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Gaming/Entertainment Organization
redraptor
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello. I have an issue.
My basement, and hub of all my entertainment dealies, music equipment, and the like, is essentially a fucking travesty, and the international committee of basement cleanliness would be very troubled if they were to inspect. There's so many fucking cords and wires on the ground here, that they look like spindly veins, and that I am living inside some sort of great beast. Essentially it was redone some time ago, but with other commitments it was never properly furnished, beyond the essentials at least. I just need too many things to finish and organize things and I was hoping to get some reccommendations or ideas.
- First of all, my TV is on like an old Ikea style coffee table, consoles sit in front, its really a poor solution. I see a lot of TV shelving unit things but nothing that would really work, they usually don't seem to accept 2-3 consoles and a load of DVDs without looking like you've got a massive wall unit, which isn't really what I'd like.
- I have a laptop that hooks into my TV frequently for the watching of stuff (man+sheepporns), but its a bigger HP 17" model so it sucks to have it just sitting on a table, is there some sort of unit that I can get which I can tuck my laptop into perhaps under the TV while doing this business? Mind you sometimes I do games via TV a smart option for gamepad cords to reach a couch would be nice.
- Has anyone invented something cool to hold a but-ton of controllers? The wii is a demon whose purpose is to crowd my floor with 200 controllers/attachments. Maybe like a hangy thing for wiimotes?
- Oh and how do people organize multiple consoles to be switched on and off when you've only one set of the needed inputs? I've seen little multi-tap, power bar deals but I could never acquire one, and have been switching manually for life.
- Beyond that I have several guitars and an amp that could really use some sort organization, best to hang? Something with the amp hidden under would be neat. And again amp wires, guitar wires, headphone wires, it looks like a spiderweb if you stand on the couch here.
- Miscellaneous ideas I was looking for, is that I have a slight amount of desk space which makes it difficult to use a Wacom tablet with my hulking laptop. Is there some sort of...small ramplike easel thing that people use for this? Or should I be pushing my laptop behind the tablet (hard to see)?
A- lso when using music tablature from the internet, I'm usually forced to print and read. Any other possible way of using my laptop more actively like a traditional music sheet? Mind you its huge, but any sort of nice small table style or something that someone uses would be neat to see.I
I might think of more, and this may seem lazy but its really not. I just can't find the furniture/organizational stuff that I would like, I basically know shit all about this, and would like something nicer than buying 4 straight square shelves and a cardboard box for the TV. I'm up for any ideas here but I was hoping for a smart, cool looking way of doing this.
EDIT: Also I am in dire need of things for my walls. I have posters, but its a bit too nice of an area to just paste posters to the wall like it's a 15 year old's bedroom. Hardbacking could work, but I'm open to alternatives. I've seen the rasterbater but I can not get it to produce high quality stuff for some reason, so teach. What else do people put on walls?
EDIT2: There's also a larger sort of ridge that runs around half the room, the sort of size that people would sometimes line with crazy beer bottles or something but I don't have those, is there something doable there? Taxidermy heads? Porcelain cats?
---
tldr; how does you organize your shit, post pictures for higher score
Mebe I should have called it the interior basement decorating thread.
My basement, and hub of all my entertainment dealies, music equipment, and the like, is essentially a fucking travesty, and the international committee of basement cleanliness would be very troubled if they were to inspect. There's so many fucking cords and wires on the ground here, that they look like spindly veins, and that I am living inside some sort of great beast. Essentially it was redone some time ago, but with other commitments it was never properly furnished, beyond the essentials at least. I just need too many things to finish and organize things and I was hoping to get some reccommendations or ideas.
- First of all, my TV is on like an old Ikea style coffee table, consoles sit in front, its really a poor solution. I see a lot of TV shelving unit things but nothing that would really work, they usually don't seem to accept 2-3 consoles and a load of DVDs without looking like you've got a massive wall unit, which isn't really what I'd like.
- I have a laptop that hooks into my TV frequently for the watching of stuff (man+sheepporns), but its a bigger HP 17" model so it sucks to have it just sitting on a table, is there some sort of unit that I can get which I can tuck my laptop into perhaps under the TV while doing this business? Mind you sometimes I do games via TV a smart option for gamepad cords to reach a couch would be nice.
- Has anyone invented something cool to hold a but-ton of controllers? The wii is a demon whose purpose is to crowd my floor with 200 controllers/attachments. Maybe like a hangy thing for wiimotes?
- Oh and how do people organize multiple consoles to be switched on and off when you've only one set of the needed inputs? I've seen little multi-tap, power bar deals but I could never acquire one, and have been switching manually for life.
