Organizing Games

This past weekend, I decided to go through our game cabinet and do a bit of decluttering and organizing. It was time to say goodbye to some games that my kids have outgrown, and I wanted to move some games to our downstairs family room. We hang out more downstairs during the summer (it’s cooler down there, after all) and I wanted to make it easy to choose games over the T.V. (We’ll see how that goes.)

 

Here are a couple of after photos of the freshly organized game cabinet in our family room. 

 

 

For the downstairs games, I allocated two shelves on the bookcase. I asked my son which games he was likely to play this summer, and which ones made sense to play downstairs. He chose Risk and Monopoly since these games take longer to play…and it would be nice to be able to keep them set up between game playing sessions. (This is much more possible downstairs than upstairs in our main living area.)

 

 

 

I put smaller games like cards, checkers, and Pit inside the antique Coca Cola tray I picked up at the flea market last month.

 

 

It was a fun project that hopefully will encourage some family game playing. :) If you’re planning to organize your games sometime soon, consider these tips:

 

• If you store games in their original boxes with the boxes sideways, it will be easier to access any game you want to play, instead of just the game on the top.

 

• Store a score pad and pen with your games.

 

• Keep your games as near as possible to where you play games. This just makes it that much more likely that you will choose games over another activity.

 

• Use containers such as baskets or metal buckets to corral small games such as card games.

 

• If you don’t want to see games on open shelves, consider disguising them with containers like I did with the Coke tray. You could also use canvas bins or wicker baskets, or store your games behind closed doors in a cabinet.

 

 How do you organize and story your games? I’d love to hear from you. 

Comments

[Catherine]

Ok, I cannot believe it never occurred to me to keep pencils/pens near the games.... I am inspired to sort our game cupboard out now. Yours looks great!

[Brenda in Sunny SoCal]

This is the one part if toy organization that I'm ahead of!
When we furnished the family room I knew I wanted all board games to reside there so we bought tables wih shelves big enough to hold baskets, really large baskets, that's were all the game boards live, always neat

[Leslie]

This looks great!!!

adventuresofoldandnew.blogspot.com

[Andrea]

We repurposed an antique dry sink for games about a year ago and it was the best thing I've ever done. It's right in our family room and has two large doors that open up to 2 generous shelves that fit all our games. It also has 2 drawers above and those hold the small card games, flash cards, pencils, etc. The kids can get the games out easily themselves and they are never more than an arms length away from us so if we say "let's play a game" it's not extra work to get them out!

[Sheridan]

I like the idea of storing them sideways.

I recently organized my games and ended up putting some in the bathroom!

http://enjoybirth.com/blog/2011/03/04/52-week-organizing-games-and-linens/

[puzzle bubble]

The good thing about online flash games is that they come from a wide range of options. You can choose from many genres, can be action, puzzle, strategy, adventure, mature, or others. There are many sites that offer tons of online flash games to meet the needs of boring people and those who are hungry for entertainment.

[hcv treatment]

Thanks a lot for sharing the tips on how one can organize the game.Well very soon i have to organize the games and i guess tips recommended by you will help me a lot.