Adding a Pool Room to the House

I still remember the day when a coworker offered to sell me his PlayStation 3 for only $250.  Almost as well as I remember the day, a couple of months later, when it stopped working on me.  So when a guy at work offered to sell his pool table to make room for his girlfriend's stuff, you couldn't blame me for being hesitant.  But since Heather and I have wanted a pool table for awhile, and since he was offering it for only $100, to include not only the table and balls, but also 2 nice pool sticks and a wooden rack that mounts on the wall to hold them, I couldn't resist.

The only problem was figuring out where to put it.  My house comes in one of two floor plans, one with 4 bedrooms and a large loft, and one with 5 bedrooms and a small loft.  Unfortunately, mine was built with the small loft, which I calculated to be a bit too small for the table.  It would have fit, of course, but taking shots from the sides would have required shortened pool sticks or else a lot of aggravation and awkward high angle hits.

Not to be defeated, I did the measurements on the master bedroom upstairs.  One of the draws to our house is that it has a master upstairs and down, and we chose the convenience of not having to climb stairs each night and morning traversing to and from bed.  That left the master bedroom upstairs for a guest room.  As much as I didn't want to lose the guest room, it was the only other place the pool table might fit.  Once I measured the dimensions I realized there was no way to have a bed and a pool table in there, but the pool table would fit with plenty of room all around by itself.  The guest bed would just have to relocate either to the loft or more likely to one of the other bedrooms (sorry guests, but you'll have to either walk down the hall to the bathroom or we will move the pool table into the corner and put the bed in the master bedroom while you're in town).

Next up was getting the actual table to my house.  The kid I was buying it from has a large diesel Dodge truck, so I knew this wouldn't be a problem.  We took the table apart and carried the top down the stairs and to his truck.  There wasn't a good way to put the rest of the table in his truck without possibly damaging the felt, so I  decided to see if it would fit in my Vibe.  The Vibe has carried a lot of freight, from a dishwasher to 500 pounds of paving stones to a 52 inch TV, so I figured it was worth a try.

The stand barely fit, and that was with the hatch glass open so the legs could extend out the opening, and with the front seats as far forward as they would possibly go.  I'm a pretty small guy, but there was literally only inches between the steering wheel and the seat.  Just try moving your seat all the way forward and see if you can squeeze in there.  Make sure the seat back is at 90 degrees too.  I dare you.

Needless to say, I couldn't even hold my head up, or it would have been crushed into the sun visor, so I tenuously placed the car in reverse with my head less than an inch from the glass, turned to the left so as to get me a view of the road.  With my knees hugging the steering column I slowly creeped down the road following the big red Dodge with the rest of my purchase.  Turns were executed using a boat captain hand to hand motion, and I gained a new appreciation for Clowns, even though I still hate them.  Fortunately it was only about a 10 minute drive to my house, and I'm thankful I wasn't in an accident because I probably would have either been decapitated or killed from the force of the airbag exploding my internal organs.

Once we got to the house and I extricated myself from the car, we got everything upstairs, which was a sweat drenching exercise, and put it all together it the new pool room.  It wasn't easy, but it was worth it.  I even put our two bar stools up there and mounted the pool stick rack right away.  Heather and I have been enjoying our own personal pool hall, and the pool table shouldn't suddenly stop working in a few weeks either.  My house just went up a coolness level.