[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house.

[00:00:04] Caroline Blazovsky: You know, you got me thinking about space and when you are using these games, you need room besides the game you need room to move. Like. So if you're doing ski ball, Hmm, you're backing up quite a bit to throw that arm. So you need at least four or five feet behind you to be able to play the game properly.

[00:00:21] Caroline Blazovsky: And it's the same. If you have foosball, if you have ping pong, if you need any type of shuffle board, you need some serious depth to be able to. You think about the size of the equipment, but then think about how much room you need to maneuver to play properly. And so you're both not cramped for another player as well.

[00:00:37] Caroline Blazovsky: Two people playing.

[00:00:38] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So you think about it a 12, uh, a 10 foot ski ball machine, which is the tiny one. That's the kind of the compact ski ball machine that still takes up 10 feet. And when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is

[00:00:50] Intro: a lot to know that we got you covered. This is around the house.

[00:00:56] Intro: Welcome to around the house with Eric

[00:00:58] Eric Goranson: G and Caroline B. [00:01:00] Talk home improvement every single week. Thanks for joining us. Hey Caroline, how are you?

[00:01:06] Caroline Blazovsky: Hey. Hello, everybody. Welcome.

[00:01:09] Eric Goranson: Welcome. We need to get you a, uh, mini split system for your office,

[00:01:13] Intro: right?

[00:01:14] Caroline Blazovsky: Oh yeah, yeah, kind of, but then I have to drill through the wall and I got faster.

[00:01:18] Intro: That's

[00:01:19] Eric Goranson: and you got plaster and you got an old building and it's historical and yeah. Okay. Nevermind. We gotta come up with something

[00:01:26] Intro: I'm sure someone

[00:01:27] Eric Goranson: can help us in. Yeah, we gotta come up with a plan for you. Cause you're over there sweating to the oldies. It

[00:01:33] Caroline Blazovsky: is hot, hot, hot people. Oh, it's summer. But what

[00:01:37] Eric Goranson: do you expect?

[00:01:37] Eric Goranson: It is exactly. What, what do you expect this time of year? Well, today we have a fun subject ahead and this is gonna be creating that game room or gaming room and yes. Those can be two separate rooms or one great big one. Oh, you're playing college duty there. Aren't you? Yeah. [00:02:00] See, and I'm playing a little more

[00:02:10] Eric Goranson: know, or maybe even, you know, getting out the. Getting out the ski ball machine, right?

[00:02:15] Caroline Blazovsky: Oh, come on. That's

[00:02:16] Intro: awesome. Yes.

[00:02:20] Caroline Blazovsky: Rack 'em up.

[00:02:21] Intro: You see

[00:02:22] Caroline Blazovsky: ski ball kid would love that we had ski ball kid on. I don't know. It was like almost maybe a year ago. Geez. Won the national championship.

[00:02:31] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about designing these rooms because it's not something you just like throw in the corner of the attic or the basement.

[00:02:39] Eric Goranson: It's something that you kind of actually have to plan a little bit ahead with. Whichever way you want to go. And it's interesting cuz you know, my, my brother just did one, uh, in his basement over the last year and there's a lot to consider

[00:02:53] Caroline Blazovsky: what I found interesting. I was looking at all different game rooms on the internet cause I wanted to see what game or gaming and we need to talk [00:03:00] about the difference between the two rooms look like.

[00:03:03] Caroline Blazovsky: And what I found out was that this could be an outside space. It could be an inside space. It could be a basement, a room. A section of the house, like there really is no space in the house that can't have a game or gaming aspect to it.

[00:03:20] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. And to me, the difference in, in what I call in the design world, the difference between a game room in a game room is a game room is more your traditional arcade, pinball, you know, pool.

[00:03:33] Eric Goranson: You know, ski ball, air hockey, you know what I mean? That kind of game versus gaming is sitting in there playing online. You've got call of duty, you've got whatever game and you're sitting there on a, on a large screen or a computer and you're playing with, with controllers and that kind of thing. And those can

[00:03:51] Caroline Blazovsky: be two different spaces.

[00:03:53] Caroline Blazovsky: Yep. That's like, I consider a gaming room. Like you've got the leather. This is just in my head, but these leather, big [00:04:00] cushy, comfy couches or chairs. And then you've got the it's dark in there. So you can see the screen really well. And some accent lighting going on. It's a whole motif.

[00:04:08] Eric Goranson: I like it. It was interesting.

[00:04:10] Eric Goranson: I was called into a probably 15 years ago that I believe the compound was the, at the time was bill Gates's. Father's. Of Microsoft no way. And I had to go in there and measure the kitchen. So I'll tell this story real quick because it, it relates. I show up and there's no address on the outside of this place.

[00:04:37] Eric Goranson: There's just a long, like 10 foot hedge and, uh, a, a guard station that's behind this big 10 foot hall gate, 10 foot tall iron gate and a key box. So I drive up, push the key box and they say, pull in, you pull in. And there's a guard station. And there's like fully armed tactical AR type squat team guys that come [00:05:00] out.

