The Wall of Crap! Annotated version...

Returning followers know all about the hockey wall yadda yadda so on etc, but here is a closeup of all the crap behind the plexiglass. Now with descriptions!

Panel 1 is the back of an old barn seat, a Greg Millen autographed game used stick, and a team signed stick (Blues) from either '77 or '78. I don't remember and haven't looked it up again.

Panel 2 is some of the macfarlane figures, and in the hole for the window are the 3 statues the blues gave out for renewing season tickets (federko, hull, macinnis) as well as a brick from the old barn (see the theme? I miss the old barn a lot)

Panel 3 has a bunch of different stuff including 3 Pepsi bottles commemorating the Blues' first 4 years in the league. I'd like to point out that I have 3 of them and the one on display at the new blues area doesn't even have soda in it. Surrounding those are some of my pucks. You may notice some puck have people on them. That is me and the wife on our wedding day. Yes, we gave out pucks as our table gift at the reception, don't be jealous.

Panel 4 is more mcfarlane guys. Yes I have a lot of them, no they are not all out.

Panel 5 are my old Brett Hull comics from McDonalds. Those awesome things in front of them are my Don Cherry Molson bubba kegs. They are pretty kick ass.

Things to make it "homey"

Here are some recent additions to add to the coolness factor. The lovely wife, Mrs. Hockey Haven, this past Christmas got me a personalized bottle opener and framed one of my jerseys. There was that useless pole at the corner of the bar, and it's now useful by adding this sweet bottle opener. I removed the personalized part for stalking purposes.

The jersey is a special edition one to commemorate the gold medal wining hockey team, and is pretty awesome. Now with extra awesome in a frame on the wall.

The print with all the logos is one of my own little design. I haven't titled it yet, but if I did it would either be called "hello from 1967" or "this is cool, I should sell these".

This goes out to all the lazy people

We finally got our couch, which means if you are too lazy to stand and too slow to get here in time to get a bar stool or a spot on the Old Barn seats, you now have a place to sit that isn't called "the floor".

The top photo is taken from next to the 2 arcade games, which has a little seating area known as "the VIP lounge"

THE BIG ASS UPDATE

After 2 years, lots of hours, and more mistakes than I care to count, this dream of a man cave is now a reality!!! It's amazing how fast it comes together once the carpet is in. While we are still waiting for the couch to arrive, everything else is good to go! I'll try to give an overview of all the photos, and you can click any one to make it larger for more detail.

You can see the MAME and Hat Trick are on the other side of the half wall, so as not to disturb people at the bar or watching tv. The memorabilia wall now has the plexi on it to fully simulate a hockey board look. It's only 1/8 inch thick, so don't go screwing around and check someone into it. After searching for bar stools forever, the wife actually let me get the hockey logo stools! And really, how could I have gotten anything else at this point? The megatouch game on the bar is up and running for those that like a more relaxing game experience. We now have a 51" plasma (3D) tv down there, and I moved all the gaming consoles to the basement as well. What would you like to play? Wii? Xbox? PS3? Well now you can!

The image of my stadium seats you can see the plaque I put on commemorating the Old Barn. I miss that place so much....

As far as all the collectible stuff, I'm not going to list it all, so just come look at it!

When a bad pickup line is actually true

If you were to ask "Does the carpet match the drapes?" I can now reply "Yes!". Because there are no drapes in the basement, and now there is no longer any ugly old carpet either. As an added bonus, you can see the board is also now painted to look like a.....board. If you can tear yourself from staring at that sweet ass for a moment you will notice that my work shirt also has hockey crap on it. Now that is how you go all out with a theme.

Q & A Time!

QUESTION: What does a bar in a hockey man cave look like when it's done?

ANSWER: Like that!! Behold the awesomeness....

The Bar Twofer

Two, two, TWO POSTS IN ONE!!

The bar is built, the bar is level (surprisingly) and now the bar is stained. You get to see it all in one tidy little post, or bar montage, if you prefer. Don't let your eyes fool you, it is not a rich dark brown. That bitch is BLACK! Yes, I will be serving drinks from behind a giant hockey puck. See how I tied the whole room together? And I didn't even need a rug to do it.....

(look it up, I can't explain every damn reference)

Game Time!!

