions of the room. Dimming the display lighting slightly will also make the room ready for movie watching.
General Use Lighting: ceiling lights on full, other lights off. I’ll use this setting for socializing in the room, reading on the couch, or any variety of other uses.
The following week they cut out the walls where the windows would be:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14670&d=1434580312
Here I'm standing in the Southwest corner, facing the Northeast.

This was a pretty exciting step because it revealed how amazing the view would be once it was all done.

More to come...

[ashhaas]

Last week we installed the windows and doors, and then I put in the insulation:
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14675&d=1434581072

I’m still having trouble getting over how great the views in this room are. Feel free to click on any of the pics below to see it larger:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14676&d=1434581083
North Window

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14677&d=1434581092
East Sliding Door

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14678&d=1434581104
East Window

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14679&d=1434581114
North Window

14655

Next we hung and taped the drywall. If you click on the thumbnail above you can see a composite of three shots showing the entire North side of the room (viewed from the Southwest corner). More to come!

[ashhaas]

When we last left off the room was all drywalled with windows and doors installed. Now I needed to figure out what color to paint the thing. I wasn’t sure exactly which color to pick, but I had an idea based on the original old-English-study look that I was going for. I went to my local paint store and grabbed every swatch of color that was close to what I was thinking:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14680&d=1434581592

After narrowing it down to my favorite three colors (favorite blue, favorite red, and favorite green) I bought sample cans of paint and did a big section of each wall. This was important since the colors look very different once they’re spread across a wall.

Based on that little experiment I decided to go with the green:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14681&d=1434581607

It’s a pretty vivid, saturated green, but I knew that once I installed the cabinetry it would be muted by all that stained wood. Once the green was just peaking out from between shelves and curtains it would become more of an accent than what it is right now (a bold overpowering color).

Once that was done, it was time to work on the ceiling:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14682&d=1434581622

I thought that I could just dry-wall the ceiling and be done with it, but our inspector told us that the joists weren’t designed to handle that much weight. My only option was an acoustic-tile ceiling, or a “dropped” ceiling.

This was a real punch to the stomach. I had this specific vision of what I wanted (wood, paintings, rugs, warm lighting, etc.), and I was being told that I would have to make do with a type of ceiling that made me only think of this:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14686&d=1434581924

…not quite what I was looking for.

Luckily, after doing some web-research, I learned that not all ceiling tiles had to look like those from a dreary office building. I found a great style from Armstrong.com called “Easy Elegance” that actually looked better than a sheet-rock ceiling.

It was pretty expensive, so much so that it obliterated the rest of my operating budget, but I think it was a good investment since it looks so much better than the office-style alternatives:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14683&d=1434581702

All that’s left now is to finish the floor, install the lighting, and, the biggest step of all: installing all the shelving and cabinetry.

With my budget dried-up I’ll have to wait a while before I can get to any of that, but in the meantime I can finally move in all the stuff that goes in this room, so that my wife can stop complaining about the huge pile of nerd-junk in our bedroom:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14684&d=1434581720

My comics and boardgames are moved in now, and I’ve added some cheap curtains and some make-shift shelving for the time-being. It’s already getting a TON of use.

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14685&d=1434581734

[Lord Ezekial]

Wow that is awesome! Can't wait to see more progress.

[ashhaas]

Wow that is awesome! Can't wait to see more progress.

Thanks! I'll try to post more in the next few days.

[ashhaas]

A huge part of pulling off the old English study look I’m trying to achieve is the floor-to-ceiling hardwood cabinets and shelves. Professional looking cabinetry, however, is beyond what I’m capable of doing.

I made up a rough design for the way I want my north wall to look on my computer:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14687&d=1434598244

I sent this to several local cabinetry professionals, and the cheapest quote I got back was for fifteen thousand dollars. If I multiplied this by four walls, then we’re talking about SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS to complete the room!

I knew immediately that, as intimidating as the prospect seemed, I would have to make these cabinets myself. I spent weeks reading online tutorials and especially videos of people kind enough to share their knowledge, and I was ready to jump right into the deep end of cabinet-building.