[00:05:00] Eric Goranson: And they're mirroring under my car. They're looking to see what I have. I have to give them my identification. They take pictures of it. And I go in to look at the kitchen in one of these three houses that are on the property to measure it out. And I have two armed guards that go in with me that are there.

[00:05:20] Eric Goranson: And I mean, there's a dog sniffing the outside of my car. This was like state department kinda weird stuff. Well, as I'm walking around the space, I walk past this bedroom, which is a fairly large bedroom in like a 1940s, fifties house kind of ranch house. And there's the most amazing floating gaming chair with screens.

[00:05:43] Eric Goranson: And it moves with whatever they were doing. This had to have been like a $50,000 gaming chair, all built out a stainless tubing and had a, a very custom high end, like Ricardo leather seat in it. [00:06:00] It was a full on gaming system in this black room that was all made for that. Wow. It was trip. It was incredible.

[00:06:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I walked by. I was like, and again for 15. Plus years ago, it was way out there. Right. You know, way out there for that, like innovative might have. Yeah. Yeah. It was state of the art, but now, you know, it's funny. So, you know, great example when you're trying to create that game room and we'll talk about gaming here a little later on in the show, let's dive into game you, your traditional, you know, Maybe it's got the pinball machine, you know, ski ball.

[00:06:38] Eric Goranson: Maybe you got somebody else over there playing ski ball. Yeah. Poker

[00:06:42] Intro: team

[00:06:42] Eric Goranson: defender. Oh, video game. See, I grew up with this game in my basement.

[00:06:48] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. Oh, defender. That's

[00:06:49] Intro: awesome.

[00:06:51] Eric Goranson: I had that in my basement, the full size one that we'd won from Chucky cheese, you know, as a kid. So I got really good at that game, but.

[00:06:59] Eric Goranson: You know, there's things to think [00:07:00] about, you know, for instance, just a ski ball game, getting it inside the house, you know, big, a full size ski ball game can take up 15 feet, right.

[00:07:11] Caroline Blazovsky: At electric, like seriously high powered electric. It pulls amp ampage, like crazy.

[00:07:17] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So the first thing you gotta do is be able to get that in there so many times you're gonna have a hard time getting a ski ball machine into a basement.

[00:07:27] Eric Goranson: Or maybe into, you know, into a, an attic space. So these are things you kind of have to think about. Okay, can I get this in the space? Right.

[00:07:37] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, your brother just did this and

[00:07:38] Eric Goranson: that's tough. Yeah, he did. And it was tough. He got the ski ball machine in and he picked it up for a song. He just rebuilt it and been going through it and he could barely get it tilted up in the basement because it's so tall.

[00:07:54] Eric Goranson: I mean, he was within an inch of getting it in there

[00:07:57] Caroline Blazovsky: in your mind. You think, oh, I'm gonna put [00:08:00] this in there, but your house is much smaller than like a giant, you know, arcade or something that you would see like a commercial place where they have these located, you know, your ceiling's not gonna be that high.

[00:08:09] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah.

[00:08:10] Eric Goranson: Hmm. Double doors open up. You got a five foot wide opening. You got 10 foot, 20 foot ceilings. It's not a big deal in a basement or an attic. It's a whole different. One of the big things. And you talked about this too, Caroline, it's something I wanna talk a little bit more about when we get into this in the next, in the next segment, because it's gonna take time, but one just being able to get it.

[00:08:30] Eric Goranson: And some of these machines are also by the way, heavy. So if you've got that converted act attic space and you're putting in all these 200 pound machines, maybe you've got a thousand pound pool table, you know, you might want to consult a structural engineer to make sure that you are gonna be able to fit that in that space.

[00:08:49] Caroline Blazovsky: I see a lot of people online using very small spaces, like, so it could be an apartment, you know, they have children making these spaces into game areas. Mm-hmm that's you gotta take that into [00:09:00] consideration when you're really in a structure that isn't built for that originally, and it's tiny. It could be economy size.

[00:09:05] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Oh, yeah, it could be super small, you know, it could be, I mean, it could be as simple as taking a spare bedroom and putting the old Atari system in there, you know, from when, when an adult was a kid or the, or the game boy room or anything like that, it's, it's really depending on how big you make it.

[00:09:22] Eric Goranson: But when we come back, I wanna talk about if you're doing that serious game room, like you're gonna put in maybe. Two or three pinball machines. Maybe you're gonna have a, you know, five or six upright video games. If you're gonna go serious with this, let's talk about those things that you need to consider.

[00:09:38] Eric Goranson: Let's do that just as soon as around the house returns,

[00:09:48] Intro: be loud, be so hot, hot,

[00:09:55] Intro: so many.

[00:09:59] Eric Goranson: [00:10:00] Hey, I'm Rudy Wade. And you're listening to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, listen to my music to

[00:10:04] Intro: improve your home. I hit your line. You got me thinking about the day we move. You got me singing in

[00:10:13] Eric Goranson: your head. Like welcome back to the, around the house show or we talk home improvement every single week.

