Help me design my game room!

[VACRMH]

So at the end of the month my fiance and I will be moving into our first house. That means all 1400 or so games come along with me, and my task is finding a place to put them.

I'm going to have 1 room to fit everything, it's not the biggest room but I think I can do it with some tips and suggestions. I'm also going to trim the fat a bit and get rid of some items I'd have no use for anymore such as NES, SNES and GBA boxes.

The closet is the best part about the room, as I'll have plenty of space to store systems that aren't in use, and I know I can put a shoe holder thingy on the back of the door to store controllers.

I'll post pictures of the room when we go for the home inspection Tuesday. But for now, does anyone have any good tips on how to cram as much as possible in one room? I'm thinking of installing custom shelves on the largest wall, similar to this...

http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/67795_PE181744_S4.jpg

But it would be the entire length of the wall, from floor to ceiling. I'd hope I could fit most if not all of the games on one wall.

Thanks for the help. Once it's said and done, I'll make sure to post pictures too! :)

EDIT - After the house inspection...

Turns out it's a little bigger than I expected. It's 9X10. The closet is a good size too. And here's some pictures!

It's a bit of a tight fit with the owners stuff still in there. But it should give a good image of what I'm working with.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/Misc/DSCN2021.jpg

View from looking in the door. The next picture is the wall to the left of the door.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/Misc/DSCN2019.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/Misc/DSCN2020.jpg
Wall on the right, Closet.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/Misc/DSCN2022.jpg
Another view from the door.

[Rickstilwell1]

I have a collection just a tiny bit larger than yours by maybe just a couple hundred games and I live in an apartment studio, but the way I do it is I use bookshelves. I stack the games on top of one another and the shelves on this bookshelf stick out far enough so I can put one stack of NES cartridges behind another. I usually put games I actually like playing a lot in the front row and games I like less and would not pull out as often in the back row. My other bookshelf is taller and has enough space between the shelves to hold laptop bags, which hold most of my game systems. That only takes up 3 shelves while the other two have space for more of my games.

[camarotuner]

I actually posted this in a thread of my own, but in case you didn't see it, this case can be built using basic materials and tools with very little work. Total cost runs 20-30 bucks depending on your area. It holds approximately 250 NES games, 200 SNES games, and 350 Genesis Games (cart only). I haven't built on for Atari yet but given some rough estimates you'd be looking at close to 500 2600 carts. Now for modern CD based gaming, you're on your own. I don't own any of them.

http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu277/camarotuner13/Picture001.jpg

[Trebuken]

Your at the point where you can almost forget about hanging anything on the walls.

Standard shelving is great for complete games or nes/Neo Geo carts, but you need to get creative when you have lots of cartridges. Simply stacking carts is not attractive on a book case (Atri 2600 of N64 for example). Yet that's what I have done. I use different shelving for my carts than my 'In Box' collection. Segregating them helps. Media shelving for carts and homemade shelving like camrotuner is showing off but floor to ceiling instead of wall mounted.

[crom]

this is cool I like watching the progress of this game room, keep us posted

[HYB]

For modern systems the Billy shelves from ikea are great. One part of the shelf can hold some 170 games (regular dvd size) if you pile them vertically like you would a book. Maybe even more if you put them horizontally, but I wouldn't know.

I could see it holding some 500 games or more, and they're cheap and stylish. They house my 154 games+some boxes and books and the 3 parts that I use for games out of 6 are hardly even full. Could fit another 154 in those 3 shelves easily.

[VACRMH]

Thanks for the help so far everyone!

I've always been interested in the Billy shelves, but after settlement...I'll be pretty broke. Plus the idea of the adjustable shelves I have would avoid wasted space such as when on a regular store bought shelf you'd have some areas that just wouldn't fit something right after you've set it up the way you want.

But I know I can fit everything in here if I try :D I just worry about the shelves getting so heavy they'd rip out of the wall.

[VACRMH]

Posted pics!

And I actually like the color <_<

[VACRMH]

So I've been going back and forth trying to decide what to do for shelving. And now that I see that Billy shelves can have additional shelves added, and there's an extender to make it even taller, I may end up going with that. I'm also surprised that they're cheaper than I expected. When I think Ikea I think $$$

But, I really don't like the thought of putting games in front of other games. So it's wasted space unless I put nick nacks and such in front.

Settlement is Thursday :) Once all the important stuff is done I'll get crackin!