I decided to start with the single box of cabinets on the bottom right corner of the north wall as seen here:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14688&d=1434598265

This section is the most basic, and would serve as a primer for the rest of the room. Here’s what that corner of the room looked like before I started construction:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14689&d=1434598278

[ashhaas]

A cabinet is basically just a box with a hardwood face frame screwed to the front.

I created my plan and from my plan I was able to write up my cut list (the list on the left side of the paper below):

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14697&d=1434604650


Using my cut list I cut my oak pieces for the face frame:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14702&d=1434604725

Then I assembled the face frame using a Kreg jig:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14704&d=1434604753

Here’s a picture of the face frame and a piece of the oak veneer plywood that I’d be using for the counter-top:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14705&d=1434604765

In that picture, the face frame and counter-top have been wiped down with a wet towel to open the grain and prepare the wood for staining.

…but which color should I stain it? In fact, how did I decide on oak as my wood of choice?

For that story, we have to go back in time several months…(which I'll get to next)...

[Gingerpanda]

So wish I had a garage. . . . . and money, oh and any skills at all with DIY beyond wallpapering!
Nice work, really amazing conversion.

[Psychosplodge]

Nice collection of games. Should have stuck with the Old world library theme though, this modern set up already appears to have attracted an infestation :D

[40kGamer]

The game room is looking awesome! I can't wait to trade houses in a few years and move mine out of the basement. I also love your views of the hilly exterior terrain... I really hate the pancake flat landscape of Ohio. :)

[ashhaas]

So wish I had a garage. . . . . and money, oh and any skills at all with DIY beyond wallpapering!
Nice work, really amazing conversion.

Yes…all of those things help, and thanks!

- - - Updated - - -


The game room is looking awesome! I can't wait to trade houses in a few years and move mine out of the basement. I also love your views of the hilly exterior terrain... I really hate the pancake flat landscape of Ohio. :)

Thank you!

- - - Updated - - -


Nice collection of games. Should have stuck with the Old world library theme though, this modern set up already appears to have attracted an infestation :D

HA HA…indeed it has.

[ashhaas]

So…back to how I picked out the wood species and stain color:

I went to my local home improvement store and bought one piece each of oak, birch, and poplar, as well as five shades of wood stain. Then I taped off the wood into different sections and labeled the sections to remember which stain was which:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14708&d=1434644837

The results ended up like this:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14709&d=1434644853

I ended up picking oak for the wood, and one of the darker shades for the stain. Here is my face frame and counter top after staining:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14710&d=1434644870

Now it was time to cut the remaining pieces and put the whole thing together. Using the cabinet design ideas that came with my Kreg jig, I built a top frame to screw the counter top to:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14711&d=1434645473

Then I cut some melamine particle board (melamine is just the smooth white surface) and drilled the holes that would make the shelves adjustable. (Note to others: it turns out they make melamine boards with the holes already pre-drilled…but I didn’t know that until later.)

Then I used my Kreg jig to drill all the pocket holes into the melamine pieces that would become the box of the cabinet:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14712&d=1434645489

Now that all the different pieces were all cut and drilled all I needed to do was assemble the whole thing. It was like having all the contents of a box from Ikea.

This was actually one of the hardest parts about this project: the fact that I didn’t know if everything was cut to the right size until all the parts were ready to put together. Everything up to this point had taken almost a week of non-stop work, and I wouldn’t know if I had made a mistake until the next couple hours of assembling the pieces was over.

The time for assembly had come, and here comes another Kreg commercial, because I bought their pocket-join clamp as well as their corner clamps. Without them the assembly would not have been possible:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14713&d=1434645501

Once both sides were attached to the bottom, I screwed the face frame on. It can be seen here assembled upside-down:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14714&d=1434645513

Now that the face frame was attached, the cabinet had enough stability to be flipped right-side-up:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14715&d=1434645528

I screwed the top frame in next, and realized that I had made a mistake. It seemed like a good idea to make the pocket holes symmetrical on both top frames, but once they were installed I realized that the screws from one frame would get in the way of the screws from the other:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14716&d=1434645540

Luckily I was able to clamp the Kreg jig onto the top frame while it was already mostly installed and add some new holes.

On the bottom I added some adjustable feet, so that I could get the thing level when I installed it:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14717&d=1434645553

On the next post I'll be installing the cabinet in the game room, and starting my biggest project yet: my board game shelves!