[00:10:18] Eric Goranson: If you wanna track us down a couple ways, you can do it. You can go over to around the house, online.com and hit the contact us page. Or you can catch us on any social media platform out there except maybe, uh, geez. I think we're on most of the stuff out there. You might not see us on some of the little stuff, but the big ones we're out there.

[00:10:36] Eric Goranson: Just look for around the house shop. What you got there? Caroline

[00:10:42] Intro: grand theft

[00:10:42] Caroline Blazovsky: auto three.

[00:10:45] Eric Goranson: Oh, there you go.

[00:10:48] Intro: That would

[00:10:48] Caroline Blazovsky: be in my gaming room.

[00:10:51] Eric Goranson: yeah, we've been talking game rooms here and, uh, grant theft auto is a classic in the gaming world. But, you know, [00:11:00] when we went to break, we were talking about, okay, if you're gonna build out that game room with that, with those, you know, the big old school vintage arcade games, whether it's ski ball or, uh, you know, a centipede, miss Pacman, Pacman, or any one of those things, you gotta think of the technology you're putting in there.

[00:11:17] Eric Goranson: These things can use a boatload of. So,

[00:11:23] Intro: and like one of the things to put out heat,

[00:11:25] Caroline Blazovsky: heat. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. How hot is that space gonna get?

[00:11:29] Eric Goranson: Well, you think about it. So ski ball, not so much, but there's transformers inside a ski ball game that converts that over. So that puts out its own heat there, but you might need two or three different dedicated electrical circuits in that space.

[00:11:44] Eric Goranson: So that you're not overloading it. And you'll have to look at the back of each game to see what that pulls as far as power, but you really need to get your games figured out before you build the space or at least account for that power that you're gonna need [00:12:00] in there. So you're not kicking breakers and doing that kind of stuff.

[00:12:03] Eric Goranson: And to be honest, I wanna see some of that stuff where it's actually switched. Which can be a little more complex, so you can turn those games off when you're done. Cuz they use a lot of electricity. I don't wanna see you have a, an extra, you know, $60 bill cuz you left those things plugged in. Like it's an arcade 24 7.

[00:12:22] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. And some of them does that make sense? I wanna call it the grabber game. You ever see the thing where it comes down and it grabs a toy. Oh yeah. Or grab and shoots it down. I've seen a lot of homes actually have those. And then also we were talking about ski ball. A lot of the older ski ball have those hot lights that get super hot.

[00:12:40] Caroline Blazovsky: And so they can produce a lot of heat. And that's a lot of that old or, or what I call traditional boardwalk games and people put them in their homes all the time.

[00:12:50] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Now there are things you can do, you know, cuz you think about it, all those arcade games that have the, the, the, the MIS PAC mans, the gala, Galaxias the, all the different [00:13:00] games that you see that were in your traditional standup arcade games.

[00:13:03] Eric Goranson: One thing you can do to help with this is you can swap out those C R T old tube televisions on those. LCD or L E D monitors behind them, cuz they're just kind of TVs in there behind them. And so you can jump online, do the research, make sure you do them correctly. Um, and by the way, you can get yourself.

[00:13:28] Eric Goranson: Even when those things are unplugged. You can get yourself shocked really easily because they do store energy. Make sure that you understand what you're doing before you dive into those games and go, oh, I'm just gonna convert this over and put in a screen, understand what you're working with before you do that, because, uh, you can get hurt or killed very easily inside those things.

[00:13:51] Eric Goranson: So make sure you know what you're doing. And, uh, make your, make sure you're discharging things correctly and not getting yourself hurt, but you can do that. And that's gonna [00:14:00] save a huge amount of power because you gotta think about those old televisions or like your grandmothers or parents' TV. They had those old tube televisions used a boatload of power compared to today's, you know, newer television.

[00:14:15] Caroline Blazovsky: You know, you've got me thinking about space and when you are using these games, you need room besides the game you need room to move like. So if you're doing ski ball, mm-hmm, , you're backing up quite a bit to throw that arm. So you need at least four or five feet behind you to be able to play the game properly.

[00:14:31] Caroline Blazovsky: And it's the same. If you have foosball, if you have ping pong, if you have any type of shuffle board, You need some serious depth to be able to, so, you know, think about the size of the equipment, but then think about how much room you need to maneuver to play properly. And so you're both not cramped or another player as well.

[00:14:47] Caroline Blazovsky: Two people playing. Yeah. So

[00:14:49] Eric Goranson: you think about it a 12, uh, a 10 foot ski ball machine, which is the tiny one. That's the kind of the compact ski ball machine that still takes up 10 feet. And so you're not putting that in a traditional bedroom. If you [00:15:00] get the, the regular arcade style, that's a 13 to 14 foot unit.

[00:15:05] Eric Goranson: By the time you got the back and everything in there. Mm-hmm and so, yeah, you're right. You need another four or five feet behind that easily and a space around there to put two or three people and swing and do all that stuff. So all of a sudden you're 20, 25 feet of space. Just to get that in there.

