Redoing the Game Room

 An unexpected benefit of becoming an empty nester is that I've received an edict from the wife to make the game room "presentable".  Our downstairs has taken a beating from 5 years of robotics teams beavering away for 8 months out of the year so it does need a bit of a sprucing up.  This is one "Honey-Do" task that I will not shirk.

The picture above shows the gaming room with the 8x4 foot table in the center.  The room measures 21.5 feet long by 11.5 feet wide.

 Running down the right side of the room is a storage closet that's 4 feet deep and 21 feet long so there's lots of storage.  Of course 3/4 of that space is taken up with non-wargaming stuff most of which hasn't moved in years so we're planning to have a pitch out / sell weekend to clear some space.  You can see the how I've used the space I've got to store my ancients, Napoleonic naval and War of 1812 collection (in the blue boxes).  I'd like to add some display cabinets to the room.

In a fit of madness, the wife has also allocated me the space that leads into the game room which is 14.5 x 14 ft.  This is where we used to set up the 12x12 ft robotics field(*) and now will become my gamers "lounge".  There's some storage in the pictured closets but that's been labeled as off limits by executive management.

I've been given a good bit of space to play with (approx 450 square feet).  So now I need to figure out what to do with it.  So far of the "to do list" consists of:

- Build / Buy some display cabinets for the minis and 30+ robotics trophies.  IKEA make some nice and inexpensive cabinets so that may be the way to go.

- Improve the lighting over the table

- Build leafs to let me expand the playing surface of the table to 12 feet long and 6 feet wide

- Add some seating to the lounge area including a recliner for my more "reflective" moments

- Add some game room appropriate "decor" military paintings the odd musket or saber

- Redo my sectional terrain the consist of 2x4 ft panels rather than 2x5 ft.  I'll get more flexibility and they are much easier to store / transport.

- Do so on a very limited budget - I'm still in budget negotiations with the Boss on this but lets say she's figured out the only real way to control this endeavor is the financial lever.  It is very difficult being married to someone who is WAY smarter than you.

- Get all this done by Nov 1 - why Nov 1?, all projects need and arbitrary and unrealistic deadline in order to get done.

So here's my question to you - if you had the game room of your dreams what would you like to see in it?

(*) I'll still be coaching robotics this year but we will be setting up shop at another parents home - the wear and tear of 18-20 high school age boys for 5 years has proven a bot too much for the house and my wife.  I do expect to fund some of the project from the reduced grocery bills I'll have - you will not believe how much food those lads can consume!