Classy Gaming Rooms

[christianscott27]

my game room is so classy, i gotta guy handing hot towels in there.

[nate1749]

No I cannot afford the 2nd condo, especially with a $30,000 parking spot... I was just trying to illustrate the style and those seemed to have a few pictures... Style being wood floors, simple, somewhat bleek. I am mostly focusing on the west side and even maybe in the suburbs a bit (Oak Park). I would prefer to live in little italy, but the only nice places sell far out of my range.

As for Chicago being insane on real estate, I am going to have to disagree - especially when compared to other large cities.

Here's the governments website for home price appreciation comparisons - select metropolitian areas.

http://www.ofheo.gov/HPIMSA.asp

You'll see chicago is almost always single digits, only last year (lowest rates in decades) was it low double digits... Now compare it to where I really want to live, which is San Diego - a 30% increase last year alone and over the last 5years, 120%! Chicago does not even make it in the top 20.

The handtowel thing made me laugh...

Nate

[atomicthumbs]

I'm not looking forward to moving in a few months (from Madison, WI to Savannah, GA). Means that pretty much everything stays in boxes in whatever apartment we find until we can find a house. I'm just worried about space. I've got these really great video store shelves and towers for all my movies (everything faced) that take up A LOT of room. I just hope I don't have to store them or sell them.

[nate1749]

My friend goes to SCAB, she loves the town, but on her 4th year of college is now sick of the townspeople. Great weather though.

You might look into a storage unit that only charge you a dollar for the first month. They don't have a minimum to stay (at least not the ones here), my friend stored some stuff in one for about 3 weeks and when he pulled it out he owed a whole dollar. Talk about a deal.

[downfall]

I'm actually "remodeling" my game room if you will. New furniture, new paint job, new decor, etc.

I'm aiming for functionality and a modern design more so than anything. I can't afford to collect anymore like most of the rest of the DP members can, so I've decided I need to switch my focus from 90% collecting / 10% playing to more of the opposite - 90% playing / 10% collecting - thus the need for a functional, yet stylish and relaxing game room.

Hey downfall, I'm moving back to WV most likely in July, maybe to Winfield or Poca even. I'll be looking to buy a house, maybe you can give me some room of doom tips!

Heh.. I'm not much of an interior designer or anything - but I know what I like, and to me, that's what a room of doom should be - a room that I like, that I enjoy and is a place where I can get away from the daily stress of life. It's awesome to have 500+ games, but it's not awesome to have them all packed in tubs and bookshelves in the closet either. It's also not awesome to have to hunt through 500 games to find the ones I want to play. Out of all the games in my collection, probably 20% are games that I really enjoy playing - the rest are just filler - I'm never going to drop enough money to complete any collection. I'd rather just keep what I know I want to play and have a room where everything is easily accessable to play.

Either way, I'm hoping to have everything finished within a few months. Let me know if you do end up back here!

If I have time today, I'll throw together a little mock-up blueprint of what I'm aiming for.

[16-bit]

No I cannot afford the 2nd condo, especially with a $30,000 parking spot... I was just trying to illustrate the style and those seemed to have a few pictures... Style being wood floors, simple, somewhat bleek. I am mostly focusing on the west side and even maybe in the suburbs a bit (Oak Park). I would prefer to live in little italy, but the only nice places sell far out of my range.

As for Chicago being insane on real estate, I am going to have to disagree - especially when compared to other large cities.

Here's the governments website for home price appreciation comparisons - select metropolitian areas.

http://www.ofheo.gov/HPIMSA.asp

You'll see chicago is almost always single digits, only last year (lowest rates in decades) was it low double digits... Now compare it to where I really want to live, which is San Diego - a 30% increase last year alone and over the last 5years, 120%! Chicago does not even make it in the top 20.

The handtowel thing made me laugh...

Nate

If the second condo was in DC it would be A STEAL!

