Making the Man Cave

[akator]

So we moved to BFE in December. After all the packing and everything else, it was shocking how much stuff I had collected. Sad thing is, in our last place we never got a chance to get the furniture we needed for everything to be accessible.

 

I figured, let's do this right. My office has to be the first room (my wife agreed) and everything has to be the best it can. Instead of having cool stuff in containers, why not make everything perfect from the start.

 

Easier said than done. We closed on the house on December 4, moved December 5, but it took until the end of December just to paint the walls.

 

I couldn't find all of the furniture I needed, at least not without spending several thousand, so our only choice was for me to build it. I needed 2 bookcases, 2 consoles cabinets, and 2 storage cabinets. It took another few weeks to figure it all out.

 

In mid-January, I started buying supplies. Apparently where we moved, things are 10-25% more expensive because it is rural. Bummer, a lot more expense. On top of that, there's a lot of stuff not carried locally (I use that term loosely, local around here means an hour drive or more) that was carried in stores where we used to live.

 

So, several hundred dollars later, and by late January, we had all of the materials delivered. It was time to use tools.

 

 

Of course, everything takes longer than expected. As many others have experienced, this has been a particularly cold and snowy winter. That made it impossible to construct the office furniture outdoors, so my future office/man-cave had to become a workshop. Drop clothes, a window fan for venting dust, and a Shop Vac would take care of most of the mess.

 

153 pieces of wood needed to be cut to width before assembling the furniture. The basic lumber preparation took two weeks.

 

 

Even though the boards were cut to width, they still needed to be cut to length. I decided to do that one cabinet at a time. It seemed best to do the easiest first, the fixed shelves. By February 24, had finally started to get something recognizably done beside stacks of lumber.

 

 

The next day, I managed to get a lot done. One bookcase was finished and sanded, then moved to the hallway to make room. Another was started.

 

 

 

 

I have no idea when it will all be done. After all of the construction, the room needs to be cleaned amazingly. Then all of the dropclothes go back down and all of the new furniture gets painted. Then, sometime around late March or early April, I will finally get to unpack everything...

Edited February 8, 2011 by akator

[Ghost Soldier]

Looking forward to following the rest of your gameroom build. The bookshelf turned out really nice.

[Mirage]

Very cool, it will be worth all the effort in the end.

[jboypacman]

Can't wait to see how this will all turn out.

[+save2600]

Where's BFE? Looks like a pretty downtown area. And nice color schemes for your gaming cave! We did something similar in alternating colors between opposing walls. Gives a smaller room a little more depth, so the misses said. lol

[akator]

Thanks for the positive feedback. I wanted to get more done this weekend, but using sanders for a couple of hours on Friday did a number on my wrist. I decided to take the weekend off for it to heal up. I guess joints are less tolerant about stuff like extended use of power tools at 40

 

BFE is short for Bum-F***-Egypt. My wife took a new job here in the mountains, we're about 25 miles from West Virginia. The town is pretty small, around 3,900 people. The photo above is about 1/6 of the downtown. It's very pretty here, but I really miss having cuisine like sushi, Tai, Greek, along with bookstores and Asian/Indian/European grocery stores. We're adapting by making a big trip every 3 months back to Richmond to stock up on stuff like food and wine.

[akator]

The weekend off let my wrist heal, so on Monday I restarted furniture construction. The bookshelves were assembled, cabinet no. 1 parts cut, and cabinet parts sanded.

 

 

 

On Tuesday I assembled the cabinet horizontals, then puttied and sanded the bookshelves.

 

Funny thing is that our cat has finally accepted some of the noise from construction. At first she was scared to death by the table saw, circular saw, sanding, drilling, and hammering. I have to close the door to keep her out whenever I'm using the saws and sanders, both because of dust and safety -- but she sits outside the door crying until I let her back in. Now even hammering doesn't bother her, she just cocks her ears from the noise. She's going to be pissed when the rest of the lumber is gone, because it gives her a nice perch to look at birds.

 

 

Today I finished up with the 2nd bookcase by doing touch-up putty and sanding. As with the first bookcase, I moved the 2nd to the hallway to make more room. That made assembling the cabinet exterior much easier.

 

 

 

Each day after I stop work and clean up, I always want to do more. Unfortunately, by late afternoon my attention span is gone and the only thing that would result from going further is mistakes and/or injury. Power tools always demand focus, but that doesn't keep me from wishing that I could work another several hours and get that much more done.

