Building the war room of my dreams

I’ve managed to use the entire bucket of paint on the table. The black marker text I had used to help place the pieces is still a bit visible.We’ll have to wait and see what it looks like when dry.

At one end I’ve added a cable holder (model ‘Signum’ from your local Scandewegian furniture store). Time will tell if that is overkill.

Technically the table is ready for its first game, but it still needs to dry.

In hindsight a colour other than white might have been easier to paint, but I can add another colour on top of this one. It’s something to think about.

The room itself is not done yet and I’ve got plenty of stuff to move from storage still before I can actually use it.

Things to do at this point in time:

• replace curtains
• add my airbrush & gear and lights
• fix the doors for the in-built storage of the room (those elephants got to go)
• change the light (it’s not bright enough at night)
• add decorations

A tiny quality of life improvement for storage.

Using a simple coat hanger to store my headphones.

I will be adding a bit of cable management next as well as find a place to mount the control for the led strip.

A few thoughts on building the Kallax & associated storage :

• use a small drill to create pilot holes when there aren’t any.
  Usually there’s a hole where screws need to go, but for the additional options like the doors there isn’t one. Doing this makes life much easier.
• those tiny things that are used for getting the inside to fit at the exact distance ?
  Those are also handy when mounting the doors because getting them fitted just right is a real pain in the posterior.

I know. I did say I was going green, but I needed practice so that’s my excuse and I am sticking with it.

Improvements have been made, the frame is now almost fixed into place.
The additional bits of wood will also serve as anchoring points for the tabletops.
The plastic I-beams have been glued to the center frame.

The white paint is supposedly a ‘all in one’ thing designed for kitchen surfaces.
As a result a coat of primer isn’t needed and it is supposed to have a matt finish when dry. Ye old “two thin coats” mantra does apply, but even a single coat does cover the dark brown of the kallax unit. If this was to be the real surface I definitely would be adding a second coat.

Paint :

“Flexa Mooi makkelijk”
Colour : matt white

A bit of Googling tells me that this would be “Dulux Easycare Kitchen” in the UK.

Parent brand is “Akzo Nobel”

The lightstrips are mounted at a 45 degree angle pointing towards the storage space.

Of course things didn’t go quite as smoothly.
I did manage to almost break one lightstrip … but after a bit of old fashioned percussive maintenance things appear to be in working order.

After testing the lights I noticed that the bottom row of the cubicles doesn’t get enough light. As the drawers do get enough light when opened the solution kind of presents itself. I will be adding drawers to the bottom half of both Kallaxes (or Kallaxi?).

There I was thinking that choosing a colour would be hard, so I got a generic white colour today.

Then I saw the weekender …and I knew I was wrong.

It should be green … goblin green ideally.

So back to the DIY store it is.

I think I still will use the colour I had for the first layer.

https://www.beastsofwar.com/featured/cult-of-games-xlbs-rough-riding-horses-on-yer-bike-get-kitbashing-instead/

First of the new lights has been added to the table.
These give me better light when looking at the storage underneath the table as well as some flashy effects in sync to whatever noise or music may be playing.

A few moving pictures for clarity :

https://app-h5.govee.com/share/community?client=0&postId=199193&t=1719132714384

I couldn’t help myself testing the lights I want to install on my table.

The gear used :

• 1x Govee M1 lightstrip (2 meter)
• 1x Govee Gaming Lightbars
• 1x Govee Curtain lights v1
• 1x Govee Music sync box

All of this allows for some pretty trippy lighting effects :

https://app-h5.govee.com/share/community?client=0&postId=199061&t=1719052437504

As an experiment it was a success, but until I can find a way to make the lights part of the surface the entire concept will have to wait a bit. Definitely worth a shot in the future though, because I do like the idea of using the lights to mark areas on the board.

Oh … the music in the video is this :

Using T-beams did the trick, as expected to be honest.

Several things need to be done :

• fix the tabletops to the frame
• fix the frame to the Kallax, to ensure it doesn’t move
• move the table a few centimeters to the perfect spot in the center of the room
• prime & paint the wood (probably black or dark brown as that’s what the Kallax units are)

So it’s not quite done, but the most important bits are.

I must admit that I am quite pleased with the result.
It isn’t as perfectly square as it could be, but then I’m no carpenter and this is my first big 1:1 scale terrain project.

With the table (almost) done I can focus on the rest of the warroom.

