Thank you for joining us in this series on Home Decorating.
Our hope is that these short blog bursts will enable & inspire you to refresh a room in your home.
This week we're challenging you with a Rec Room.
Have you thought about repurposing a room in your home into a Recreation Room?
Your kids are growing into teenagers? Or they’ve moved away from home and you would like a sophisticated play room for you and your friends? Both or either are great reasons to incorporate a fun space into your home. We’ll discuss today your options and narrow it down to just 3 elements needed to refresh this room.
Teenagers....
Or yours...
The most popular room conversion for a rec room is in the basement.
Attic or dormer spaces also work for a rec room.
Once you’ve chosen the room you will refresh ask yourself what types of games you, your spouse and the close friends you’ll invite over love to play. You may have the space for a foosball, ping pong and pool table or you may have to make some priority selections.
Do you have a garage you can convert—remember this is a refresh not a remodel, so the garage would already have to be heated and cooled if necessary, basically already converted into a space in your home. But if it is available, there you have a great option for all of these games.
Converting the garage into a family room or, the rec room allows you room for a ping pong table. Challenging your guests and family to tournaments make any gathering exciting. Adding a full size or smaller version of an air hockey table will really add to the fun! Generally ping pong tables can be folded up so keep that in mmind before ruling out due to space restrictions.
The table cover on the above bumper pool table also sets up as a card playing area for hosting poker night.
In your rec room refresh, once you’ve decided on the games then check online for great deals or craigs list for used equipment. If you've finished putting your kids through college you deserve all the games and brand new!
Placement of the games you chose should be considered as you may want to include a bar area, tv watching area or part of your rec room may be dedicated to exercise equipment. If wii or garage band will be played make sure you have the room for it. And remember if you have to move furniture or other games out of the way to play? Those games may not be played often.
Make it as easy as you can to set up the various games so they will get used. Seasonally switch out certain games to the garage or storage barn out back and set up the ones that are in season. You decide what season you’re in. Note: Air hockey is a YEAR – ROUND game.
Your rec room can sometimes be off to the side of your man-pad/cave.
And your rec room could occupy the other side of the basement from your theater room.
If you don’t have a lot of options or space, choose just one game, your favorite or the one you want to improve at and set that up.
Don’t let lack of space damper your fun. Make it work.
Decorations should be a consideration for 1 of your 3 elements. You can have a lot of fun with it. Scoreboards, license plates, bottle caps from all over or for the teen rec room ball caps collected from various teams, street signs, pictures of your favorite bands, or even wood or metal art.
Colorful artwork fits nicely in these rooms and shopping for and finding wall signs with fun or meaningful sayings is a given.
Whether you want a dart board game or not, it could always be used just for decoration to add to the theme in your rec room.
Don’t forget your lighting. Lighting can help you see the pool table (functional) or class up (chandelier) your mid-life rec room to justify it.
Be mindful of pinball game lighting, tv lighting, natural light from windows and maybe re-think any lamps near the wii or ping pong table.
There you have it! Once you’ve chosen your space your first order of business is to bring in your favorite game(s). Once you have the game(s) lined up figure out the best lighting for each game and the room in general. And lastly, have fun creating your theme or atmosphere with the decorations you find.
The beauty again with the room refresh is the shopping! Take your time. Enjoy the process. Google and check out-of-the-way shops when you’re traveling. Once you start focusing on this refresh you will find these items catching your attention. This is a refresh where you can change it up every 2-3 years as you find new games or outgrow others.
Note: it can be as simple as a bar area with one game
or incorporated into an entire room ensemble
Have fun with this refresh and then continue having fun for years to come.
Don’t forget to include your favorite games below in the comments. What did we miss? Please share!
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