MAMEWorld Forums - Hardware - First project; any advice?

Hello, newbie here, first time poster,

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted my own arcade cabinet, there was just something amazing and magical about them. Of course living a well below average income household, that dream never came true.

So I have been well aware of emulators for awhile and I have always wanted want to build my own MAME cabinet, but there has always been something stopping me.

Finally the other day I simply sat down and decided to start looking this stuff up and see what I had to do to start work on my first cabinet.

Since this was going to be my first project I want to start small. I bought a netbook from a friend with a cracked LCD and I figured this would be an OK computer to start off with.

Long story short, I want to make a bartop, single player, Nintendo cabinet as my first project. I want to use a small LCD panel for the screen, I am thinking about 10" or less.

I'll be using the netbook as the PC. The PC will be running Windows (but I am unsure what version I'll use). I know you can get something, I think it's called a frontend, that can boot up right after Windows does and from there you can select your games and stuff with the joystick and buttons? I want to use a NES emulator with a frontend, does anyone have any recommendations on which emulator and frontend?

At first I thought about just getting one of those usb to Nintendo adapters and using a NES advantage controller, but after doing some reading and looking around online, I decided I want to actually go ahead and try wiring my own controls using one of those iPac controller interfaces and buttons.

Basically I am a newbie and need help, does anyone have any advice to offer? I was really hoping I could find a kit somewhere for a bartop cabinet, but I can't believe the prices people want for them. I could spend less at Menards, get the wood myself and build it (which is what I plan to do.). Does anyone have any bartop blue prints they'd recommend?

Anyways, thanks for the time, sorry if I am totally clueless.