Tommy Walsh explains how to turn your shed into a games den
The one-man building machine has dusted off his overalls and come in to chat with Stuff about DIY
After spending the long weekend trying to put up a shelf, we’ve realised DIY isn’t as easy as we thought. So we met up with Tommy Walsh, handyman extraordinaire, to get some tips on turning our shed into the ultimate games-den-come-man-cave.
So, we have a shed cluttered with junk and want to turn it into a games room, can it be done?
This job isn’t recommended for amateur DIYers because you need to run power to the shed – but it is possible. The transfer of power from the house to the shed should be via armoured supply cable buried in the ground at least one foot deep. I would recommend connecting this to a small consumer unit in the shed.
Are there any other options that don’t involve destroying the garden?
The alternative would be to distribute power from the house to the shed using pyro which can be mounted to a surface, a garden wall or perimeter fence at high level. But I strongly recommend any method to set this up should be carried out by a fully qualified electrician not to be taken on by DIYers.
Ok so we’ve got juice, but with a noisy 5.1 surround system hooked up to our PS3 we’re going to annoy the neighbours. Any solutions?
Sound proofing. Firstly you need to insulate the walls and ceiling (possibly the floor) – there are essentially two types – rock wall or blown-polyeurathane. Stick this using adhesive with the odd mechanical fusing, then stick plasterboard using adhesive to the insulation. Then tape and fill the dryline joints and sand them down with a sander, connected plugged in to the Kӓrcher ‘Man-Vac’ to suck up all the dust while you sand. Remember, less mess, less stress!
And lastly, mounting our LED TV – can it be done without an expensive bracket?
I wouldn’t recommend any amateur DIYer to attempt to hang an expensive wall mounted TV on anything other than the right size bracket for the right size TV. However I would recommend that you shop around and check online to obtain the best deal, that’s how you save money.
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