In 2018 I created my own DIY Pump It Up Pad Platform With Bars - it was a combination of Precision Dance Pads and a platform with bars I created myself. This setup was… decent at best. I wanted the full arcade experience, and knew that nothing was going to satisfy that except for the real arcade pads.

Luckily for me, my friend Kate added me to a buy/sell/trade Facebook group for arcade rhythm games, and within the first week there was a post for used Pump It Up pads for sale about 8 hours away from my house. I jumped on that opportunity immediately!

Read More...

In 2016 I built an Overwatch Themed Desk for my bedroom to use with my gaming machine. Recently, I’ve been getting really into streaming on Twitch and I needed more desk space. I want to do more tech related streams, and gaming in general, and need more desk space for multiple computers.

I decided I should build a new longer desk to replace the desk I currently use. I wanted it to be the same height and depth, but this time make it 6 feet long.

Read More...

I first found Pump It Up in my freshmen year of high school - sometime between 2003 and 2004. I would go to Kahunaville at the Galleria Mall most weekends with my friend Ben, and then later with my other friend Jeremy to play as much as possible. It was a couple months later where I discovered DDR as well, and both of those dance games have just worked their way into the person I am today. That might be a little extreme, but even when I’d go a year or two without playing I’d always come back and play them even harder than I did before.

Around 2013 I discovered the Dave & Busters by my house had a Pump It Up machine and it had a lot of Kpop songs on it - that pulled me back in for a while. I’ve always thought it would be cool to own my own machine, but to find one used was proving to be very difficult, and buying new I was looking at upwards of $9,000… a lot more than I was looking to spend.

Towards the end of 2016 I pulled the trigger on some pads I had been eyeing up for a while - I bought 2x Precision Omega 5x Pads. I had setup a computer with a hacked up version of StepMania on it (skinned like PIU Prime) and it all worked. It wasn’t the best setup - I was lacking a bar for support, and the software would sometimes crash or the songs were horribly out of sync with each other.

I got back into the game heavily a couple months ago in January thanks to the wonderful PIU Upstate Squad :D. After pushing myself hard on the machine and really increasing my skills, I decided it was time to create the machine properly. This meant getting the software working 100% (spoiler: I’m using StepF2 - It works great!) as well as an actual platform for the pads with real metal support bars to use.

Read More...

I’ve been in the process of redoing my kitchen for over 2 years now. I’m going to dedicate an entire blog post to that whole process once it is finished (it’s getting close!) but for now, I have this post that’ll just go over the wooden countertop I built.

I’ve thought about building my own countertops for some time, but didn’t think I really had the skill, or was just overwhelmed by the idea of it. I was at Home Depot a while back with my parents when we were looking at different countertop options for my kitchen. I pretty much ended up either hating all of them, or being, at the very best, not enthused about others. The one countertop I liked the best was (of course) made out of wood, but came with a steep price tag of well in the thousands.

By building my own countertops out of 2x6’s I cut and assembled myself, I ended up being able to create and finish the countertop for just about $150.

Note: In this picture the kitchen isn’t completely finished. There is no backsplash behind the counter (I haven’t built it yet), no trim on or under the cabinets, and the pole going through the countertop is actually holding the house up - so I will be facing that in dark stained wood eventually like I did upstairs.

Read More...

I got this shelf piece sometime around 2012 when I was living in California from a consignment shop in Burlingame. It’s been a great piece and has worked well, but as more and more wood pieces have made their way into my house, this piece has started to stick out. I decided to, in the same fashion as the Ikea Patio Table Wood Top, replace the glass shelf with wooden ones.

Read More...

Last year, I covered the beam that runs in my bedroom with pine. This year, I decided to cover every other beam that was in my main living room with dark stained pine to match.

Read More...

Last year I built a Faux Beam with Recessed Lights for my bedroom. I love it so much, I decided to build another one (well, actually 3) for my living room!

Read More...

Last year, I put up a Tongue and Groove Ceiling in my Bedroom. I liked it so much I decided to do the rest of my upstairs (referred to collectively as the “Living Room”). The process was almost identical, the only difference being that I had to do a lot more ceiling than I had previously done.

Read More...

When I moved into my house, the closest thing to a railing it had was a folded piece of cardboard that just stood by the stairs. My Mom always complained to me that I needed a railing, and that someone could seriously hurt themselves… it just took me a couple years to do anything about that warning :p.

I decided to build a railing myself with a dark stained wood and black metal balusters.

Read More...

I moved the Mug Rack I built recently which freed up some wall space. I decided to build a CD rack to hang on the wall so I could have a place to display my collection instead of hiding them in a closet.

Read More...