In no particular order

• the sliding doors for the storage space need to look better
  The previous owners of the house had used wallpaper to cover them. It looked ok from a distance, but it doesn’t quite match the theme of the room now.
• replace curtains
  Left by the previous owners these things do their job, but I need something a little less red and flowery
• add airbrush/hobby tables & storage
  I am waiting to finish the rest of my house before moving everything from my previous apartment. The airbrush, paints, etc. are amongst this.
• more thematic lights ?
  This is an unknown. I had installed a basic light fixture but I am not sure if this will be good enough.
  I have plans for lights underneath the table, but that’s for atmosphere.
• Additional decoration. There’s a few posters in storage that could work, but maybe a few additional things? Time will tell.

So … not done yet.
And of course the table demands games … but like so many things that’s all in storage at the moment.

This is not the end. Things will improve and evolve.
Suggestions are welcome.

Those I-beams ?

Yep .. they do work, but I think the tolerances are very very small.
After a bit of struggling to get the things aligned I decided to move on to completing the table frame. I think I managed to get the thing within half a millimeter as I had a bit of trouble fitting it on top of the Kallax units I’m using as the base. However as you can see things do fit.

Next stage .. getting rid of the sawdust and adding the tabletops for reals.
I hope I got everything more or less where I want it, because the thing will be a real pain in the posterior to move once I get to the next stage.

The observant might notice that I got 4 sets of drawers on one side while the Kallax unit I had listed only had 2 of them. Let’s just say that this was by design and I totally wanted that 😉 As is I’ve got 8 cubicles open and 8 filled with either doors or drawers.

Did I mention I wanted to maximize storage space ?
I will be tinkering with storage for gaming mats, but table needs to be completed and ready for gaming first.

With the tabletops as designed being too heavy and unwieldy for me I had to do a little redesign as well as a bit of cutting.

I had always wanted more tools … so with a bit of  research and help of youtube I got myself a mini circular saw.

Things went *bzzzzzt* *bzzzzt* (well … with ear protection… ). and two boards were four.

Well … that is what I tell folk.
In reality I kind of ff-up the frame so it was a bit wider than the table was supposed to be.

To ‘fix’ it I added the new one light blue one in the center of the framework image.

Don’t forget to measure in the real world.
The two inner wooden planks were designed to hold the Kallax in place, which meant building the frame around the furniture made things a bit easier.

All of this kind of works, but the gaps between the plates had me thinking.
Can I cover them and fix them in place ?

Yes I can … the DIY shop had plastic I-shaped beams to do exactly that.
So that’s up next.

The swedish store made ordering the Kallax bits easy. They even had a pre-picked selection that came with a few of the storage options (drawers) included.

The wood for the tabletop was equally easy. The local DIY shop did offer pre-cut wood from their website with edges to specifications. However because it wouldn’t let me pick the things I wanted I had to do a bit of extra googling. And as luck would have it I found a webshop that would do anything I wanted with an interface that was super easy to use.

Ordered :

• 2x Ikea Kallax 2×4
• 2x tabletop :
  18mm MDF, pre-primed, 150 cm x 105 cm, rounded edges on all sides except one

For those interested : https://www.opmaatzagen.nl/
It is a Dutch webshop specializing in wood cut to specifications.

All items ordered arrived safe and sound. The additional wood I was able to haul from the local DIY shop.

The packages from the Swedish store were big, but unpacking them and then moving bits up stairs was easy. Assembly was not a big deal either (tip : drilling holes for the screws makes the job easy).

So far … so good, except for one thing.
I had not considered the size of the tabletops as well as the weight.
The things were heavy.
Initial attempt at carrying one of the tabletops meant that a few steps up I let one slip … and with a mighty crash it landed on the floor. I probably scared the neighbours too 😀

Initial design of the table was done using TinkerCad, which is free 3D design website.

https://www.tinkercad.com

Two things were essential

1. tabletop size : big enough to play ‘all’ games
2. storage space
3. high enough to play the games standing or sitting

The first part was ‘easy’. The big games need a 6 foot x 4 foot table.
In proper metric this is about 180cm x 120 cm.
Adding a bit of extra space gave me dimensions of +/- 220 cm x 150 cm.

Storage wasn’t too difficult either. The Ikea Kallax 4×2 room dividers offer a decent height while also providing storage space.

This is something I always wanted to do since getting into the hobby.
The reality of living in a one bedroom apartment meant that I never really had the space to execute the idea.

What do I want to achieve :

• a big enough table to play any game I want
• storage space (did I mention that)
• space to build & assemble miniatures
• more storage space
• space to use an airbrush & paint
• lights to play games
• lights to do hobby
• a space to photograph my minis

Did I mention I want to store as much hobby related material as well ? 😉

While I had space for a game table in my old apartment, that always meant having to clear the table whenever I needed to anything else.

All of this was solved when I bought a new house.
Now I can dedicate an entire room to my hobby (and another room to my computer&videogames), which meant that I can do what I wanted to do all along.

In this project I will document all the things I add to the room as and when they happen.