Everyone who has built a leisure room, or gameroom, in their home has wished they had more space. It always seems that there is just not enough room for what you want, and the space can look cramped or crowded.
The whole idea of building a home gameroom is to create a comfortable retreat that you and your family can use to relax, unwind and play. Here are a couple of tips that can help you get the most out of the space you have.
Minimize the TV Footprint!
In most gamerooms, the owner will want to have a large screen TV. After all, isn't this one of the main reasons to have such a room? Whether it is watching the big game, or sitting in for a family movie night, consumers are buying larger and larger TV's. You can walk into any electronics store, department store, or even warehouse store (like Costco or Sam's Club) and see a large variety of large, flat-screen TV's. While it may be hard to consider upgrading to one of these flat screens, think about the space you may be able to recover in your room.
If you have a larger CRT or DLP TV, you may be taking up a lot of floor space that is unnecessary. A 50" DLP TV might be as much as 2.5ft deep, from front to back. It may not sound like much, but if your room is only 12 feet wide, that is about 20% of the width taken out by the TV! Plus, if you play video games, especially interactive games like Kinect or Wii, you have that much less room to play in.
Get that TV off the stand an on the wall. Today's LED TV's can be less than 1" deep. Not only will mounting a thin TV on the wall give you more space to play, it will make the room look larger, and more refined.
Don't Forget About the Speakers and A/V Equipment
Once the TV is off the table, you want to get rid of the table. That means you will probably need to find a new place for the stereo equipment. Consider mounting the speakers inside the walls. There are plenty of options available from buidling a cabinet within the wall, to buying speakers specifically designed to be recessed in the wall.
Consider mounting the electronics in the wall as well, if possible. Or, consider mounting them off to the side of the room somewhere, so they are not in the way between your sitting/playing area and the TV. It may seem like this would be expensive and not worth the cost, but if it can virtually expand the usable space in the room by up to 20% or more it may well be worth it.
Multi-Use, Multi-Purpose
When designing your gameroom layout and selecting the large items you want, always keep in mind how you can use them for more than one thing. For example, a poker table that has a removable top can be used for your casino night, grabbing a quick snack, and sometimes playing bumper pool (some tables have bumper pool below the removable top).
You may have a pool table with a table tennis conversion top and a hard cover to use for dining, crafts or other activities when you are not playing pool. If you build a bar, make sure you build in plenty of storage for barware, and game storage. Consider mult-function arcade games, rather than single games.
The point is that if you are careful and thoughtful, you can design an entertainment room for your family and friends that serves many purposes and gets the most out of the space available.
