Welcome to The Geek Pub!
So about a year ago, I started searching for a new home for The Geek Pub.
I really wanted something where I could get all my tools and equipment out the garage
and with enough room to spread out a little. I’d also hoped I could find something with an
air-conditioned area that would allow me to have a dedicated studio space
and a space to get all my servers and network lab out of our spare bedroom!
Now, for those who don’t know the Texas real estate market has exploded in recent years.
Finding any kind of property is difficult. Houses and small commercial properties
generally sell within just a day or two of listing and often for more than asking price!
This is one of the reasons David resorted to building his new studio in his back yard.
I’d identified a general area where I wanted a building. Somewhere that wouldn’t be too far
from home. And somewhere not too far for David since we’ll be doing a lot of shared projects
at this location. So, I gave this map to my commercial realtor and we started the search!
For months properties would randomly come available.
Sometimes they’d sell before I could even go see it. Sometimes they’d turn out to have huge
problems I didn’t feel comfortable tackling, such as foundation problems or asbestos in the walls.
Most of the time the price was so high, I simply couldn’t consider it.
Eventually, a property came up in an almost perfect location at a reasonable price.
2600 square feet split between warehouse space and office space
and it appeared to be in fantastic condition. We went and looked at it the same day and made
an offer that evening. After a few days of back and forth they accepted my offer!
The space in this building is divided up into several rooms and a large warehouse area.
This first area is a fantastic meet-up space and may also become a future space for a
retro-computer museum and some arcade systems. This middle room is perfect for a studio space.
Probably enough room for a couple sets and a video editing desk.
This room is a perfect room to setup an electronics area with
soldering stations and oscilloscopes. Maybe an area for the vinyl cutter and 3D printer.
Also, just some good storage space for spare parts and various tools.
This smaller back room is of course the ideal server and network storage closet.
These two rooms are the kitchen and the bathroom, and this room is currently a reception area.
And of course, the warehouse space will become the workshop where I will setup
all my tools and equipment! So… fast forward a months
later and I got the keys! OK! So we just got the keys and
this is not the first time for us to come into the building cause we’ve been in here before
when there was still tenants. But we’re going to get our first chance to walk around and see
what it looks like… what we’re gonna have to fix up! Yeah! So lets go.
Wow. It looks like they left a few things.
Yeah I don’t know that we specifically need a reception desk. But uh. This might go. What
do you think? That’s gotta go for sure. So, I think this is the room we discussed
being the computer museum room. And it looks like they left these ugly cubicles in here.
We’re definitely going to need to get rid of those. Because we need to build like some kind of
desk that goes almost encirculates er encapsulates this entire room so that we can put… I want to put
Commodores, Ataris, and Amigas, Apples and stuff up on display in here that are actually
functioning where people can come in and use them. And I think maybe some up above. Some that’s
not working or just not turned on and can be on display. And maybe even an area for congregating
where people can come in and put there own stuff on when we do a meetup or something.
Looks like they left us some old analog cameras up there. Yeah. Gonna have to take those down.
So this room is actually pretty big. It all comes down to lenses and how things are
shown on camera. Sometimes people have a hard time judging size. But just to put this room
in perspective, this entire room is bigger than my entire building that I built in my back yard.
Which has three different rooms in it including my studio, a workshop, and that little shed area.
This one room is just slightly bigger than that whole building. So yeah there should be quite a
bit of room in here to build a little museum. Yeah and I have to tell you, as big is it, it
actually crosses my mind to knock that wall out and make it even bigger so we’d have a
larger museum. So it also looks like they left us some good network jacks. So maybe
we won’t have to re-cable the entire building. It looks like there are 4,
5,6, 7, maybe 8 network jacks in here. We’ll have to figure out where the other ends go to.
Think this yeah strange place to put a breaker box
and the sad part is we're going to have to add numerous things to this breaker box unfortunately
the things are going to be connected to are on like the complete opposite side of the building
so this is going to be probably mean a subpanel. I think you're right!
