Gaming Room
Gaming Room
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Background:
The gaming room space is the combination of a formal sitting room and formal dining room. Because it is technically 2 rooms joined by an arch in the middle, there was a ton of physical space to work with. As avid ARPG and MMORPG gamers, my wife and I spend a considerable amount of time in our "gaming space" on our PC's, playing games! There would also need to be a TV mounted on a wall so my wife can watch her sportsball during sportsball seasons while we game (also to watch twitchTV on so I can see all the new trends in game genres I don't have time to play).
My biggest goal was to make the space as fun to hang out in as possible...
A view of the dining room portion I started with.
A view of the sitting room portion I started with.
Everything cleared out of the dining room.
Everything cleared out of the sitting room.
Long view of the space.
Had to keep the router in this box during the whole build, I mean who can live without internet?!
House foyer into the front of the space.
First thing to do is rip out the carpet!
Next up, ripping out the carpet padding.
All of the tack boards along the walls need to be ripped out as well as all staples in the sub flooring.
Long view with the sub flooring all cleaned up.
Goovee 6' recessed lighting, these lights are super fun and I intended to install 18 of them.
The light cutouts, but before we start cutting holes in the ceiling, we need to grey box!
Supplies for running power to the lights, and gang boxes for a ceiling fan, and a center ceiling light.
Grey boxing light placement.
Cutting holes in the ceiling and running Romex wiring between the holes. I used a laser level to try and make sure the holes being cut were lined up.
Running more wiring between the holes.
Doh! one of the holes was off by a foot, it didn't look off in the grey box, but sure enough it was. So I had to drill a 2nd hole in the correct location.
The incorrect hole on the left will need to be patched up!
All of the holes I drilled in the ceiling.
Starting the process to fill the extra hole.
After putting a disc in there, the hole needs to be filled with greentop drywall mud, flex tape, and then sanded. Once that drys, a coat or 2 of bluetop drywall mud to finish it off!
See! Can't even tell there was an extra hole there.
Just like making games, can always fix mistakes, and learn a valuable lesson about measuring to boot!
That top hole needs to be patched, and the bottom wires need to be wired into switches in a gang box.
All the power supplies for the recessed lights. It takes a considerable amount of time to do this for 18 lights!
Each hole has now has a wired power supply in it.
This was a case where a speaker had been installed here, however the hole was 2 inches out of wack with the other holes, and it would have bothered me forever. So I made the decision to cut a square, patch the square, and then drill a new hole correctly lined up with the others.
A view of the square from the distance.
Patching the square.
Mudding the square.
New hole drilled and everything lined up!
Put 2 test lights up and more QA on the alignment of the fixed holes.
These lights are really fun, you can chose different color themes for both the outside rim of the light and the inside center of the light.
Playing with different colors on the different lights
The lights during the daytime with the center shut off.
Grey boxing the placement of the TV and the sound bar, I put chairs in various locations of both rooms to ensure that the TV would be viewable from all angles.
Yup, large empty spaces require fun and motivational artwork!
Tweaking the positioning more.
Ensuring things will be level.
Mapping out where the media box will go in the wall behind the TV.
Measured twice, cut once!
Test fitting the media box
Yup the mount is perfectly level!
Test fitting the new TV to make sure it works and that the mounting hardware is perfect.
After the test fit is done, the TV is boxed back up and put away for a month while the rest of the room is worked on. Doing all the prep work with mounting before working on the rest of the room made the final phase really easy.
Notice the wall has light switches now and the hole above the switches has been patched.
My tools to create a "level 5" ceiling.
Buckets of mud for the "level 5" ceiling.
Mixing the mud and adding a yellow coloring that makes it easier to see mistakes.
A "level 5" ceiling involves rolling mud on the entire ceiling, scraping it with a 24 inch blade, letting it dry overnight, sanding it, and repeating that process 2 more times. The after final sand you look for all the minute pits, divets, and scrapes, then patch them up! I spent roughly 50 hours over a week on this ceiling to make it as close to perfect as possible.
These mistakes just wont fly in a level 5, it needs to be filled and sanded back to smooth. You can really only see these details on a ladder with a high power light examining every inch of the ceiling.
This is the finished product of all the mudding and sanding. It is soooooooo incredibly smooth. I mean it even looks smooth in this picture!
Time to work on the walls, but we must protect our level 5 ceiling while we work on the walls.
Putting this plastic up solo was quite a task!
Almost all protected!
Fully protected ceiling and bookcases.
Similar to Hufflepuff room, Mud is sprayed on the walls with a hadn mud gun, then after 15 minutes a giant spatula is used to lightly scrape or "knockdown" the mud.
I think the texturing in here came out great!
Post texturing the walls, all the plastic is removed in preparation for priming everything. 2 coats of primer will help the paint adhere to the walls and ceiling.
The box is still protecting the router after all these weeks!
Continuing my learning with the power sprayer!
Everything in here has been primed!
Before priming the ceiling I had to put cut outs in my lighting holes so as not to flood the inside of the ceiling with primer! I was super worried about messing up the perfect ceiling but I took my time, and in between my coats of primer did light sanding coats.
Textured walls look even better once primed!
My paint supplies for this room, all Benjamin Moore Regal Select.
