Where to start! First of all, you might have a choice of locations in your home as to where you would like to spend time playing and practicing your billiards game.
A patio room or a lower-level room with a walkout to the backyard or outdoor patio would be awesome. A main level room could be an option since most houses have a living room and a family room. Personally I prefer having a room to play pool in than a boring sitting room. The best is a nice big open living space with a kitchen/bar, a family room, and billiards room, all three open to each other. For one thing, any of these choices would make transporting the slates for the billiards table easier than going up or down a flight of stairs.
However, the basement seems to always be the first place people think of when planning to set up a billiards room in their home. Three important questions to ask: Is there a bathroom down there? If you have kids will they ever see you again because you are always in the basement and how will you monitor them from there? Is the cement floor well padded and carpeted for hours of walking around the pool table? This may be the only place in your house you have an extra room and it could be a very good choice. A couple of good reasons would be privacy for serious practice and playing your music loud and the neighbors won’t hear it as much.
The size of the room will dictate several things, the size of your billiards table, the length of billiards cue you will be able to use, how much room you have for seating, (which could be two cool padded bar stools with padded arms and a love seat) and where your electronics will go. You will need a TV/DVD player to play your instructional and fun pool billiards videos, a stereo, and a karaoke machine (I had one in my pool room).
Other billiards equipment you will need for sure is a billiards light to hang over your pool table and perfectly light it up, a rack to keep your pool cues and a place to keep your other billiards accessories. There are many other cool items to decorate your billiards room with such as billiards posters and art work (like a picture of dogs playing pool), clocks, a chalk board for keeping score and of course your favorite sports team memorabilia. And depending on where you are with your game, you might need a shelf for your pool trophies!
How you want your home billiards room is up to you, all I know for sure is the great times I had with friends and family in my basement pool room and the many hours I was able to spend working on my billiards game skills. So go for it, if you have a room you can put a pool table in, start planning and soon you will be enjoying your own billiards room in your own home as soon as possible!
Happy shooting everybody!
Patti Aragon (aka 8ball Outlaw) Go to the bottom of this page for a chart to help you figure out what size of pool table is right for the size of room you have.
http://www.pool-billiards-game.com/pooltables.html
Another awesome site I recommend is http://www.a1poolbilliards.com
HALO THE POOL PLAYING DOG
