I spent all weekend painting the new gameroom with 2 coats of paint. That was 5 gallons of toasty gray for the ceiling and 5 gallons of fauna (kind of a sexy brown) for the walls. Today, the carpet installers came out and spent 5 hours laying 1100 square feet of carpet. The carpet is a newer style called Freesia. It is a low shag carpet which is very trendy and looks awesome. You can't tell from the pictures but there are bits of brown woven into the fibers which not only matches the walls but looks fabulous at the same time.

I am thinking of wrapping freesia carpet around the 2 metal posts holding up the basement ceiling. I am not a fan of the square boxes myself. What do you think?

Since I picked up that Open Ice arcade game recently, I had rolled it into the walkout basement for easy moving. Of course I had to move at least one game into the new gameroom to spruce it up a bit.

Things to do: I still need to install baseboard, new windows, finish the bar and lay ceramic tile behind the bar. Hopefully things will keep moving along. If it wasn't for the fact that it snowed 4 inches of snow the last few days I would already be wheeling arcades from the garage down to the walkout basement. Come on sunshine.

So the gameroom isn't quite finished yet and I get a line on a nice 4 player game. I am mainly a classics man (Galaga, Ms. Pacman, Donkey Kong, etc.) but I was looking for a good multiplayer party game that would interest everyone.

Enter Craigslist yet again. I made a lowball offer on a 4 player game. The seller countered for $25 more and I accepted. The game in question is NHL Open Ice - 2 on 2 Challenge. I don't have any sports games so this is also a plus to attract non-video game players. It was sold with a broken button but I fixed that within minutes after I got it home.

For now the game is sitting 5 feet away from the entrance to the new gameroom. This will be the first game in the room when it is finished.

For more pictures of Open Ice the arcade game click here.

The bar area and gameroom take shape after 2 days of hanging drywall and the recessed lighting is installed.

There was a Nintendo RBI Baseball on Craigslist for $100 that was advertised as working with a minor joystick problem. However, the guy posted a picture of someone else's cab and said his looked the same but it was orange {Clue #1}. I have been looking for a working Nintendo cab to put my Donkey Kong 3 parts in for awhile now, so I didn't care if it had a joystick or board issue. So I drove 1 hour to go pick this game up.

Well, he plugged it in and I was staring at a black monitor with a humming sound. He told me it wasn't doing that before and asked me if I wanted to get inside the cabinet and check for loose wiring. I poked around in there for 5 minutes and it was still the same thing, black screen and a hum. I told him I would have to offer him less if the game isn't working at all. He told me I can just order some parts off ebay and fix it. I told him that he advertised a working game, and I would still have to offer less to offset the repair costs. I normally won't pay more than $50 for a dead game but I was feeling generous and offered him $60. He told me he wouldn't take less than $90. I told him to keep his game. This guy was obviously hoping someone would take a completely broken game for a $100 or he was hoping someone would "fix it on the spot" for him. Thank you for wasting my time Joe scam artist.

All my games are sitting in the garage while construction on the arcade continues. I had to take a peek at the arcade game lineup in the garage to get a little inspiration on the gameroom. The entrance to the arcade is an open door and the center island bar is taking shape.

I had a couple of delays with the new gameroom after the holidays but the framing is almost done and 50 sheets of drywall have been delivered.

Here is the framing in progress for the new gameroom. I'm sure my games are getting lonely and cold in the garage by now. Patience, I gotta have patience. I did find a Star Wars machine to buy, but I waited to long. By the time I contacted the guy it was sold. Oh well, I just have to watch and wait.

Moving day has come and gone. Day 1 was moving all the arcade games. Big thank you goes out to Kurt, Todd and Josh for providing some muscle. Day 2 was moving the rest of the house. Now we are ready for construction on the new gameroom. Here is what we are starting with. It's much bigger than it looks in the picture..

It is time to say goodbye to the old basement arcade. I am currently less than a week away from signing a contract on a new house. This new house has 6 bedrooms plus an extra 1100 square feet of unfinished basement. That basement will be the new gameroom. With dimensions of 44 feet by 25 feet, it will be all open space of an ultimate gameroom arcade. I have preliminary plans drawn out of how the gameroom will be finished. I plan on documenting everything from the move to the construction of the new basement arcade. Below are the plans as they currently stand, but they are subject to change.