[00:15:24] Eric Goranson: That's not a normal bedroom. So now you're taking a space to do it. No,

[00:15:27] Caroline Blazovsky: if you're going with these big time games that are legit, you need space. I mean, I don't see, I'm sure people have done it and put it in a small area. Like an arcade game. You could do, you know, a standup arcade. You could vote even a sit down.

[00:15:40] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean, it's gonna be cramped, but you can do it.

[00:15:43] Eric Goranson: Sure. And you gotta think about those things too is you have to get them. You know, if you're putting 'em in the attic or the basement, you gotta be able to get those things down there. So it's almost like carrying a, a 200 pound fridge into that area. You gotta be able to think of how you're gonna get that in there and get it stood.

[00:15:58] Caroline Blazovsky: And they're so awkward shape. [00:16:00] They're like real big and the screen's on the top. Mm-hmm remember. And then they, they funnel down to the small, so they're not like this easy shape, top shape to maneuver.

[00:16:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And then the other thing is too, is the, the we're talking about the heat. So you need to plan ahead for getting.

[00:16:14] Eric Goranson: That heating and cooling system in there. Maybe you're putting in a mini split unit to, to keep that space cool. And, and all of that. And then of course, when you're doing that kind of thing, are you putting in a, a sink? Are you putting in a bar refrigerator you're putting in a popcorn machine? What are you gonna be doing outside of just the games, right.

[00:16:33] Eric Goranson: A jukebox, maybe popcorn

[00:16:34] Caroline Blazovsky: machine is a good, you know, popcorn produces such volume organics. You would probably wanna have ventilation for that. That's so I never thought about that that's old school, but you need ventilation. If you're gonna be doing a popcorn machine.

[00:16:46] Eric Goranson: That's my call. Yeah. And maybe you're not gonna get the movie theater one, but I've got one of the small ones, the small looking movie theater ones for when we have parties and stuff.

[00:16:54] Eric Goranson: And, and, you know, you put the oil in and so that's actually less VOCs than the, than the microwave [00:17:00] popcorn, but a lot of people just put the microwave in the microwave popcorn, which is very unhealthy. When you start talking about the VOCs coming off a microwave popcorn. But even that you're putting oil and popcorn in yeah.

[00:17:11] Eric Goranson: You know, and, and doing that.

[00:17:12] Caroline Blazovsky: So, and in a basement with no ventilation, can you imagine some humidity that would smell real nice basement oil, popcorn, stale, or, you know, a lot of people you guys put in cigar rooms and smoking rooms and you know, all that kind of stuff you really have to ventilate now. I mean, we, we know more about how important it is for, you know, not just for code that you have to do it, but for your health.

[00:17:35] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So we, I have built over the years and designed some amazing spaces like that. Like for instance, we'll talk about this before we go out to break, I designed a gun room, safe room slash poker room for a client, me and they bought online from an old bank, a bank fault door. That was the entrance into [00:18:00] this space.

[00:18:00] Eric Goranson: So it looked like an old 19 that's cool twenties bank, vault door. Yeah. But trying to get that bank vault door into the basement, never cause you're talking now, uh, a 1800 pound door that you're carrying by hand into the basement with a dozen guys. We actually broke one of the stair treads going down to the basement where a guy put his foot through the stair tread.

[00:18:23] Eric Goranson: For the wait going on it. So when we come back, let's talk a little bit more about this. We'll get to, uh, gaming rooms in a minute. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.

[00:18:56] Intro: Hey

[00:18:56] Eric Goranson: guys, you're listening to around the house with Eric G and Caroline [00:19:00] B Zeke sky. And I'm gonna show you how to shred it out while you're

[00:19:03] Intro: building

[00:19:03] Eric Goranson: it

[00:19:03] Intro: up.

[00:19:15] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the, around the house show. Caroline and I have been talking. Designing out that game room or gaming room and so many things that you have to think about with that. And yeah. So fun. Totally fun. Yeah. One of the things that I want you to think about too is sound. Because maybe, you know, maybe you're an adult and you've got, you know, a house full of younger kids and kids it's next to a bedroom or it's underneath your living room, dining room or kitchen or above it.

[00:19:46] Eric Goranson: What are you doing to control sound? Or if you've got a neighbor's house that's really close next door, you know, suburbia house where you got the neighbor next door, that noise can go right through it or condos, you know, [00:20:00] controlling sound is big. One of my favorites. For doing recording studios for doing even a, a, a room in the house for doing zoom and, and, uh, education stuff is using, uh, Rockwell or a similar product Owens.

[00:20:16] Eric Goranson: Corning makes one too, but that is a mineral wall. And what that does is it just absolutely kills sound. It just makes that room dead quiet, but. Added benefit of that product. And this is what I really like about a Caroline is it also is a fireproof product. And. If it's on a basement wall, if you get water in it, mold doesn't grow through it.

[00:20:40] Eric Goranson: It's, it's a product that the water will go right through it and doesn't stick to it. So it doesn't get, you know, that's the problem with like fiberglass when fiberglass get wet, nasty, it looks like a, a wet towels. Oh, right. Forget. It just gets nasty. A black S mess. And so this

[00:20:55] Caroline Blazovsky: stuff what's in Rockwell that makes it.

