Your Basement Paradise

How to Setup Your own Basement Paradise

You’ve been reading through this site (and we thank you) but you’re thinking to yourself, “I’ve got the room to make my own paradise, but gee whiz, I wish I had someone to tell me how!”

Wait no more. The hints below are based on my own experience. There are a shitload of other sites out there that will tell you how to make your space ergonomic, or nicely coordinated. Screw that. We all know that this place will be a mess within a half hour of making the last LAN connection, so worry about proper asthetics later, like 10 minutes before your girlfriend comes over.

First things first, you need to decide what the room will be used for: Will it be a shared space? Will it have your cat jumping all over your shit? Are girls (“s” written backwards ala Little Rascals) allowed? It really makes no difference since this is going to be YOUR space, but it’s helpful to have a vision beforehand.

Take a few minutes and get some accurate measurements of the area, including the size and shape of your desk, monitor, PC, and any other major peripherals that you’ll need access to. You can use an application like Microsoft VISIO to accurately map how things will look when laid out, or a pencil and graph paper works fine too. My suggestion (if you don’t have a basic CAD app) would be to make a rough drawing on paper and photocopy it a few times to save effort on different designs. Lay out the design, making sure to keep the stuff as close to scale as possible. Otherwise, you’ll try to cram 10 lbs of crap into a 5 lb bag.

You deserve a break. Have a beer. Oh yeah, beer…is that within easy reach? If not, you may want to invest in a small college-dorm style fridge. Add this to your drawing.

Invest in a good set of speakers. Not only will good speakers sound nice, but they can drown out any background noise, like a significant other asking you to do the dishes. Be sure to set the speakers at the proper height, usually ear level, so that you can get the full impact of Unreal 2004 as you frag frag frag.

Get at least one fragrant candle. This will mask the spilled beer and late night flatulance.

Lighting is one of the more important elements to a good space. If you have the capability, get something that has a dimmer switch so you can bask in the warm glow of your monitor for hours on end, but can still see the beer fridge (see above) on the other side of the room.

Compressed air. Get several cans to blow the body hair out of your keyboard after a Pr0n session.

I can’t say this enough. Label your cables. At the very least, if you have a LAN, don’t use the same color Cat5 for all the connections. It will be easier to trace the ethernet cable back to the switch if you can see a distinct color the whole time. If you have a KVM switch and have your 3 cables bundled together, make a mark on both ends of the mouse and keyboard cables with a K or M so that you don’t spend hours troubleshooting input drivers when the only problem is an improper connection.

If you have a ton of external USB/Firewire devices that need to plug into the back of the PC (like a camcorder), make sure to secure them to your work surface so that they don’t fall behind your desk when the device isn’t plugged in. Climbing under your desk to find a cable is a demoralizing experience, especially when you see how much dust has collected under there since last spring.

GET A GOOD CHAIR! Though they may *look* good, sometimes the leather captain’s chair at Office Max is not gonna be the best thing for long hours at the screen. Get a chair that has as many independent controls as you can find. Your back will thank you later. If your space is carpeted, get one of those plastic roller mats for like $30. It’ll protect your carpet from the chair, as well as pizza sauce, beverages, and body fluids.

Using Windows XP? MAKE SURE to set up different profiles for the different folks in your home. You’re thinking “They’ll never touch my PC!” Well, it’s nice to know you’re confident, but the sad fact is you’re a moron. They will jump on your profile the minute they get the chance, just to see what you’re doing all the time. Password protect your logon. Also, now is a good time to mention that you don’t want to store your Pr0n in a folder called “Porn Collection”. Make up a subtle folder like “Windows Nighttime” or something that will look more “system-ish” than glaringly obvious that it’s full of boobs.

Keep an extension phone, a pen, and a small pad of paper nearby. The phone to order more take-out and beer, and the pen and paper to write down Astalvista serials or the number to the pizza and beer place when you call Information.

Pictures are nice, but framed certificates from useless IT classes are even better. They intimidate your non-geek friends and make you look like a 1337 hax0r.

The most important aspect of this whole project is to make the space YOURS. You are going to be the one sitting there day after day, so be sure that it reflects your tastes, and makes you feel comfortable. Even if you’re shoved in the corner of the room, decorate the space so that you know it’s all yours.

That’s it for the basics, but stay tuned for more details on other aspects of building the best area possible.

Bookmark and Share

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks