Game Room/Man Cave/Nerd Castle

[hmmblah]

you have two wavebirds! omg! nice dude. just nice!

I still love these controllers.

looks good!

Thanks!




These are a little out of turn, but I actually started the recessed lighting first. Originally there was a fluorescent ballast in the middle of the room and two fixtures by the window. There's now 5 recessed fixtures operated by 2 switches. Three of them over the desk area and 2 along the back wall.

As I mentioned earlier I had planned on doing a drop ceiling, but later decided to do something that would fit with the industrial theme. I ended up buying sheets of corrugated metal. It can come down easy enough if I ever need to access electrical or plumbing in the ceiling and I think it looks way better. It also blocks any harmful radio waves the government is shooting my way. /tinfoilhat

The first sheet was easy to hang. I was able to rest in on some of the ventilation before screwing it to the ceiling joists. After that though it was damn near impossible to hold 8 foot sheets of flimsy metal in the correct spot while also operating a drill to screw these in place.

At first I was thinking way too complicated. I was going to construct some sort of scaffolding from the floor. Instead, I came up with this:

A single 2x4 and a small chunk of 3/4" plywood clamped to the ceiling. I made two of these and used them to hold up one sheet at a time as I progressed.

I really like the contrast between the white recessed lighting and the metal.

Lights out

I had planned on leaving the left and right sides open so you could see the copper pipes. Now I'm not so sure. I might paint the joists black to blend a little better or I might just box it in with more metal.

All in all, I'm happy with how it turned out.

 

[hmmblah]

I guess ceilings aren't your thing?

When thinking of the desk I knew I wanted something L-shaped and with no legs where the chair would go. I really couldn't find anything I liked and I honestly didn't feel like building something from scratch. I did the next best thing and bought 3 Ikea Linnmon tables.

You're supposed to use 12 legs (4 for each), but I went with a total of 9. This way I can wheel around freely without bumping my knees.

These tables are cheap and they look great.

On it's back:

Decided to go with a Kreg jig and dowels to join the tables together:

Jig for the dowels:

Dowels in:

I had assumed that the tables were solid around all the edges and hollow in the middle. Unfortunately, they are only solid on either end where the legs go. The sides and middle are hollow. Using a kreg jig and dowels where the L meets wasn't going to work. Instead I glued a piece of plywood on the hollow part and screwed it to the solid party of the other table.

All together;

You can also see an old 1930's era radio I'm using for another project....


There's still a little more work to come on the desk, but that will be later. It should make it a little more unique and fit in with the theme of the room while also strengthening and adding some weight to the desk.



The cabling will all be in the wall for the PC and monitor until it comes out underneath the table. This way the table can be butted directly up to the wall and I don't have any cables (except mouse and keyboard) running through the table.

This mount for the monitor is awesome. It moves freely up, down, left, right without the need to adjust anything and where you stop is where it stays.

Start of the cabling:

 

[hmmblah]

Finished shots of the PC layout:

Wiring behind monitor and PC:

Orthanc:

 

[Davva2004]

That's a tidy job!

 

[WillSK]

Wall routed cables EEERRRYYYWWERERRRR <3 <3 <3

Nicely done dude

 

[sheroo]

Wow!!! Absolutely love what you've done to the place. That ceiling is amazing. I too would like a floating monitor...

 

[AlienALX]

Yeah I like the ceiling too. And yeah those tables are hollow as I found out lol. I used metal straps between mine to keep them together and left all of the legs on

 

[SPS]

Wish I could be bothered to route cables through walls like that.. good job.
But you need more monitors for the size of that desk

 

[hmmblah]

I finished some custom shelves awhile back and really love how they turned out. They are pretty simple consisting of black pipe and pine wood.

I started out by buying the pre-cut threaded pipe, caps, and floor flanges. They have an oily residue on them to inhibit rust so I used steel wool and mineral spirits to clean them off. There was also a sticker on each pipe that used an extremely stubborn glue that took a razor to remove.

After the cleaning I assembled and spray painted all the pieces.

The paint gives the pipes a worn or hammered look. Exactly what I was going for.

I also painted a bunch of these clips. These will hold the shelves to the pipes.

Using screws, I attached the floor flanges directly to the studs in the wall. The flanges are wider than a single stud so I had to double up the studs behind the wall. Luckily, there is an unfinished room on the other side of the wall so access was easy.

Another close-up of the pipe

And continuing on...

The last picture is missing, but at this point there are three columns of pipes on the wall.

Next it was on to the actual shelves. I wanted something that had knots and a noticeable grain that would show up well when stained. A few dents to make it look more worn would work as well. I went with pine because it fits all that criteria and luckily my local lumber yard stocks really crappy wood.

The planks were in all sorts of shape. None of them were flat so I used dowels between them to even them out. Attaching the glued boards later to the pipes would straighten them out further.

Glued and clamped

Closeup of the grain

Dried and sanded. There were 4 shelves total, one missing in this pic

The first coat of stain doesn't look good at all. I was second guessing my color choice at this point

After the second coat though I really like how it turned out and it would only get better with the poly applied

I did 3 coats of poly, lightly sanding between each coat

After that it was on to installation. Using 6 clips per shelf, I attached the shelves to the pipes

Shot from underneath

After all the shelves were attached, it was time to start filling them up. Any guesses as to what?

Yep, Star Wars UCS Lego sets.

 

[AlienALX]

Love them. They look great. God, I could really show off my Fallout collection with shelves like that !

 

[WYP]

Words cannot describe how much I am geeking out right now!

 

[AlienALX]

Words cannot describe how much I am geeking out right now!

Aye, these yanks with all of their bloody space ! Jammy Dodger.

 

[hmmblah]

Love them. They look great. God, I could really show off my Fallout collection with shelves like that !

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with them.

Words cannot describe how much I am geeking out right now!

LOL

 

[Excalabur50]

Really like those Star Wars Lego models Blah at first glance on the first pics I thought they were plastic model kits they didn't look like Lego till the closer pics but the detail in them is awesome

 

[hmmblah]

Received an Oculus Rift for Christmas, and while it's a great kit, there are cables everywhere. In an effort to clean things up a bit I found a 3D printed breakout box:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2501842/#collections

Here's some shots of it fresh off the printer, with the supports, then finally cleaned up and installed. It has holes for mounting with screws, but because I used Ikea hollow table tops, I had to attach it with double sided tape.

Supports knocked out:

The HDMI repeater that goes in the box. I'm not really sure it's needed, but it was cheap and the box is sized for it.

Finally, mounted to the underside of the desk. The cables run into the wall and out above the desk top to the back of the PC.

A couple new editions to the setup....

New monitor above is the Acer Predator z35p. I decided to mount my old 27" IPS screen above it and I love this setup. It works great for watching Youtube or Netflix while gaming or browsing the web or even while I work.

 

[Dawelio]

New monitor above is the Acer Predator z35p. I decided to mount my old 27" IPS screen above it and I love this setup. It works great for watching Youtube or Netflix while gaming or browsing the web or even while I work.

This is exactly the same monitor as mine and the way I have it setup. Not only is it very functional, but also looks very slick in my opinion

 

[hmmblah]

This is exactly the same monitor as mine and the way I have it setup. Not only is it very functional, but also looks very slick in my opinion

At first I wasn't sure I would like it. Seemed the top screen was too high up to be of any use. After using it though, I love it. Can't really tell in the pic, but the top screen is slightly behind the bottom screen and down, plus tilted down.