The Craftiest Workshop

When we unpacked the truck just over a week ago, one of the first items to come out of boxes was our board game collection. My niece and I unloaded the games into this shelf in our walk-in pantry; 30 square spots each 15”X15”. Yes, board game storage IS more important than food storage.

Truthfully, our pantry is huge and we wanted a place out of the sunlight to keep the games. Some of the game boxes faded when we had them in a sunny spot in Fort Mac. We also tend to play games at our dining table so this keeps them close by.

As our moving weekend went on and I needed a break from everyone, I went into the pantry, closed the door and started organizing the games. I contemplated just doing the whole thing alphabetically but that would require us to know which game we want to play on a given day.

We have found, when shopping for games, that the stores have a few different ways that they organize their selection of games. One does it by game publisher and then alphabetically. Another organizing by the type or theme of the game (co-operative, Kids, Euro, mainstream).

For us, the main thing when choosing a game to play is how many people are with us on that day. Quite often, when we have played games since arriving in Grande Prairie, we have been 6 players; my husband and I, his brother and his wife plus another couple that likes games. We had brought many of our games that play with 6 or more people already and we have purchased a few more in the past year, but there were a few in our collection that I had forgotten about. Starting on the left side of the pantry from top to bottom is now our 6+ player section arranged alphabetically. I tried to leave the bottom section open as it is on the floor. This will also leave room for future purchases.

The next section of shelves holds the games for 5 people. In our family there is five of us, my husband and I and our three sons. We introduced them to games at an early age. We have pictures of our youngest playing Ticket to Ride, Bonanza and Trans America (still his “go to” short game) at the age of 6. In addition to being able to play the 6+ people games, we also own these games for a maximum of 5 people.

Most games are created for 4 players. I imagine the thought is that the ideal gaming situation would be two couples getting together to play board games. We have had couples that we have played games with in most of the locations we have lived. Here, in Grande Prairie, it is my brother in-law and his wife. The 4 player games is our largest section.

The last section of games is our 2 player section. It was interesting on our moving weekend when we had three 2 player games going on at once with opponents facing off across the table from each other. Travel Blokus, Taco Cat(not ours) and Onitama all being played at the same time. We bought many of our 2 player games early on in our marriage thinking we would play together often. In truth, we rarely sit down to play a game together unless we are testing out a new game. I find these games nice to play while having tea with a friend or playing a game with just one of my children.

There are games that are card based which I didn’t include on the shelves to save space for larger games.
I cleared out a plastic drawer and put them in there.

Of course we have the more main stream games like Monopoly, Risk, Kismet and Cribbage. They are together in a section at the bottom as they don’t often make it to our table. Our small selection of kids games we put in the basement with some toys and books. Games like Boggle, Clue, Guess Who, Trouble and Lego Racing to name a few.

Some people spend money on going to movies, concerts sporting events or restaurants. We buy and play board games. So be fair warned, if you come to visit us, we will attempt to force you to play some sort of game.