Woman: Uh, isn't that a closet?

Bad Builder: Well, see... that's the beauty of it. It's a closet, it's a bedroom, it's entirely up to you. You put a game in there; it's a game room for crying out loud!

Michael Holigan: When it comes to a game room, size does matter. You need to take a lot of things into consideration, starting with size. If you’re going to put a pool table in there, 4x8, or a ping-pong table, you need at least five feet all the way around the table, to give you plenty of room for cue sticks, or running back and forth with paddles. You need also to plan where you’re going to put items inside your house, and what your needs are.

When I say your needs, I mean electricity, and a circuit big enough to handle it. Here we’ve got a great jukebox in the corner, and we’re going to need some power for this jukebox. We’re going to need it close; we don’t want to string cables all the way around the room, so plan it out before you build the house. If you’re going to have video games, anything like that, make sure you’ve got power going to them.

Take advantage of the spaces you normally wouldn’t think about. Right up here on top, we have what looks like a plant shelf going all the way around the room. It’s actually for our train set. That way we don’t have to take up space on the floor itself. We put it up in the air, and it looks great, and it goes all the way around the room. Also, take into consideration the area above you that you normally wouldn't consider. Are you going to hang things off of there? Are you going to change the looks? Here the homeowner came in, took the ceiling out and expanded it up against the rafters. That means things that were up in the attic are now exposed, and he did a great job with it. Look at this duct system here where air conditioning and heat is running through. It looks awesome.

Then here are three different tubes, four different tubes. We’ve got two yellow, that’s hot and cold water. We’ve got a black tube for security, and we’ve got a red conduit for all our electricity needs. If you’re going to bring in a gaming table, make sure that you have plenty of room for your chairs. They look great pushed up underneath it, but once you pull them back, have you got plenty of room to play? Do you have places to set down drinks and food? Take that into account when you’re planning the room. Also, take into account how you’re going to get the big stuff into the room. The jukebox, the pool table, an ordinary door? Probably not wide enough. Here we have an oversized door three feet wide. We can get it in there. It’s very inexpensive to do when you’re building it up-front, so do it at that point. Also, consider your hallways. Do you have a sharp bend in your hallway, where you’re not going to be able to get this big stuff around? Or is it too narrow? Make sure you plan ahead, especially those stairs. Don’t put it on the third floor.

I can’t say enough about needing to plan out your game room. Here he’s got some great signs, also a clock on here. They all need electricity; they all need their own circuit for power; and they put all of the outlets right next to the signs and the clock. That means we don’t have cables hanging across on our walls. It really looks sharp. Plus, the circuit is wired into a switch here, so no one has to climb up on a ladder to turn them on. Again, very smart, but hard to do after the fact. It’s good to do it during the planning stage.

The homeowner has even planned in advance to put the kitchen right next to the game room, easy access to snacks. If you don’t have the ability to do that, go ahead and get an ice-maker and a microwave up in that game room so you’re not running back and forth every time you get hungry. What would have been a cubbyhole they use for a computer center, again smart thinking. Their entertainment center is here. What child wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time in a game room like this? It keeps them off the streets, and it’s a safe haven for your family.