This is sort of just a big empty room is kind of right in the middle of the building and I think I
like that for the studio room because there is a train track you know just a little ways down the
street as well as the shop and some of those kind of isolated and I think maybe we could actually
set up maybe a couple of sets in here so I think this would be perfect room for studio work for
face so we're definitely going to need better lighting in here so probably kind of put some
kind of lighting system on the on the ceiling and I wonder actually if we can raise the ceiling
because I noticed the one next door was actually a couple of higher. So that would be nice too
Alrighty. They left us a fridge and a microwave and we get dishwasher too!
Yeah dishwasher doesn't work I know that I saw that In the report. So we’ll need to replace
that. Yeah this would be a good place to get lunch and when we have meetups
over here and stuff we can put the pizza and what not. W’ell need a table or something and
yeah we can we can we can store some basics basic stuff in here yeah this is work great.
Oh this is gonna have to go! Gotta have something that's an Internet accessible!
Yeah! Alrighty few rooms down here. Oh boy room no building would be complete without a can!
Just a big empty room!
What do we have here? This is sort of the backroom of the building. This seems like perfect for like
where to set up like the soldering station and code electronics maybe storage for
computer parts and repair parts and things like that. I think this would be perfect for that.
There's a big HDMI cable and some holes in the wall. Yeah I think wasn't this running
like a security camera TV or something they had up here. The previous tenants? Yeah they'll have
to go. Yeah there's another old security camera up there and the corner old analog camera have to go.
What building wouldn't be complete without a network closet? And this one is huge! Yeah this is
actually big enough to be like an office almost!. This is weird so they just left a Patch panel like
hanging here on one bolt. Yeah we're definitely going to fix this. I think will probably put like
a rack right here and I think will replace that plywood with a full wall of plywood
and then some ladder and we'll do this up nice. This is this is the other end of the HDMI cable.
Yeah! That's all the cameras I guess those analog cameras. Ugh! I don't miss analog
security cameras! Yeah! Those gotta go! Looks like AT&T had Internet here at one time.
Yeah so alright. Alright let's I guess go look at the shop!
So unfortunately, this is just the hallway, but it looks like they've taken all of our
fire extinguishers. So, I guess we get to buy new fire extinguishers.
Alright and this is the shop! Fantastic! So I can tell you one thing that's going to change
in here! Lights! Yeah we need a lot more light than this! Yeah! How many square footage is this
section? So I think the building is 2600 square feet. So I think this is about 1/3rd of that. So
800 - 900 probably. Yeah this is where you're going to set up all your
saws and drills and stuff. Yeah. This right this is sort of The Geek Pub right here! I
mean this is going to be where will have probably I'll do some cabinetry and I'll
probably put a wall up right here. That is made out of plywood, custom cabinets,
and then all of the tools table saw band saw all of that. And then maybe a full size CNC.
I'm actually thinking about selling some arcade kits in the future and if I do I'll
have a full size CNC in here that can cut those out and so that'll be plenty of space for that.
Yeah this is gonna workout really well for us.
One thing we talked about earlier when we were in the front room… there's no real electricity
out here other than some basic plugs in the wall but that's not going to work for power tools.
And the more we talked about how much power we're going to have to add
the more we felt like Egon! The wiring is substandard it's
completely inadequate for our power needs! Some old pulley system up there
that someone left. I don't know what that is. Add it to the list!
After the walkthrough we took a shopping trip to Altex Electronics and bought some fun toys for the
next video! We also discovered they left us a 15 year old 480 pound copier. Stick around to the end
of this video if you want to watch its demise. OK well that about wraps it up for this video.
So in the next building update we will be getting the building ready for a certificate of occupancy
and doing a little bit of repair work here and there. But most importantly we will be working on
getting the network setup! So that's getting all the servers in place the, Ubiquiti Unifi system,
pfSense Firewall, and a whole bunch of other stuff! So come back for that!!