Garage Arcades...

Nephasth

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I've noticed a lot of people's collections are in garages. And with this being a DIY hobby, I was wondering, do any of you work on your own vehicles? If so, is your garage a shared space with arcade machines, or do you have a game room inside the house? Being a mechanic and having only a small "one car" garage, my tools take up most of the space.
 
I work hard to keep my garage organized, and at least maintain the ability to put two cars into my two car garage, even if we normally only park one in there. I have 7 arcade cabinets around the edge, and lots of shelves. The secrets for me are:

1. Carefully mapping out my space using Google Sketchup. This allows me to play with the arcade cabinets, cars, shelves, etc...in a virtual space that's accurate to the inch.

2. Hyloft Ceiling Mounted Storage shelves from Home Depot. I have 8 of these sets of shelves that hang from the ceiling. It creates a ton of storage out of otherwise wasted space. This allowed me to move many things I'd have stored on the shelves around the edge of the garage.

3. All games on Waxman 2" Rubber Locking Swivel Casters from Lowes. This makes moving games on the cement garage extremely easy. Very nice for moving things out of the way temporarily, and rearranging when necessary.

Garage arcades are must for some of us.
 
I work on all kinds of stuff, my garcade is more of a multipurpose room... it's big enough for 4 cars but we keep 1 in it. all my games in an area, a storage room, and a small home gym. The elliptical is probably the only reason my wife even goes down there (garage is under house). As neat as I try to keep it, it still ends up being a repository for her shopping, things her parents don't want but for some reason think we do, and various project things I seem to find while out working. I work as a police officer and find things all day while out patrolling. I wait till the end of my shift and load stuff in my back seat to take home (I have a take home cruiser). I have an enclosed area under my back deck where I hoard wood and construction throwaways I find. I could probably build an ark for free, given enough time to scroung the parts!!!!!!
 
3. All games on Waxman 2" Rubber Locking Swivel Casters from Lowes. This makes moving games on the cement garage extremely easy. Very nice for moving things out of the way temporarily, and rearranging when necessary.

I need to do this. Doesn't it raise the height too much or is it even noticeable?
 
I need to do this. Doesn't it raise the height too much or is it even noticeable?

Been thinking about doing this also. Moving a game on concrete sounds worse than nails on a chalkboard. I usually use a dolly but to get them just right it's done without.

I also have a Hard Drivin upright that has to be moved without the dolly. No f-ing way I'm going to try and tilt it back with a dolly by myself.

As far as garage arcades go, I have a 3 car garage thats about 1000sqft. The 2 car parts houses all of my kids toys and shit. The 1 car part is my area. Unfortunately, my wife decided to volunteer to be our Boy Scout troops "popcorn" person this year. My side of the garage currently has 6000$ worth of popcorn in it :mad::mad:

Edit: just looked them up at Lowes. With tax, it should be around 20.00 a game. Not too bad unless you have a shitload of games.
 
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I work on my own cars. But I've kind of shifted my hobby from the cars to the arcades recently, as they are cheaper to work on. I just sold my 67 Camaro this year.

I cleaned out one of our out buildings that we finished for my games though. Moved them from the house and the garage in to that. Cleaned out the Garage and have my parent's 63 Dodge Dart in it so I can work on it for them
 
Do you guys worry about it getting cold in the garage? I am sure running heat in he garage to keep it warm could get expensive>
 
Right now my machines are in my Garage here in Minnesota. Yeah, it gets really cold in the winter, but never below freezing in my garage. Sharing it with 2 cars REALLY SUCKS!
Since I live in a Townhome presently, that is the only place I have to put them. We are looking to buy a larger single family home and once that is done, I will have a game room dedicated.
Does anyone think having the machines in the garage during winters (minnesota winters) is a bad idea?
 
I would think the cold would be a problem here in Chicago just for that reason, its cold here. If your not running heat in the garage, and all the time to maintain it, I woulod think the cold could do some damage to the games, I dont know. To run heat is fine, but to maintaing it all the time like your house, could get expensive,very
 
Does anyone think having the machines in the garage during winters (minnesota winters) is a bad idea?

There are a lot of threads on here about this very subject. I've been trying to figure out a way to heat my garage efficiently, but without putting a few grand into it, it's not going to happen.

My only other space to have my "arcade" in the house is in the bonus room on the 2nd floor. Too much trouble. I can't imagine even trying to get my Hard Drivin cab up there (475lbs, f-that!).
 
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