[00:20:58] Caroline Blazovsky: What's in Rockwell that makes it [00:21:00] so soundproof. Like why is it that sound doesn't travel through

[00:21:02] Intro: it?

[00:21:03] Eric Goranson: It's intense. It's well, it's not that it's dense is what it does is it's, it's got great properties to it. So it's a mineral wall. So it's a spun mineral. And what it does is that, that it's a mixture of having the absorption.

[00:21:16] Eric Goranson: So it's soft enough and has enough air in it to stop that. Cuz you gotta think of sound waves, bounce. So hard surfaces, love to bounce. So even putting drywall up mm-hmm on studs that drywall being a solid surface is like your eardrum. It will reflect and bounce sound across. So if you take that wall and if there's another, you know, drywall behind it with an empty void, it tends to even bounce more and give you that hollow effect.

[00:21:50] Eric Goranson: That's why in a room with a, a gymnasium where you have. Block walls in a, in a hardwood floor. You have sound gym [00:22:00] floor, squeaky floor. Yeah. Well you get it just everywhere. It sounds bouncing around everywhere. And so the more you can do to absorb sound and not let it transfer to the other side is good.

[00:22:10] Eric Goranson: And so sometimes,

[00:22:12] Intro: so it's like, yeah,

[00:22:13] Caroline Blazovsky: in there. In the studio when, like, if I'm in a studio, I'll be very echoy because it's got a lot of hard floor and hard surface mm-hmm . But if you were to put a carpet down, it helps absorb that. So that rock wall's kind of like putting carpeting in your walls, but a lot of it like a thick.

[00:22:28] Caroline Blazovsky: A thick carpet. You.

[00:22:29] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And what I like about that is that when you put that up, it really makes a difference and you don't have to put the same, you know, like in a music studio, you don't have to put as much of the foam pads and stuff on the wall to reflect sound and do that foam pads because you've done it behind the wall.

[00:22:44] Eric Goranson: So decoratively, you can do a lot more with it, cuz it looks nicer without having to put all the padded panels up. And so that's a

[00:22:51] Caroline Blazovsky: big deal. They black panels, they can look cool in a gaming room, but when you wanna have a nice room, it's.

[00:22:56] Intro: A little

[00:22:57] Eric Goranson: bit. Yeah. And you know, you, you look at movie theaters, [00:23:00] they will put up those sound panels and they cover 'em with fabric and you can jump online and order those mm-hmm

[00:23:06] Eric Goranson: And they're not that expensive, you know, you can do that on top of you don't wanna get into that, you know, and that works out pretty well as well. And that's a good transition into the gaming room, which can be gaming slash. Theater room within the house

[00:23:21] Caroline Blazovsky: slash audio video. I mean, you could do your zoom in there and all the calls and

[00:23:25] Eric Goranson: exactly everything.

[00:23:25] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You can do a lot with those spaces. That is a great multi-use space in a large house, cuz it can be where you go down and watch your favorite movie. It can be where the kids are down there with the headsets plan, their favorite online video game on that big screen. Uh, you know, and again, it could be having the zoom meetings.

[00:23:44] Eric Goranson: So it's, it's a great space, but again, sound controls big and.

[00:23:51] Caroline Blazovsky: And mul, but they have multiple screens going like all the time. So that's hot, you know, like going back to that heat thing, you really have to figure out your HVAC and [00:24:00] ventilation. Our friends at mini splits would be able to help us out. I think that's such a good idea to put a mini split in one of those spaces.

[00:24:06] Caroline Blazovsky: Because you'll need additional heating and cooling, or you could do, um, a Wallin unit, like a free drink where you can add heat or cooling when you need it, because you may not need it all the time, but

[00:24:16] Eric Goranson: when you're gaming. Right. Exactly. And the other thing is that, is that, um, you know, many times I have done, you know, in a, in a theater room where I put those things that produce heat.

[00:24:27] Eric Goranson: On a, you know, it's through the wall and maybe a utility room that's next to it. So it's not putting heat into that room. Mm-hmm. So you've got a, a, you know, a utility rack that has all your amplifiers and maybe the projector, if it's a projector style is behind, you know, in the, in the back. So that heat is going someplace else.

[00:24:50] Eric Goranson: So there is ways to get around that and that's by doing that. And then you can vent that, you know, you can put a, a fan in that space to ventilate [00:25:00] outside. You know where it, the room gets above 75 or 80 degrees in there. You can turn a fan on and ventilate outside. There's lots of different things you can do with little closets like that for, for putting in those, um, you know, the, the towers and the, and the, and that stuff to control heat.

[00:25:17] Eric Goranson: Uh, there's a lot of different things you can do with that, which is kind of fun.

[00:25:20] Caroline Blazovsky: I like talking about this topic, you know what my favorite video game was

[00:25:23] Eric Goranson: growing up. What was your favorite video game?

[00:25:27] Intro: Did you ever hear the poll position of, did you play poll

[00:25:29] Eric Goranson: position? I had the Atari.

