Building out my Basementcade/Man Cave

Malice95

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Donor 2011
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Howell, New Jersey
As the temperature started to drop... having games in an unheated/uninsulated
garage sucks. Who wants to play in 30 deg temps on a freezing garage floor.
So I decided to get off my butt and start work on the finishing our 12'x25' basement.

I am not going to bother putting up walls on all 4 sides and going nuts since I
am on a budget. I am planning on priming/painting the cinderblock walls,
building out a couple enclosures for the sump pump/water line, building a wall
to cover up the utilities, adding heating ducts, carpet, and putting in a drop &
drywall ceiling combination with recessed lights. I am building it out for roughly
21 arcade games, an air hockey table, and a couch/nice LCD tv.

I started by laying down dri-core on the entire basement. It went down really
easy but it wasnt cheap. Basically 6 bucks a panel and I ended up buying almost
80 panels. For the money it did give me a really good subfloor to build on so I
cant complain. Biggest headache was that I had 10 games and the air hockey
table already in the basement so I had to shuffle them around as I laid it.

This weekend I ran 5x 20 amp circuits from the panel into the basement. It
ended up having to route through the nasty crawlspace portion of the foundation
to get through to the basement. You can see the circuits coming out of the
new conduit in the pics.

Next up is wiring it up starting tomorrow. I am planning 3x switched 20 amp
circuits for the games (7 per circuit), 1 switched circuit for lighting, 1 misc
always on circuit (TV, Stereo, etc). My first goal is to have the wiring done and
all the games plugged in by Friday morning.

I'll cronicle the buildout here as I make progress.
 

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Great start! We used DeltaFL on our floors (basically the plastic stuff that's on the Dri-Core panels), and let me tell you what, it saved my a$$ when the sump pump failed.

Looks like you have a great start there! We did our basement, and when it's done it will be well worth it! Nothing like looking at the work YOU did and having a sense of pride. There's alot to be said for that (and saving alot of cash doing it yourself too!).

One think I may suggest is putting Dri-Lock on the cinderblock walls. Not sure if you mentioned that or not.

Will definately be following your progress :)

Let me know if you need me to store the Centipede or Robotoron for you ;)

Chris
 
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