[ashhaas]

Whoops…I forgot something: before I install the cabinet in the game room I needed to add a piece of trim moulding to cover the edge of the oak veneer plywood. I called Superior Moulding, in California, and had them ship me out a bunch of samples to try out. They actually don’t normally give out samples, so I had to pay for 1 foot sections of the mouldings I thought might work out:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14718&d=1434646073

Once I had selected the style I liked I put in a big order to last me for half of the game room cabinets. Then I nailed a piece to the cabinet after I had stained it:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14719&d=1434646087

Then I varnished the whole thing with spar urethane. I went with a satin finish, which I think ended up looking pretty good:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14720&d=1434646100

Feeling pretty accomplished at this point I paused to reflect on all I had achieved while warming up with some homemade hot cocoa my wife brought out to me. For those of us with Northmen’s blood, there’s nothing better than cocoa and carpentry on a cold rainy day:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14721&d=1434646113

But it was soon time to cut my introspection short - it was finally time to install the cabinet:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14725&d=1434646230

Even better than that, I could now FILL the cabinet with all of my nerdy flotsam:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14726&d=1434646244

I’ve got everything in there from miniatures on the left, Magic the Gathering in the middle, to G.I. Joe figures and vehicles on the right.

I’m not going to build and install the doors until all the cabinets in the room are built. That way I can do them all at once. That’s fine with me; just having a place to store my boxes of junk is satisfying enough for now.

So…NOW I can start on my board game shelves (next post).

[ashhaas]

In my last Game Room post I finished the first set of cabinets in the lower-right corner of the north wall. My next task would be tackling the over-sized shelves between the windows:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14737&d=1434700140

These will eventually hold my board game collection, so the shelves will have more space between them than a standard book shelf. As highlighted above I’d start with the bottom half of the shelves.

I’d noticed during my research that a lot of the shelves in these old English study designs have a big chunky look, almost like they have thick wood columns in some places:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14744&d=1434700272

This would cost a lot more in materials, but I knew the pay off would be worth it, so I decided to create my own wood pillars. I drew up my plans and a cut list; my design for the pillars is in the bottom-right corner:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14738&d=1434700183

Here’s my first pillar with one side attached to the wood spacers using pocket-hole joinery:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14741&d=1434700223

…and here are all three of the pillars waiting for the casing moulding to be attached:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14742&d=1434700236

Just like the edge-moulding from the last post, I had ordered a few of samples of casing from Superior Moulding as seen below:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14743&d=1434700251

I ended up picking out the casing on the right. I attached it to the pillars with a finishing nail-gun. With the pillars finished I cut the plywood for the shelves that I would hang between them:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14746&d=1434700300

In my next post I'll assemble and install the shelves.

[ashhaas]

So, using pocket-holes in the shelf pieces, I put the pillars and shelves together. Here it is from the back:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14747&d=1434700739

…and here it is from the front:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14748&d=1434700752

In that picture I’ve already added a piece of oak to the bottom shelf, and I’ve also added the moulding to the front of the middle shelves. The counter-top looks thin and is still awaiting the moulding to finish it off.

I went ahead and put on that moulding with a nail gun, added some adjustable feet, and my wife, helped me carry this beast up to the game room to test the fit:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14749&d=1434700773

You probably didn’t notice, but my plans I drew up had the whole unit as 33 inches tall, but if you look at my plans for the cabinets I already completed, you’ll see that I designed them to be 33.5 inches tall. My new shelves were the wrong size!

Luckily I was able to solve this with the simple addition of a half-inch thick piece of wood on the bottom.

Next, my wife put her life in jeopardy helping me carry the shelves back to the barn where I stained and varnished them, and then carried them back to permanently install them:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14750&d=1434700786

In the right back corner of that picture you can see some discoloration from the stain not penetrating a spot with glue residue. That won’t be a problem when the upper-half of the shelves is covering it up. Here are the shelves from the other angle. I think they match well with the already installed cabinets:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14751&d=1434700803

In my next post I’ll create the shelves that will sit on top of these.