 

Another issue is that I'm completely unwilling to buy more corner clamps. I've already got 8, which cost over $70. If I bought another 8, I could certainly do more each day. I just can't bring myself to spend the money on them, especially since it's unlikely I will ever need than many corner clamps once this project is finished. Of course, when I have to start building the drawers for the cabinets I might change my tune.

 

I don't know if it's the weather or what, but I feel like I've been hit by a train. It might be necessary to take tomorrow off, but I really hope I will wake up fresh and ready to get the second cabinet case done.

Edited March 4, 2010 by akator

[+wood_jl]

You're living one of my dreams. I look forward to the day I can do that.

 

Thanks for sharing. It's great to see the progress documented. And we all love pictures!!!

[akator]

I haven't been feeling well the last few days, so there's no progress. Meanwhile, someone asked me for more details about the construction, so I figured that I would post the same info here.

 

The "shelves," the horizontals in the case construction, are reinforced with 2" strips to keep the MDF from bowing under weight. The reinforcing wood is glued and nailed into place using the corner clamps to keep everything true. The clamps can be taken off after 2 hours, because that's how long it takes for the yellow "carpenters" aliphatic resin glue to dry. The glue doesn't fully set for 24 hours, so while the clamps can be removed it's a bad idea to stress the bond, so the assembled shelves have to sit until assembled with the rest of the case. I make sure that the nails are never closer than 3 inches from the ends, because MDF splits too easily.

 

 

The "tops" of the cabinets will typically get more weight that the interior shelves. It might be overkill, but just to be on the safe side I added an extra horizontal support.

 

 

After the shelves/horizontals are assembled, I use the same clamps to assemble the shelves to the vertical boards which make the framed case. The shelves are then glued and screwed to the vertical boards. It is important to pre-drill for the screws, then use a counter-sink bit so the screws will be recessed. That way wood putty will fill the space and cover the screws.

 

 

 

By using the 90 degree clamps on all corners, the exterior case will be relatively true -- but not perfect. A carpenters brace (the bright orange triangle seen in some of the previous post photos) is clamped to one corner to "encourage" the 90 degree angles while everything sets and dries for a day. Getting the exterior set and dry is more important than the interior shelves... if the exterior case isn't true, it is much more obvious than the interior shelves. Not that the interior shelves aren't important as well, but if the entire case is 88 degrees instead of 90, everything else will be screwed up...

 

 

 

Once everything is assembled, the joints are puttied (if needed), everything is sanded, cleaned, and set in the hallway until ready to prime and paint.

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

I bet it will be a very nice game room! Let the pics coming!

[Crazy Climber]

Very nice! This one can turn out really good if you keep the same level of dedication until the end

[akator]

After feeling horrible for days, today I was back in action and finally back to work. Case #2 assembled and waiting for tomorrow so the glue sets.

 

 

Case #1 puttied, sanded, puttied, sanded, and moved to the hallway to make room.

 

[akator]

Very nice! This one can turn out really good if you keep the same level of dedication until the end

 

Yeah, some days it is difficult to muster the enthusiasm necessary, but once I get started things fall into place

[akator]

It was a relatively slow day, mainly because I wasn't into the work today. Case no. 2 was puttied, sanded, re-puttied, and re-sanded. Once done, I cleaned it and moved it to the hallway with the other furniture.

 

 

When building things by hand, there's always a chance the results will be a little off no matter how careful the construction is. With the current 4 items in the hallway, I was extremely pleased to discover that all of the assembled cases aligned correctly, are the same height, and with good upright angles so they stand together without discrepancies and gaps. Of course, there's still a lot of work to do, so feeling too satisfied would be counting chickens before they hatch.

 

Tomorrow is another round of sizing parts, this time for the console cabinets. The overall cases will be 4' H x 4' W x 22" deep. That way our CRTs will be able to sit on top of the cabinets without issues, and there will be plenty of space inside for systems, peripherals, and controllers.

[akator]

This has definitely been an off week. There has been nice weather, and for lack of a better description I've had spring fever. No work on the furniture on Wednesday or Thursday, I simply didn't have the slightest bit of interest. Instead I goofed off and watched Dr. Who on Netflix.

 

Today was more productive. All of the parts for the console cabinet cases were cut to length and sanded, which took about 3 hours. Because these console cabinets are 4' H x 4' W x 22" D, their overall size requires a little more assembly and time than the 14" D cabinets. Only one of the horizontal "shelves" was assembled today, because it needed more clamps than I predicted. Just to be on the safe side, I will let the glue set up overnight. I'm impatient to get more done, but it's better to do things right.