[CreativeOnlineSurname]

One more vote for the Billy. IKEA isn't cheap, but has some awesome pieces to display games and toys... I have a bunch of G.I. Joes and Transformers sitting in a display case from there.


I'm going to have 1 room to fit everything, it's not the biggest room but I think I can do it with some tips and suggestions. I'm also going to trim the fat a bit and get rid of some items I'd have no use for anymore such as NES, SNES and GBA boxes.

Hey, if you end up doing this, I'll be happy to buy the boxes and such off of ya. I want to start getting a CIB NES and SNES collection and I know moving is expensive, so you could probably use some cash! PM me if you're down.

[Vkmies]

One more vote for the Billy. IKEA isn't cheap, but has some awesome pieces to display games and toys.


Ikea is one of the cheapest places to get furniture! At least in Finland... :P

[VACRMH]

Update!

So we've moved in, and without the 2 main shelves I had most of my games on back home... there's not much room to put anything. (The 2 bookshelves shown were given to me by a friend who actually just built his own custom game shelf http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/collections/Rajaat%20the%20Warbringer/DSC_0371.JPG)

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2031.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2034.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2035.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2036.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2037.jpg

I seem to change my mind too often, but after seeing my friends custom shelf, and finding out that some of my fiances family knows a bit about woodwork, I think I'm going to go the custom route.

I've drawn up a crude plan, taking into account how many games of each size I have now and how many I think I'd ever have (It's about 2100 total, god I hope I never get more than that) and it looks like if I make 3 shelves of the same size it could just fit.

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/?action=view&current=img003.jpg

So what's everyone think? The 3 units would take up the entire main wall and most of the wall next to the door. And about me getting rid of most of my cardboard boxes (NES boxes and such), I planned on putting some favorites into those plastic cases for rentals and putting them on the wall next to the Felecia wallscroll.

Comments, suggestions?

[c0ldb33r]

Hey VACRMH, how did you make out with this?

My wife and I are getting our first house at the end of the month, so I'd be interested in seeing how your man-room turned out.

[VACRMH]

Sorry for the delay! I haven't had much time to get alot done.

I did however, flip flop on my shelving idea again. I decided to pick up 2 Billy shelves and see how they worked out. See for yourself...

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2088-1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2090.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vacrmh/New%20Home/DSCN2091.jpg

I'm really happy with how tall they were, but sadly I need a step stool to get to the higher shelves. I also think I'll purchase a few extra shelves for it to make things look nicer.

I plan on getting at least one more Billy shelf, to replace the medium shelf (for one, it's leaning to the side O.o) My only concern is that the billy shelves go right up against the wall (with a notch on the bottom to go over the molding), but if I do that I'll cover up the outlet on the wall.

The other wall, where the leaning shelf used to be, is just occupied by a small shelf that's holding Xbox, GC, and current gen games.

Speaking of the other wall, I still can't figure out what to do with it. The outlet on that wall is what the lightswitch is wired to, so I don't want to block it with another billy shelf. I'm considering still trying out the adjustable shelving idea (Port's room made it look damn nice) but we'll see.

Also got a new TV for the room! I'll try and get a pic up later. It's a good size, but only offers composite input. But hell, it has a DVD and VCR in it and only cost $5. I'm not complaining.

The closet I hope to get some of those organizer things put in, so I can place large controllers in there for easy access instead of taking them out of the box every time I want to play something like Taiko.

I'll make sure to update when something changes :)

[rpepper9]

I have my own room in my house much like yours. It has a large closet that had the double wide doors like the one in your photo. I know you mentioned that you were going to store controllers in the 'shoe holders" on the back, but with the sliding doors, that idea is probably out.

What I did was remove the doors all together and put shelving in the closet. I have shelfs and a work bench with florescent lights and a swivel desk lamp with magnifying lens. Makes for a good work space, I use this space for computer repair and model building, I also have my server in this space. It looks damn cool, I should take some photos!

[Game Freak]

I too had a TRIPLE door closet. I initially planned on putting my dresser on it, but upon furtherthought I put my bed in there instead.

[VACRMH]

I actually plan on putting a very small desk in the closet with my old computer running XP. I figure it can run enough of the stuff I want to play, especially because PC gaming isn't very common for me.

Unless I need to, I'm going to try and keep the doors on. Just so I can close them and hide the huge mess of boxes, and so I can decorate the doors with posters too ;)