On Monday of this week, I spent a good chunk of my Memorial Day working in my wood shop (i.e. the back of my garage). My project? A brand new bookshelf of sorts.
The backstory here is that when we moved into our new house a few years ago, the old homeowners left behind a big ol' desk in the basement (the home of my man cave now). I've been using the desk for my baseball cards (and blogging) ever since we moved in but the front of the desk has always sort of bugged me. For reasons that I don't know, there was this weird large indentation in the desk - that is, the top of the desk overhangs the "wall" of the desk by about a foot.
A few weeks ago, I decided that I would finally get around to filling in that useless space by making a shelf for my board game collection.
To do so, I took some old heavy duty lumber that was left in my garage by previous contractors and I cut it up and built a super solid shelf for board games (those boxes can be very heavy)! I then a roll of old, hideous wallpaper (also left behind by the old owners of the house) and used that was the "shelf paper" to make sure that the boxes for my games stay pristine while on the bookshelf.
In the end, I think the shelf turned out really nice considering I used almost all hand-me-down stuff that had been left behind!
After building the shelf, the real fun was putting all my games on the shelf...well, that and trying to figure out how to actually organize my collection.
As you can probably tell, I'm a huge fan of board games! The sad thing about that is that I don't actually have many people to play those games with. My brother comes home around Christmas so I can play with him for a week or so and I have a colleague at work who likes co-op games so he and I play those sometimes. Otherwise, the games kind of just sit there on the shelf...but they way I see it is that it's my job to make sure my young son learns to like games - then I'll have someone to play with whenever I feel like it!
In terms of organizing my collection, I ended up using the new space to store my main games (those meant for 2-4 players mostly), as well as my co-op collection, and my two-player games.
That's not all of my games though. I also have another cheap bookshelf with games on it...this holding mostly party games and a bunch of small card games (plus Fireball Island since that box is obnoxiously large).
I also have a bunch of older games that were hand-me-downs from my grandparents and/or from my own childhood. Those are mostly your "classics" such as Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Aggrevation, Sorry, etc. Games that, quite honestly, I'll probably never choose to play again though I'll never say never if someone really wants to have a go at one of those. That said, my real game collection has so many wonderful games in it that I think I could probably find something to interest just about anyone!
The simple act of reorganizing my collection and looking through all my games has revived my interest in doing some more Friday Game Review posts. I'm also tempted to go back through my Top 10 Board Games list that I made last September and see if anything has changed since then...I'm guessing that the list would look at least a little bit different!
Let me know in the comments if you are interested in board games or should I stick to baseball cards mostly here at Nachos Grande? If you do like games, I'd love to hear about your favorite(s) as well!
That looks fantastic! Great job! I'm in the same boat as you - I love to play games, but haven't had a lot of willing participants to play with. (Although my family has been playing board and card games more during this pandemic with the kids being out of school. It's been more of the standard stuff like Uno though.)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Matt! There's nothing wrong with the standard games - in many cases they are the classics for a reason (easy to learn, usually fun enough to play).
DeleteI was looking for a bunch of long flat boxes (like the Monopoly, Risk, Clue type). Yours are much more modern and cubish. Interesting...
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have a bunch of the long, flat boxed games (mostly older games) sitting on a different shelf with my video game systems. Most of the newer, modern games I have come in those fairly square cross-section boxes which is nicer for storage purposes.
DeleteThis is a sad story, but it's an example of how board games can be useful even if you can't find anyone to play them:
ReplyDeleteWe had a ton of traditional board games to play when I was a kid. When everyone left my parents' house, they kept some of the games around and then when they had grandkids, there were games for them to play. Then, when my mom got ALS, and we needed to keep her mind active with something not too difficult for her, I'd break out Sorry and we played that over and over.
Night Owl, even though I'm not quite 40 years old I do recognize the value to the brain of board games, especially as it relates to aging. Here's hoping that when the time comes for me to need that sort of mental stimulation that someone is as caring for me as you were for your mother.
DeleteLove the board game content. Good looking shelf.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I do hope to sprinkle in some more board game stuff here and there on the blog!
DeleteSweet game collection. I have a co-worker who used to invite me over to play games with him and his wife. Sadly... I'm anti-social and would rather read card blogs ;D
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I'm totally jealous of that storage space. I'd be filling up those shelves with binders filled with cards.
I've got a bunch of bookshelves behind my desk for all of my cards/binders!
DeleteNow I'm even more jealous. My dream is to have a room full of bookshelves that I can fill up with binders with my favorite sets. One day.
DeleteExcellent use of space. My initial thought was "binders' but games certainly work. To be silly, I was going to ask where 'monopoly' and 'clue' were but you answered that question. I enjoy board games like Sorry, Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit. They're relatively quick. (Most folks won't last 45 mins against me in Monopoly.) Strategy games are brain healthy but take too long. I'd rather be reading or spending time on the blogs since the additional time can be unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've got most of the classics on a different shelf: Clue, Risk, Monopoly, Aggrevation, Sorry, etc. Also dominos, plenty of playing cards, poker chips, etc. I agree that games can take a long time, especially some of the more "thinky" type games but there are a number of games on my shelf that can be finished in a more reasonable amount of time. I've also been trying to read a bit more lately but given the choice between reading and playing board games, I'd probably play games 10 out of 10 times!
DeleteMy girlfriend and I love Jaipur!
ReplyDelete