[00:25:34] Eric Goranson: Oh, it's that old 16. That sounds so arch gay. It's yeah. Yeah. See, and you know, I talked about it earlier. I talked about it earlier, back in, in, and again, you know, I was born in the early seventies and so I'm I'm of that generation, but you know, in the eighties, when the arcade games came out, it was great.

[00:25:53] Eric Goranson: My little brother. Had his birthday at this new place called Chucky Jesus. And [00:26:00] it'd just come.

[00:26:02] Intro: Oh, my God member Turkey

[00:26:03] Eric Goranson: cheese. Yeah. Great. Yeah. There's still a few in town here. Um, you eat pizza and play games. Yeah. Horrible pizza here. Yeah. So, but the cool thing was for their one year anniversary. Yeah. For the one year animatronic creepy animatronic stuff in there.

[00:26:17] Eric Goranson: And, and for their one year anniversary, they gave away a defender aright video game. And my brother little brother won the raffle. So we had delivered to our house this full on upright defender video game, and it went down in the basement. That is awesome. And here's what was funny. And this is, you know, early game room, stuff like that.

[00:26:43] Eric Goranson: We spent. The mornings of the summers down there playing until my mom would kick us out, you know, but I got really good cuz it was one game that I played. And when we went on vacation in the motor home and did the whole thing, like the Koa campgrounds had to get lure people in, they had [00:27:00] an arcade, you know, they took the, maybe the pool room and where.

[00:27:04] Eric Goranson: Turned that into the arcade. So I would show up and I was card sharking type of people. I'd walk into there and have my role of quarters. My mom would give me, and I was like 12, 13 years old. They'd walk in and see the defender game in there. I'd go bitch, $2. I can beat you and then they'd get bored, cuz I'd just play for an hour without get, you know, using a quarter and then they'd go, okay, well we're gonna go play another one and they'd lose.

[00:27:30] Eric Goranson: And so I made more money on vacation. Doing bats on, on

[00:27:34] Caroline Blazovsky: for all the, the, the younger listeners. Believe it or not, hotels used to have arcades. Yeah. That was like a, that was a thing. They don't have 'em anymore, but you would stay at like, you know, maybe a motel six or you would go to, uh, you know, somewhere down by the water and these places would have arcade games inside for the kids with a pool.

[00:27:54] Caroline Blazovsky: But

[00:27:55] Eric Goranson: you don't see it anymore. Oh, restaurants were huge. They, they don't have game. No, not really. No, no. None of those do, they [00:28:00] don't have gaming either at these places. Pizza places were great for that. Right. You'd go get pizza and then go, the kids would go off and play the arcade games and the parents would sit there and, and have the conversation.

[00:28:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So that was, that was that

[00:28:11] generation.

[00:28:12] Caroline Blazovsky: See that everybody's brought this into their home. Yeah. But see, now everybody's brought this into their home, so there's no need to have it out at these locations because everybody's putting in gaming rooms exactly. Or has gaming

[00:28:23] Eric Goranson: technology. All right. We come back.

[00:28:24] Eric Goranson: We're gonna wrap this subject up. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.[00:29:00]

[00:29:09] Intro: Hi everybody. I'm

[00:29:11] Eric Goranson: a man from

[00:29:12] Intro: Apolis band and you are listening to around the house with Eric G and the beautiful Caroline.

[00:29:23] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the, around the house show where we talk home improvement every single week. Well, Caroline and I have been sitting here talking about building that arcade. Room, you know, that game room, the gaming space. And one thing I wanted to talk about before we get into some of the other stuff is how the value of a lot of these things have gone up.

[00:29:41] Eric Goranson: I mean, 10 years ago, I could pick up a, a Pacman game for a couple hundred bucks on Craigslist or, or now Facebook marketplace. But now you can spend, you know, a thousand bucks on these things really quickly. So they've gotten much more expensive to be able to get that, you know, I had a buddy that had [00:30:00] the, the kiss pinball machine.

[00:30:01] Eric Goranson: How much was your

[00:30:02] Caroline Blazovsky: brother's ski ball?

[00:30:04] Eric Goranson: Oh, that's a lot of money. Oh yeah. Yeah. Those are crazy. I think my brother paid for two ski ball machines. I think he paid five or 600 bucks for him and he's restoring both of them. And the problem is with sometimes with these games is that the parts can be crazy expensive.

[00:30:25] Eric Goranson: Like they have these weird transformers and now he's actually gonna convert a energy efficient one mm-hmm to make it work. But the old school transformer, when you online to buy one's like 400 bucks just for that part. So.

[00:30:39] Intro: Yeah.

[00:30:39] Caroline Blazovsky: Can you imagine, like how about the video games? Like when something goes wrong with the arc, there's

[00:30:44] Eric Goranson: a lot of them out there and there's people out there that make replacement boards.

[00:30:47] Eric Goranson: And so there is a, a, a pretty good support community out there for those just because, you know, they had 'em in every single pizza parlor, every single, so there's, there's a, you know, there's, there's [00:31:00] a, there's a market for those. So you can get parts for those pinballs.