For the entertainment portion of the basement not only is there a touchscreen game for the bar, I also have these two arcade games! As noted before the Hat Trick machine is from my high school days. It is already in working order, however I did create new control panel graphics for it just because it makes it look a little nicer and I have those kinds of skills.

Next to it will be sitting my brand new MAME cabinet. It will play most of the classic games you know and love. And by most I mean jam packed with 260 games from Donkey Kong and Tempest to Mortal Kombat and Dragon's Lair. I was lucky enough to get a second Hat Trick cabinet (minus monitor and any electronics) that I was able to convert to a MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). I had to design the control panel layout to fit in the tight space, but also had to include all the controls needed: 2 joysticks with 6 buttons each, a spinner (tempest) and a trackball in the center (centipede, golden tee). It ended up fitting pretty well, and I made the awesome graphics for it to fit the hockey theme. All that's left is to put the computer inside and wire the panel to it. Then it's game on, bitches!!

Resurrecting the Old Barn

I have received and added my stadium seat feet (yep, that's what they are called) to my seats form the old Arena. I took off the actual seat part because they are the only metal part and were a bit rusty, so I am doing a light "refinishing" on them. Once dry I can reattach them using the new bolts I had to buy. The old bolts were so rusted I had to cut them off. Look for old rusty barn seat bolts on craigslist soon.

How long does it take to build a bar???

It's getting there, so calm your drunk ass down! All the final wood is bought (red oak) and some of it is up as of now. It's actually starting to look like something. FYI, all those papers on the top there are the blueprints for building it. How hard can a simple L shaped bar be? 44 pages hard.

Someone's been busy...

And that someone was the contractor I had help me on a few things. As you can see, the drop ceiling is in, and all of the carpentry work is done. There is drywall for a bathroom where the mud pit used to be, and I have already primered the wood and hockey board so they are ready to paint. Note the awesome accent lights shining on what will me my kick ass memorabilia collection.

Time to lay some pipe!! (That's what she said)

I realize the title of the blog contains "the do it yourself basement". Some of it I can't do myself, so get over it. We are now entering the "pay someone who knows what they are doing" portion of the project. This is phase one of the new half bathroom. To answer your question, no, there was not an earthquake when I took the photo and no, Michael J. Fox did not take this (yeah, I went there). I was in a hurry and this is the only shot I took. You get the idea. Seriously, if you really need a crystal clear photo of a pipe in a pile of mud you need to get a life.

Is it Beer Thirty yet????

Does it look like it's beer thirty yet? Geez, settle down you drunk! As you can see, the framing is complete on the bar, and there is even one level of bar top on! Or as I like to call it "The @#*& expensive wood" Wrong measurements and cuts that are bound to happen will now be a costly good time. Remember to tip your bartender, he built this bar that your drink slides off of.

The Boarding Penalty

When I started the Boards, the idea was to put paneling on the front that looked like an actual board, with the screws showing and all that. And that's what I did. It looked awesome. Then 3 days later it bowed like a mofo. Minor penalty to me for not knowing what I'm doing. We had to pull all the paneling off which ripped the drywall to shreds. 3 panels of drywall and some awesome plaster work later this is where we are at. I will just paint this a glossy white and it will still look damn good. No, you still can't hip check anyone into it.

And we're BAAAACK!!!!

After a brief hiatus of having no funds to complete the dream, it's back on like Donkey Kong (the MAME version!) New photos of progress very soon!

Dude, I got sooo plastered....

After the drywall was done, I started getting quotes on taping all of it. We did an average job of hanging drywall, so an average job of taping would no hide any of our various errors. The price wasn't too bad, but then I would have to prime and paint everything afterwards. We were also getting a quote from a plaster guy about the stairs. Smooth drywall and textured stair wall don't exactly scream "We belong together!", so we wanted to smooth out the stair walls. Just for S&G's I asked him how much to plaster the whole thing. To my amazement, it was about the same price for plaster! The bonus is that there is a square footage of ZERO that I would have to paint! The second super bonus was that plaster would hide our crappy drywall hanging! That sounds like a bucket of WIN to me, so we did it! In my head I was thinking flat plaster, but not smooth. Just a little texture, almost like ice that has been skated on (see how I tie it all together). I think it turned out great. It's a light grey, with a slight blue tint to it.