A lot of the furniture in the second condo is designed by Alvar Aalto for Herman Miller

Good furniture sites:

http://www.retromodern.com/item_detail.asp?2408.
http://www.retromodern.com/item_detail.asp?1149.
http://www.retromodern.com/item_detail.asp?2382.
www.dwr.com (Design Within Reach

Yeah, It is pretty expensive, but it will last a lifetime and won't go out of style. Also, you can get classic furniture at a fraction of the cost on eBay.

For everything elese, I'd go with Ikea--especially for shelving.

[Jasoco]

I like to keep mine functional but still have it look nice. I like little figurines and doo-dads all over the shelves in front of the games to keep it from looking plain.

Yeah, they're shelves, but they look nice as well. I bought a bunch of the modular shelving adjustable screw to the wall kinds from Lowes. Black supports with white shelves. Too bad each time I went, they had different colored brackets. So I have three sets of black, one white and one silver. I'd paint the silver one black if I get the chance. Same with the white one. Of course, the white one would probably stay as it signifies that the white one is miscellaneous, black is games and silver is the consoles and boxes. Still, I'll prefer them to be uniform. (Same thing happened when I was getting shelves. Some times they were out of the size I wanted. So I have a few widths and thicknesses. Not as noticable though.)

Sadly, I have too much stuff in this one small room, so when I'm not taking photos, the floor is nowhere to be seen. That is, it's covered by stuff with no home.

[AlanD]

While I am deeply honored someone mentioned my collection in this thread, the last thing I would consider it is 'classy' It is not even good for displaying the games I have since 250+ N64 boxes and all the NES boxes are packed away since I am out of room. I consider it 50lbs of shit in a 5lb sack. It is functional but not much else.

If I had the opportunity and unlimited cash I would have a 50x100 room that would be just for my collection/gameroom in order to adequately display everything and also have it functional. There is no chance of a pretty collection when it is stacked like cordwood. Custom shelves to hold all the games, a tasteful and limited selection of memorabilia, a well-designed and well-organized system and gameplay area are the qualifications I would have for a nice gameroom.

[Nature Boy]

I've got my games split into two rooms really: the 4 'current' consoles connected to my TV in my family room, and my other 20ish consoles connected in what I call my games room.

The key to keeping my games room tidyish was to use the closet. If I didn't use the closet space to extend the room everything just gets *so* cramped. As it is I have my old entertainment centre in there (the one I used before I purchased a 36" TV) and I think it works *beautifully*.

I agree with what people are saying though - once your collection gets to a certain size it'll *always* look cluttered somewhat. Doesn't matter if it's games or vinyl or books or whatever - too much of the same thing, no matter how organized, is gonna look *crazy*. So if you want to keep things looking tidyish keep your collection smaller rather than massive.

[nate1749]

Yeah I guess gaming room shouldn't be in the title of this post. It should be like mini-gaming room or basically what your family room looks like (presuming you have some systems in there as well). I just didn't realize everyone had such a huge collection, I didn't even know 27 consoles existed.

I'll have to check out Lowe's for ideas, I didn't even think of that. I'm not a huge fan of IKEA (I have not had good luck with their product durability), but there's one fairly close to me so it would be dumb to not at least check it out.

I often find myself using items for other uses and they seem to work better and I guess that's also what I was looking for when it comes to video game and console storage and presentation =) For instance, at work I keep all the chocolate on my desk in a cotton ball container (rather than a candy dish) and rather than a plastic bottle of lotion I put it all in a chrome soap dispenser (both products courtsey of Target).

The only original idea I've had so far for video game storage is to use a stakable shoe organizer (with closing doors) and keep any additionall accessories in there (guns, controllers, keyboards, etc.). I think this will look much better than having wires and misc. items sitting all over the closet shelf.

As for the condo, yes just about everything Herman Miller is the style I'm going for. However, I didn't think mentioning that brand would give people a better idea of what I was going for - guess you proved me wrong on that one.