[ashhaas]

Now it's time to build the upper half of my game shelves. I've circled them in my north wall diagram below:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14752&d=1434739928

I started construction of my pillars - just like I did with my bottom shelves:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14753&d=1434739947

After that I cut the shelves:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14754&d=1434739972

With both pillars and shelves complete it was time to assemble the whole module of shelving:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14755&d=1434740007

The broad strokes of construction were essentially done at this point, but I still had a lot left to do. For one, I intended to light my shelves using LED strip lights. I wanted the lights to be recessed, so I flipped the whole shelving unit over and used a router to cut out a groove on the leading edge of the shelves where I could hide the lights:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14756&d=1434740036

Next I had to run some wire. I fed the wires down through the pillar and used a zip-tie to fish them out of the next hole below:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14757&d=1434740472

Once that was done I stained and varnished the shelves. Then I began sticking the strip-lights to the back of the moulding on each of the shelves. This is where the groove I had cut came in handy:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14758&d=1434740489

After carrying this huge wooden beast up to the game room I added all the components to the top of the shelves. I was running a surge-protector down through one of the pillars to an outlet that was controlled by a dimmer on the wall. Into that surge protector was a 110VAC-to-12VDC controller that could handle the load of all my future lighting needs and, most importantly, would dim the lights (something that is not usually possible with DC powered LEDs plugged into a dimmable outlet). I labeled everything clearly to help me in the event of any future trouble-shooting (knock on wood). All these components would be hidden behind the crown moulding:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14759&d=1434740504

After mounting the upper shelves on top of the lower ones, I was ready to let the varnish cure, after which I would load the shelves with my games. Here is my old game storage system made of scrap wood and cinder blocks:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14760&d=1434740520

…and here is my new set of shelves with the LED lighting on:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14761&d=1434740535

(continued in the next post…)

[ashhaas]

Speaking of lighting, in all of my previous posts I never explained how I ended up lighting the game room. I installed (with a professional electrician’s help) a bunch of recessed LED lights in the ceiling. They look like this:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14762&d=1434740811

I like how the lenses are translucent white, so that when the lights are off they just look like part of the ceiling tiles. In addition to the area lighting I put in some bright down-lights to illuminate the gaming table separately. As I explained in my first post, all three sets of lights (area lights, gaming table lights, and bookshelf lights) are controlled by a wall dimmer, so that I can set the mood with a variety of lighting options.

I usually use “all-purpose mode” which has the bookshelves and gaming table lights off, and the general down lights on full as seen here:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14763&d=1434740837

As you can see I also put in a sofa, chair, coffee table, and small game table. Whenever we play a boardgame I go into “gaming mode” with all lights off except the gaming table:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14764&d=1434740848

…and last of all, now that I have my bookshelf lights installed I finally have “museum mode.” In this mode all the shelves and display cases (which will eventually surround the whole room) are lit up and the overhead lights are either off or dimmed very low like below:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14765&d=1434740862

So, now you're all caught up to today, so any future progress posts will come more slowly. The next time I revisit this thread I’ll either be making the upper shelves to the right or maybe even the lower set of drawers to the left. We’ll just have to wait and see.

You can also read more details on my blog: https://craftyjack.wordpress.com

Thanks for reading!

-Jack

[Wolfshade]

Looks awesome :)

[ashhaas]

Looks awesome :)

Thank you.

[Psychosplodge]

Looks awesome :)

+1

[defiantworkshop]

I just discovered this, and want to give you a hearty "&^%# you" for destroying my happiness with my kitchen table as a game room. This is absolutely amazing, congrats, kudos, and may you enjoy the absolute heck out of it. Looks like a ton of work and even more money, and its super impressive.

[ashhaas]

Thank you very much - I appreciate all your superlatively kind words.

[Wolf of Winter]

I will also respond to this with mucho back slapping. This is my dream to be able to have a space that I can have my gaming table, miniatures and gigantic He-Man collection displayed in. This is just brilliant. I'll be watching this thread closely! Love your woodwork btw!

[ashhaas]

I will also respond to this with mucho back slapping. This is my dream to be able to have a space that I can have my gaming table, miniatures and gigantic He-Man collection displayed in. This is just brilliant. I'll be watching this thread closely! Love your woodwork btw!