[00:31:05] Intro: Yeah. Oh,

[00:31:06] Caroline Blazovsky: Pinball games get like, you're talking about the kiss.

[00:31:08] Caroline Blazovsky: They get expensive, especially if you've got, I saw a $6 million, uh, man pinball machine. That thing was crazy.

[00:31:15] Intro: That's

[00:31:15] Eric Goranson: kinda cool. Right. Oh man. You know, I love that I would have that in a heartbeat. Right. I mean, you know, and, but at the same time you can get a pool table. Sometimes if you're searching for, you know, a hundred bucks, you move it, you know what I mean?

[00:31:28] Eric Goranson: Mm. And that's so much

[00:31:30] Intro: enjoyment. And so.

[00:31:33] Caroline Blazovsky: We were, Eric was talking about, um, bars now or making there's one here in Philadelphia called ADE. But he's talking about the bars that now incorporate drinking with playing arcade games, which sounds sort of like a, oh yeah. A catch 22. I mean, I don't, yeah. , you're drunk playing.

[00:31:48] Caroline Blazovsky: I don't know how well you're gonna do,

[00:31:49] Eric Goranson: but I think those are cool. I mean, I'm looking right here on the Facebook marketplace. I just pulled it up just as an example. So you can get out there and see here's an original Williams, [00:32:00] 1980 black night pinball machine. 4,000 bucks. Here's a, yeah. They're exp

[00:32:05] Caroline Blazovsky: pinball

[00:32:06] Eric Goranson: machines are expensive.

[00:32:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I mean, here's a, I want, here's a, uh, yeah, there's a bunch of them in here. You know, here's a 1977 Charlie pinball machine, but it needs a little work, 250 bucks, right. So it's just depending on what you're looking for, here's something cool that I've seen people do too. That's a new one, taking those old what I call quarter slot machines and putting 'em in and putting in the old vintage slot machines and having 'em in there.

[00:32:33] Eric Goranson: And yeah, I've seen people. I think those are kind of cool too. Those are a nice touch. Right. You know, the other stuff you gotta look at too, is like you remember the was the sit down arcade games, like the, the cruise in USA where you would drive, where you'd go through and drive and you'd be like driving through.

[00:32:47] Eric Goranson: That's like California, some of the newer ones. Those are cool too. But again,

[00:32:52] Intro: those can get

[00:32:52] Caroline Blazovsky: big. Those are

[00:32:53] Eric Goranson: large too. Those are, and the larger ones cost a little less money sometimes because some people don't like those as they take up [00:33:00] space. So you can get those. I've seen those recently for five and 600 bucks out there, which isn't too bad for a large piece like that.

[00:33:08] Eric Goranson: That works. No, you know, so something to think about,

[00:33:12] Caroline Blazovsky: I was the pinball wizard were. I played pinball for my sorority for 24 hours straight. I competed for pinball. That was like, we had, you know, we had Greek week, so I had to play pinball for 24 hours. Yeah. Good. I was number one. I came

[00:33:25] Intro: want us

[00:33:26] Eric Goranson: to want us bowl?

[00:33:26] Eric Goranson: Did you have you have a favorite pinball machine or pinball machine brand that you played? No, but I was

[00:33:31] Caroline Blazovsky: a really good pinball player for whatever reason. Yeah. I could just

[00:33:34] Eric Goranson: play my favorite ones were like the, the Williams brand one. The movie. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Was a quote from a movie. Is that a quote from a movie I could just play?

[00:33:42] Eric Goranson: I could just play. Yeah. That's a who song, but I'm not sure. So

[00:33:47] Intro: oh no. Goodwill hunting,

[00:33:48] Caroline Blazovsky: Goodwill hunting. He said he talks about like math. He goes, I could just, I could just

[00:33:52] Eric Goranson: play, play. There you go. There you go. So yeah, those are all things to consider with that, but you know, And I'll be honest [00:34:00] when you're designing the gaming room, you know, with that, with the theater room, this is what I recommend bringing in the professionals to design that out, to make sure that you've got that audio visual designer to come in there and make sure that you have all the right pieces, because the bad part is, is you don't want this in five years to be completely out of date.

[00:34:21] Eric Goranson: You want to be able to have it where. You could upgrade it, you know, if you, if you need to put in amplifiers or if you need to put in, you know, in wall speakers, you design this out correctly, so you can do it once and get it done. So the high end stuff is where you start really seeing. The professionals come in and, and you can get the gaming couches.

[00:34:42] Eric Goranson: Now you can get the movie seats that have the, the rumble devices in 'em. So they shake with the base, you know, there's so many cool things that you can do in these spaces to make 'em mark,

[00:34:51] Intro: you

[00:34:52] Caroline Blazovsky: know, the other thing too, and I know we're going out soon, but, um, the lighting is so good. Oh my gosh, because you need different lighting completely for when [00:35:00] you're gaming.

[00:35:00] Caroline Blazovsky: Like, I mean, and I'm talking arcade games, I'm talking, being able to see with a foosball table, or, you know, if you have a ping pong table or whatever, the lighting. Totally different. So that should really be designed by professional too, or someone who at least knows what they're doing. Yeah.