This is actually my dream place (not the 300k+ one - although that would be an amazing location),
http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1037525807

It's too far south for me though, but I may have to make the trip down there to see how it is. Anyone ever lived in Hyde Park? I can handle a little ghetto, but I don't want my roommate (whose female) to feel unsafe when she's coming home.

Keep the ideas coming and pictures help out so much. Even if you think it's not what I'm looking for I will probably at least get an idea from something your collection has (as I've gotton from the gaming room pics). Thanks for all the replies so far!

Nate

[drdrew1469]

just a thought on custom shelving...

if you know how many games there are for any given console (nes, 2600, genesis) then why not take the dimensions of the complete boxes/just carts/whatever and multply that by the number of games to get your "storage area" and dimensions for shelving for that console?

example - nes has 792? games and say the boxes are 6" x 8" x 1" (w x h x d)
your shelves should be about 8" deep x 8' h (shelves - 12" high (1" for shelf)) and 100" long (or 2 - 50", you get my point).

that way THIS SHELF IS RESERVED FOR XXXXX

this would be very modern and very sleek in my opinion. your thoughts?

[djbeatmongrel]

http://www.whatisblik.com/ this isnt furniture but theres great space invaders wall decals and othe stuff to add some class to a new game room

[Jasoco]

I don't plan on owning every single game, so I see no reason to.

The ones I use are rated for like 40lb each or something. The ones I have the Genesis AND SNES.. and Saturn and Dreamcast games on are already bowing.

[drdrew1469]

I don't plan on owning every single game, so I see no reason to.

true, it may be overkill for some, but if you want it complete, and sleek, i couldn't think of a better way to do it

[Nature Boy]

(presuming you have some systems in there as well).

But of course! I keep my four most recent machine connected in my family room! (That way I get the best picture and the best sound possible).

My current entertainment system has a main piece and two side pieces. Each piece has a door at the bottom of it with a couple of shelves. The outside pieces are where I keep my games, the pieces directly under the TV are where the consoles go. Wifely loves it, I love it.

When I didn't have the outside pieces I'd cram games in with the machines (there's lots of room). And if I ran out of space I'd just make sure that the games I was currently playing were there and I'd store the others somewhere else (I didn't run out of space previously, mind you I didn't have 70ish PS2 games previously either ).

[nate1749]

A few people (I think) said they'd upload pictures soon, I was just wondering if anyone had gotton around to it. Thanks!

Nate

[charitycasegreg]

While I am deeply honored someone mentioned my collection in this thread, the last thing I would consider it is 'classy' It is not even good for displaying the games I have since 250+ N64 boxes and all the NES boxes are packed away since I am out of room. I consider it 50lbs of shit in a 5lb sack. It is functional but not much else.

If I had the opportunity and unlimited cash I would have a 50x100 room that would be just for my collection/gameroom in order to adequately display everything and also have it functional. There is no chance of a pretty collection when it is stacked like cordwood. Custom shelves to hold all the games, a tasteful and limited selection of memorabilia, a well-designed and well-organized system and gameplay area are the qualifications I would have for a nice gameroom.

I love your room, one of my 5 favorites... if it was just bigger so you can have room for those boxes! That would be cool to have a huge room just for a collection, then there wouldn't have to be a bed or dresser in the way.. like somebody's room

[Flack]

I added my pix to the online gallery.

http://videogamecollectors.com/galle...-Rooms-of-Doom

That's as classy as I get.

[K3V]

I added my pix to the online gallery.

http://videogamecollectors.com/galle...-Rooms-of-Doom

That's as classy as I get.

I love that you've got a whole building in your backyard filled with arcade machines. That's so awesome

[ManciGames]

I added my pix to the online gallery.

http://videogamecollectors.com/galle...-Rooms-of-Doom

That's as classy as I get.

The arcade kicks ass. Now *that's* classy.

The actual collection picks still look like a flea market, but there's nothing you can do about that Flack. Just the nature of collecting.

I always thought a cool setup would be something like "Mr. Glass" had with his comic book store in Unbreakable. Just with games instead of comics, of course.