Pool Student’s New Home Table
First off, I’m sorry I haven’t been posting lately, I’ve had a lot going on. I’ll be posting again on a regular basis starting now.
I bought a pool table and plan to practice on it regularly. I got a good deal on a used Robertson 9′ table that used to be in commercial use at Stroker’s in Palm Harbor. They’d sold it to a private individual when they got a Brunswick tight pocket table, and I bought it from him. It’s had more than 10 years of heavy use, but it’s still in great shape.
I had it moved and set up by Wes Burden and had him put new Milliken SuperPro on it. I’d seen and used this cloth at Park Place and liked it. Wes does great work, and I heartily recommend him.
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| Pool Student’s Home Table |
I put the table in my garage (already heated and air-conditioned from when we used it as an office many years ago) and made a game room out of it. We made sure that we could still pull one car into the garage if needed (this is FL) but we would only do that in a hurricane. The garage door does open, so I can easily move the lawn mower and edger in and out, but it seals very well to the frame, so I’m not air conditioning the great outdoors. It’s an insulated hurricane door rated to withstand “Large Missile Impacts (yes, they actually call it that). Those big gray bars running horizontally across the garage door are the reinforcements.
I still needed to have some storage for a few big things like the mower, edger, table saw and some other stuff, but we’ve managed to kept these things mostly hidden in one corner, with the view mostly blocked by a cheap curtain. We had full height steel shelving units along one wall, and we broke them down and used only the bottom halves, with a height of 36″. You can use a full length cue everywhere, though on shots perpendicular to the long rail on the shelving unit side your butt bumps the shelves. We covered the fronts of the units with the same black material used elsewhere in the drapes.
We’ve had the wood cabinets in the garage for more than 10 years, since we remodeled the kitchen. We put in a TV and small stereo, and our grandson who just moved in has added his X-Box. It was a small adventure running the ethernet cable to the garage given the way the roof is (literally only crawl space and we still had to push the cable through on a long stick) but we managed. I have wireless N in the house, but the performance through multiple walls into the garage wasn’t up to snuff, so we ran a cable.
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| Pool Student’s Home Table |
I used info from JoeW on the AZBilliards forum (thanks Joe) for the light. We used two 4 foot long 4 bulb fixtures from Home Depot. They use T8 32 watt bulbs (the new high-efficiency skinny ones) that put out more light than the old style 40 watt T12s.
Because we needed to be able to open the overhead garage door, we couldn’t hang the light down over the table. So, we mounted the lights much closer to the ceiling than would be typical, but they are so bright that the table looks awesome. And it lights up almost the whole room. I opted for the daylight 6500K color temperature bulbs, and I think you can see from the photos they were a good choice.
We put in a ceiling fan with light and my wife likes the warmth of those compact fluorescent bulbs, but for the table it had to be the daylight color.
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| Pool Student’s Home Table |
The couch and love seat were actually found at a thrift store. I’d never bought anything from one of these places, but I was on a budget and wanted to see what I could do for a minimal expense. They’re very soft and comfortable leather. We got an unbelievable price, but had to spend 8 hours scrubbing them to get the stains out.
So far I’m very happy and I can’t think of anything that I would have done differently. I’ll be adding shelves on the long wall above the storage shelves, but they’ll be high enough not to get in the way.
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6 Responses to “Pool Student’s New Home Table”
Roy Zornow
- August 18th, 2009
Beautiful table and nice colored cloth. If I didn’t live in an NYC apt, I would have your setup and maybe pick up some used bar stools with backs, that way when you play an opponent you can watch the table while they shoot. Oh yeah, you wouldn’t be in the chair much anyway, got it.
Lothar Bergeest
- October 21st, 2009
Okay, now I need to come and challenge you on your beautiful home table. It looks like a really great setup. As I said in my earlier comment, call me and let’s figure out when we can get together. I’d really enjoy that. – Lothar
My Pool Support System - PoolStudent's Blog | Pool Student's Blog - August 15th, 2010
[...] time since I’m in a league there, though to be honest I don’t play there often since I bought a table of my own. I have taken a few inexpensive group lessons, but have avoided the more expensive, and more [...]
p00lriah
- August 15th, 2010
great lighting on the table john. the whole table is lit, but the light doesn’t look harsh. that’s the kind of lighting that makes you want to play.
John Biddle
- August 15th, 2010
Thanks for the kind words. The light has eight 4 foot tubes of the new high efficiency, daylight variety. It supplies LOTS of light, and it’s up high off the table (61″ above the bed). The WPA rules stipulate that the light (if not movable) needs to b e at least 40″ above the surface, but most places I’ve been don’t comply with that rule. I hoped when I put it in that it would be bright enough for high quality videos, and I’m soon to find out. Wish me luck.
p00lriah
- August 16th, 2010
u can always get some cheapy spotlights for video if it comes to that. u should have nothing to worry about, as long as the camera takes HD videos.
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