- Beyond that I have several guitars and an amp that could really use some sort organization, best to hang? Something with the amp hidden under would be neat. And again amp wires, guitar wires, headphone wires, it looks like a spiderweb if you stand on the couch here.
- Miscellaneous ideas I was looking for, is that I have a slight amount of desk space which makes it difficult to use a Wacom tablet with my hulking laptop. Is there some sort of...small ramplike easel thing that people use for this? Or should I be pushing my laptop behind the tablet (hard to see)?
A- lso when using music tablature from the internet, I'm usually forced to print and read. Any other possible way of using my laptop more actively like a traditional music sheet? Mind you its huge, but any sort of nice small table style or something that someone uses would be neat to see.I
I might think of more, and this may seem lazy but its really not. I just can't find the furniture/organizational stuff that I would like, I basically know shit all about this, and would like something nicer than buying 4 straight square shelves and a cardboard box for the TV. I'm up for any ideas here but I was hoping for a smart, cool looking way of doing this.
EDIT: Also I am in dire need of things for my walls. I have posters, but its a bit too nice of an area to just paste posters to the wall like it's a 15 year old's bedroom. Hardbacking could work, but I'm open to alternatives. I've seen the rasterbater but I can not get it to produce high quality stuff for some reason, so teach. What else do people put on walls?
EDIT2: There's also a larger sort of ridge that runs around half the room, the sort of size that people would sometimes line with crazy beer bottles or something but I don't have those, is there something doable there? Taxidermy heads? Porcelain cats?
---
tldr; how does you organize your shit, post pictures for higher score
Mebe I should have called it the interior basement decorating thread.
redraptor on
0
Posts
Start with what you use the most and what you use the least. Make the more frequently used stuff more easily accessible and convenient to use.
In other words, I'd get used to not having everything around and ready to go. Utulize closet space, under beds, under sofas, etc to store stuff that doesn't need to be laying around all of the time. A little furniture re-arranging can also help makes things feel like a fresh start.
With a ton of bookshelfs, you will have room for all of your remotes, consoles, games, movies, etc. With the drill, you can carve out holes for the wires to pass. Bonus, walls of bookshelfs look awesome.
I personally use an AV receiver for all of my equipment. You might want to invest in a very large, or multiple, input switches.
The more shelves the better, because it means more storage space.
Is it a big problem with the type of entertainment cabinet/shelf thing you have with PS3/XBOX360/Wii overheating? Right now they are completely in the open and it's never been a problem.
In our place, we have a few end tables with enough space underneath for a plastic storage bin we picked up at Target, which is what holds all of our controllers (almost all, but we use some of them on a daily basis, so they just sit on the coffee table). I used to keep my controllers in stackable, black, plastic crates (also from Target). It worked pretty well.
We also have two game switchers (like this) so that we can switch between Wii, Xbox, 360, N64, PS2, etc. We bought ours at Gamestop I think, and it wasn't that pricey.
Also, if you used www.ultimate-guitar.com they have an automatic page scroller which can work well with some fiddling. that or use something like guitar pro or powertab (I think powertab is free and at www.powertab.com or something) These two programs essentially display tabs and sheet music in a traditional way while playing them in midi format. However if you turn the volume down on the program it is essentially a self scrolling piece of music
As you can see, I love IKEA.
I'm going to try that! What I've done with my cables already is group them into large "snakes" by using a flexible piece of 30mm black tubing that I've cut open on one side. Keeps all the cables going in the same direction nice and neat and anytime a cable needs to exit the snake you just attach a zip-tie at that spot so the cable remains in the snake until that point.
Couple the quote with this suggestion; 10 mins work + $5 spent = no more cables.
But firstly I advise you take everything out, everything, have a bare room so you can give it a really good clean. Next, decide what you really want to keep and be hard on yourself about it. By the sounds of it you want it to be a dedicated gaming and entertainment room, so try to keep storage of things you barely use to a minimum.
As suggested earlier, DIY shelving is cheap, easy and looks great
IKEA have a really great selection of units to put your TV on and your consoles/games in. The one I got does the job perfectly for a PS3, N64 and GCN, and I could probably fit one or two more in there. My brother has alot more consoles than I do however, and he uses an 8-port switch via remote which works damn well. Cost him around AU$50 IIRC.
Hopefully you can come up with a floorplan of your basement that keeps clutter to a minimum and has everything you frequently use at the touch of a button.
That is an awesome idea.
Something like a keyboard tray perhaps? I feel like working at a slight incline might be advantageous but I don't know of anything like a desk...easel, I guess.