This room had a plethora of trim around the windows, the arch in the middle of the room, and the crown molding along the ceiling. In order to paint in with the Benjamin Moore Advance paint in a White Dove color with a Satin finish, I didn't want any of the trim paint to hit the walls or ceiling due to potentially causing problems when I applied color over it. This meant I needed to tape/plastic and paper around the trim.
Bigger view of the walls/ceiling protected. I had to tape/plastic the room multiple times over the course of the build, and it ate days of time.
Thankfully the paper didn't fall off until I had painted the trim!
You can see the difference with the White Dove on the trim and the white of the primer on the walls.
Since I was using the sprayer to paint the trim I also did a side quest of painting some crown molding for a different project. Managing colors and cleaning the sprayer had me deep into planning mode because every time I did a color swap I would spent 45 minutes cleaning the sprayer, and that time really adds up!
Prep time to paint the ceiling, this time we need to tape up all the walls from the top of the crown milding down to the floor.
Using Benjamin Moore Regal Select Black Onyx color in a Matte finish.
The paint was like a purple jam when it was in the cans.
First coat up there! It looked so crazy and once again I had to roll the dice at messing up the perfect ceiling!
The paint is starting to dry! After it dries you need to scuff sand it with 350 grit sandpaper. Yup that's right no matter how good it looks you need to wreck it with a smooth sand before the 2nd coat of paint. I was literally cringing on that sand coat but I was trusting in the process!
45 minutes after the 2nd coat was on the ceiling (while the paint was still partially wet) I removed the plastic. Yo do this so the partially wet paint sets properly at the edges and prevents tearing the paint if you were to let it dry more.
Nothing we can do but wait and let the paint cure!
It looks pretty good!
Looks better the more it cures!
Guess what?! Time to plastic/tape the ceiling ONE LAST TIME in prep for painting the walls. Trim on the windows and arch also needs to be covered. Paint also applies crazy, the color I am using for the walls is Revere Pewter (fancy name for grey), but when first applied to the walls it looked light brown.
Yup still looks light brown, TRUST IN THE PROCESS!
Holy smokes! After a couple of hours that light brown had turned grey and does that 3 color combo look really good!
Removed the protective paper in the holes and mounted the recessed lights!
First test of all the lights up at once!
Lets replace that work light with a Minka Aire Concept II, ceiling fan!
Looks pretty slick. Early on in the planning phase I had to order everything based on the colors I had planned, and it is great starting to see all that planning coming together.
Wiring the ceiling fan control into the wall.
Ceiling fan switch!
The sub-flooring in this room was 5/8ths lower than the rest of the house since this room was previously carpeted. Since I wanted the flooring to all line up and not use ugly transition strips between rooms, I needed to build up the sub-floor in the gaming room to the same height as the rest of the first floor of the house.
More sub-floor work!
Fun with lights as the sub-floor goes in.
While waiting for the adhesive between the sub-floor to dry, I can mount the TV hardware. Media Box and wires!
TV mount goes up next.
I ran 2 fiber optic HDMI cables down through the wall, along the basement ceiling and back up into the opposite wall.
Custom wall mount for HDMI jacks.
Time to start placing the flooring ontop of the sub-floor.
I can't stop playing with the lights in the Govee app! They are so fun, even more so at night!
Half of the flooring is in!
All of the flooring is in!
Room is really coming together!
THE Router box is still safe after all these weeks!
Adding 3/4 inch shoe molding to the baseboards.
Hand painting the baseboards and shoe molding.
More baseboard and shoe molding painting.
There was a HVAC vent under that spot, I didn't want anyone to step through it and break a foot!
Almost time for the box to go away!
What's in the Box?!!
TV on the wall! Desk in the room!
Looking clean!
One of these things no longer matches the room!
Rewiring the HVAC wires. Whoever built the house didn't run enough wires to the HVAC, they stopped 10 feet before the HVAC, which is a case of just using what they had on hand, sadly all new "smart" thermostats require that extra wire.
Old wire bundles use the same colors as new wire bundles except for 1. Future person working on this will need to know that the black wire morphs into a white wire 10 feet before HVAC. (I left them a post-it note in the HVAC!
This is a pretty old HVAC, but it still works! I had to jumper in the new wires.
The 20 year old thermostat wiring.
Ohhhhh new thermostat is up annnnnnnd it worked the first time!
The doors into the gaming room needed to match the new trim color, sadly look at all that glass!
Sorcery was involved in making this stuff. You paint it on the glass and it forms a clear coating that enables you to just spray the entire door.
Doors sprayed with 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of White Dove Advance.
After 2 coats of primer/paint on each side of the doors, once everything has dried a few days, you score with a utility knife the edges of the Mask&Peel.
Look at how clean the Mask&Peel comes off.
More peeling!
WOW! That Mask&Peel saved me taping up 30 small piece of glass per door! MAGIC!
Doors hung back up! I used new matte black hinges, that have 2 sets of ball bearings in them to prevent squeaks and make the doors open super smooth!
I love how the flooring has no transition strip from the foyer to the gaming room, makes it look so clean when it is all contiguous.
As with the other doorway, no transition strip here either! Also a good shot of the TV, I love how no wires are visible!
The room is so vastly different from this same angle months earlier.
I went into renovating this room with 2 rooms under my belt, so was better equipped to plan the room, and go a little dangerous on aspects like the level 5 black ceiling. I learned a ton and am still enjoying the results today!
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