Thanks! I'm on hiatus for a few months but I'm certainly not done. I'll continue to post as I make progress.

[KingMardi]

I just stumbled on this thread, but your game room work is an inspiration to us all!

[ashhaas]

So, it’s been quite a long time since my last post about my game room, but rest assured, I have been making slow, steady progress since then. Having finished all the other ground-level cabinetry and shelving, the obvious last step for the north wall was those on the bottom-left of the wall, highlighted here:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19479&stc=1&d=1484603750

I had stayed true to my original design above up until now, but I needed to make a change. I decided that I would replace the lower-left cabinets with a set of comic-book drawers.

The first thing I did was create the inside box of each drawer. I used much cheaper pine wood in lieu of oak since they’d spend most of their time hidden away. I used a router to create a groove along one edge of the boards:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19480&stc=1&d=1484603750

Then I cut the boards and, using my Kreg-jig, wrapped them around a plywood bottom which free-floated in the groove I had routed into the boards. I made the drawer backs tall to hold up the comic books, but I left the fronts short since they would eventually be covered with a full-height oak drawer front:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19481&stc=1&d=1484603750

Next I made the box to hold the drawers. At the same time I made the cabinet that would be tucked into the corner of the room using the same techniques I used with my previous cabinets:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19482&stc=1&d=1484603750

It turns out my walls are not perfectly perpendicular. When I combined that with my imperfect woodworking skills, the result was that my new corner cabinet didn’t fit perfectly with my comic book drawers:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19483&stc=1&d=1484603750

My imperfect solution was to jam some wood into the gap (fig. 1 & fig. 2) and fill the rest with wood-filler (fig. 3). It’s not very professional of me, but once it was stained (fig. 4) and finished it actually isn’t that noticeable:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19484&stc=1&d=1484603750

Now it was time to put in my drawers. I would eventually have shelves on the countertop shown above that will hold my “nice” comic books…things like trade paperbacks, large-format hardbacks, special editions, etc. These drawers however are for holding my reading comics. These are mostly from my youth including single-issue runs of 1980s avengers, G.I. Joe, 1990s Spiderman, and Image comics (among others). I was basically trying to create fancier versions of those white cardboard boxes they use at comic book stores:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19485&stc=1&d=1484603750

Once I had organized all my books into the drawers I slid them into the box I had built:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19486&stc=1&d=1484603750

I used the new corner cabinet to hold gaming components that aren’t as pretty to look at and therefore don’t belong on the shelf – things like tackle-boxes of miniatures and roll-up game maps. The smaller drawers to the right of my comics would hold smaller gaming components like dice and small card games.

…and with that I had finished all of the ground-level cabinetry on my north wall. All that was left was building the shelves that would go on top. I’ll leave that for another post.

[ashhaas]

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19487&stc=1&d=1484604613

In my last post I finished the ground-level cabinetry and drawers for the north wall. All that was left was the book shelves that would sit on the counter tops (highlighted above).

First, in the northwest corner, I built shelves to hold my fancier display-quality comic books:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19489&stc=1&d=1484604614

I built them using the same techniques I used previously on my board game shelves. As far as organization, I went with alphabetical by author’s last name from upper-left to lower right, and I put larger format books on their side on the bottom.

With my new fancy reading chair, this made a pretty cool comic-reading corner. I have spent many long autumn afternoons enjoying it:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19491&stc=1&d=1484604615

Next I built the shelves in the northeast corner:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19492&stc=1&d=1484604616

From the top shelf down, these shelves hold: source books for RPGs I no longer play, large-format nonfiction books (mostly military reference from my youth), source books for RPGs I currently play, and finally an entire shelf devoted to Warhammer 40K including my White Dwarf collection, rule books, and codexes.

Having the entire north wall finished has been a very satisfying accomplishment for me, for many reasons including being able to see what the entire game room might look like someday:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19488&stc=1&d=1484604613

My next step on this project will be starting the west wall (the left side of the above picture). After that I hope to make the cabinet doors and drawer fronts to close up all those open storage spaces.

In the meantime, here’s another angle of the room for you:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19490&stc=1&d=1484604615

[Psychosplodge]

That is some quality work there. :D

[ashhaas]

Thank you, sir.