[00:35:13] Eric Goranson: And I like getting, you know, like if I've got a pool room where I've got the pool and that I like getting that bar pool room light to go over the top of the pool table, you know that, oh, you're I like the old school look of those, you know?

[00:35:24] Eric Goranson: And, and the accessories that go with it. I think that is really part of the touch of adding that stuff in there. I mean, my little brother bought off of Craig's list for his space. He bought from the guy that owned, um, the original NHL hockey franchise in Seattle, where they won the Stanley cup in like 1900 or 19.

[00:35:49] Eric Goranson: Oh one back then he bought from them the pool rack for the balls in the queues and everything from that guy's house out of [00:36:00] an estate sale up. And so it's, you know, 1900 rack for the balls in the queue. Completely cool vintage stuff, but those are all things that you can add to it. And you'll see people put in maybe the diner jukebox, and that can be pretty

[00:36:15] Intro: cool.

[00:36:16] Intro: Oh yeah. I love the jukebox.

[00:36:18] Caroline Blazovsky: I'm all about lighting. Like I like neon lights. I like neon bar sides. I like that whole dark ambience. So everybody's different. What they, like, I love like a black room with like neon stuff going on, like any kind of light. Bar bar science are cool to me. Like the old vintage,

[00:36:33] Eric Goranson: like neon sign.

[00:36:34] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You know, and then, okay. Are you gonna do a, are you gonna do a soda fountain? Are you gonna do a, a wet bar? Are you gonna make it look like your favorite Tiki bar? What are you gonna do with that?

[00:36:45] Intro: Or slushing machine. I've seen that, man. I've seen that slush. I've

[00:36:47] Eric Goranson: seen that too. Popcorn. Popcorn's a key.

[00:36:50] Eric Goranson: I think that's that's you have to have that. You have to have that for that. And then what are you gonna do for flooring? You know, you gonna do a, a vinyl tile down there. You're gonna put down a wow. [00:37:00] Make it look like it's a fifties vintage. You gotta almost have to start out with what style is this gonna.

[00:37:06] Eric Goranson: You're moving big, heavy things around it. So maybe the hardwood floor, isn't tough. Flooring's tough. You've got pinball machines. Those feet can really tear up on hardwood floors. I like to put in either a hard, uh, vinyl floor in there, like the, like the almost commercial tiles. Those look cool. Do a black and white that can add to that, or you can turn around and put in, um, you know, a luxury vinyl plank.

[00:37:28] Eric Goranson: That'll take it cuz you wanna be able to move stuff around in there without trashing a floor. Yeah. It's so

[00:37:33] Caroline Blazovsky: true. You definitely need something that I think

[00:37:35] Eric Goranson: tile's the worst. No,

[00:37:37] Caroline Blazovsky: if you break, if somebody drops something on it's cracking,

[00:37:40] Eric Goranson: you're cracking or you, you want everything. I mean, getting. Pool table level, getting the pinball machine level level, getting that in there is, is tough.

[00:37:49] Eric Goranson: So you wanna be able to have a very even surface down there. So basements it's tough. Sometimes basement floors can have some serious little angles to 'em cuz they didn't spend that much time doing that [00:38:00] concrete. So sometimes you gotta use a lot of floor level. What

[00:38:03] Caroline Blazovsky: if you did just do a, like a paintable.

[00:38:06] Caroline Blazovsky: Like, what if you just did paintable concrete cuz it's just something like that would be okay. Or would you rather go with like something on top of

[00:38:12] Eric Goranson: it? Like a carpet? Um, I'm not a fan of carpets on concrete and basements just because they love to get moldy and mild dewy from the moisture coming up through there.

[00:38:20] Eric Goranson: I would much rather see a garage professional garage coating in a basement cuz as you know, if you paint just a regular concrete floor paint. Any moisture tends to bubble that up and then you're fighting it. It's hard to get that looking right after it starts bubbling up. Mm-hmm mm-hmm it starts to look bad.

[00:38:36] Eric Goranson: So I really want to come down and, and even put down a, a, you know, a proper waterproof subfloor material with some floor drains in there and then put a flooring system on top of it. That's kind of the best. Carpet can be good in areas. If you've got an area that's gonna be where people are gonna sit down or have a gaming area, carpet can be good.

[00:38:57] Eric Goranson: But again, I want to have something between that and the [00:39:00] concrete and not just carpet pad, because I wanna make sure that yeah. Seems gotta be removable.

[00:39:03] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah, because you don't. Removable, because if you guys, if you get a leak or something that's coming up or flood, yeah. You wanna make sure that's hard, really carpeting in those areas is tough in gaming rooms.

[00:39:14] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean, I have a hard time with bait finish basements in general, advising people, what they should do it is cause you know, it is a dance space. It is

[00:39:21] Eric Goranson: Caroline we're out of time. I hear that music plan. It's time to go. Good luck on your game in rooms out there. I'm Eric G and I'm Caroline B and you've been listening to.

[00:39:30] Eric Goranson: Around the house.