 

 

Hopefully the next round of case horizontals won't need the additional clamps, but if it takes longer, I'll just have to suck it up and be patient. It's better to do things right the first time. I guess it will take as long as it takes

[akator]

Over the weekend, I worked on assembling the horizontal "shelves" for the console cabinets. We looked at the horizontals and decided they needed more supporting 2" strips to make sure things don't bow under the weight of multiple CRTs. That meant cutting more strips and fixing them.

 

 

 

Today I finally got most of it done, but center supports still need to be added to the bottom horizontal "shelves," to prevent bowing, before the cabinet can be assembled. Since the top shelves are assembled, by tomorrow the glue will have set enough to remove the clamps and assemble the middle support for the bottom shelves.

 

I'm very impatient for this project to be finished. Since we moved, I bought a few more consoles (including an Astrocade), and I am seriously looking forward to having everything accessible and enjoying the collection when everything can be setup properly...

[akator]

Yesterday I finished gluing the center supports to the console horizontal "shelves." For each of the bottom horizontals, there are 3x 2" strips for reinforcement. For the top horizontals, there are 4x 2" strips. As with the other cases, having that much reinforcement may be overkill, but it's better to over-construct those areas so the cases don't bow with the weight of things on top of them.

 

Today the exterior of the first console cabinet was assembled. As always, it takes a day for the glue to fully set, so the case has to sit in the clamps until tomorrow.

 

[akator]

The second console case was assembled yesterday. Today I puttied and sanded both cases. Next stage is the sliding shelves that will hold the consoles.

 

[Mirage]

I'm enjoying watching the progress here. It's going to be so worth it in the end... and even better that you can say you did it yourself.

[akator]

I'm enjoying watching the progress here. It's going to be so worth it in the end... and even better that you can say you did it yourself.

 

Thanks

 

Truth be told, I have serious spring fever. Even so, I keep working at the furniture every day, because I know the construction will have paid off when my office and games are set up.

 

One of the things that keeps me going is the thought of finally being able to play more of the systems and games we've collected over the years. We've never been able to have more than 2 classic systems set up at the same time, and even then most of the games were packed away. This furniture won't solve everything, but it will be a very good start and get at least 50% of our collection accessible

Edited March 20, 2010 by akator

[akator]

With the cases done, this week was the start of the interior work. Monday was cutting parts for the sliding consoles shelves. Tuesday was sanding those same parts and making them exact dimensions.

 

On Wednesday I discovered that my original plan for assembling the shelf frames needed revision. The thinner MDF was splitting too easily with screws, even though everything was pre-drilled. I disassembled everything, cleaned the glue off the wood, and sat for a while in thought. Eventually I figured out that metal corner braces used with bolts would prevent the splitting, and all of the parts I'd already cut could still be used. I'm glad the corner braces worked as a solution, but it adds time and complexity to the construction of each shelf.

 

 

The braces shown above are for one end of the frame. Each shelf top is attached with four additional corner braces. Everything is still glued together, but the braces hold things together while the glue sets and adds reinforcement.

 

Today has two shelves done and the frame for one waiting for the glue to cure. This week's progress was much slower than expected, but it couldn't be helped.

 

 

[Ghost Soldier]

Keep up the excellent work. Looking forward to seeing the shelving with games/systems on them.

[akator]

This week was spent assembling and mounting the sliding console shelves. On Thursday the last of the shelf construction was done. Today I mounted the shelf faces on 3 of the shelves, which can be seen on the left case in the photo. The shelf faces somewhat hide the drawer slides and make everything prettier.

 

 

After the shelf faces are all mounted, the holes will be drilled for the handles. Then everything will be puttied to cover the screws and sanded.

 

When the console cases are done (hopefully early next week), the next phase is populating the interior of the filing cabinet.

[the-topdog]

After the shelf faces are all mounted, the holes will be drilled for the handles. Then everything will be puttied to cover the screws and sanded.

 

ooooo nice! If you haven't selected handles yet, try http://www.thehardwarehut.com/

Edited April 2, 2010 by the-topdog

[akator]

After the shelf faces are all mounted, the holes will be drilled for the handles. Then everything will be puttied to cover the screws and sanded.

 

ooooo nice! If you haven't selected handles yet, try http://www.thehardwarehut.com/

 

Thanks for the link! They have some nice stuff there, it is definitely being added to my shopping sources. I already bought the handles, but I will keep The Hardware Hut in mind for future shopping.

 

I don't know what others' experiences have been, but I've bought a lot of stuff from Rockler and been pretty happy. Good prices and fast shipping have made me a fan