Game Organization

Are your games organized neatly in a cabinet or closet? If not, maybe you’d like some tips on game organization? If so, read on and I will try to help you streamline your collection.

Games are a big deal in my house. My teen loves his PlayStation. My husband plays games on his phone. And my youngest son plays Minecraft on his tablet.

But these are not the games I’ll be discussing today. We are also lovers of family game night. Even though we live in an era of cutting-edge technological advances, card and board games are still a fun pastime.

We usually try to play one night a week as a family. But, two or three of us are playing something pretty much every other day (especially in the summer months).

The Problem

Card and board games provide us with loads of family fun, and it’s nice to get everyone off their devices. However, games were taking up way too much space in our house. We needed to organize our games in an orderly way and make them more accessible.

We have board games from my husband’s childhood and games we received as gifts. Some we’ve bought new or at garage sales because they looked fun. We have too many and some of the boxes have seen better days.

If you also have cards and board games in your house, some of your boxes might look tattered like ours do.

Years ago, I noticed that some companies were packaging board games in tin boxes. I thought this was brilliant in terms of the life of the game and ease of storing and organizing games.

They were easily stackable and I really thought this trend would stick. However, it didn’t, and I’m guessing it’s because it’s significantly more expensive to produce.

Our games also take up a lot of space so I’m looking for a solution to solve both problems. If you can relate, you may want to read on to see how I creatively tackled this problem at our house.

In years past, the games have been stored in bedroom closets around the house. When we moved into our current home, I thought they should be stored in the actual game room.

We never had a designated game room in any of our other houses, so I thought this was a logical spot. But, my 11-year-old could not reach all the games. Also, every time I opened the closet, it bothered me that it wasn’t being used to its fullest potential.

Game Storage

I wanted to organize games into a much smaller spot and then use the closet for crafts instead. By moving the games to a cabinet in my living room that sits behind my couch, I can use the closet more efficiently.

I found this cabinet at a thrift store for $50! I painted it to match my living room décor and voila, extra storage.

Putting the games on one side of the cabinet allowed me to use the other side for our music and movie collections. I decided to pare down our game collection and find a better solution for the cardboard game boxes.

Products for Game Organization

The hunt was on! What kind of product or solution could I use to store the games and streamline the collection?

Enter the document case. Iris clear deep document cases (The Container Store) come in a few different sizes and can be used for a multitude of projects.

I’ll probably showcase more uses for this product in future posts. for now, I’ll focus on game organization.

Another product I used for this project is the Iris 6-case 5X7 photo storage box. I used this case to store all card games and games without boards (for example, dominoes).

This product can also be repurposed in many ways. Those additional uses will be discussed in a future post.

Edit Game Collection

Now, for the hard part. Well, it’s not that hard for me because after years of practice I’m an expert at purging. But for some people, it’s extremely hard to part with things. If those things have been in the family for many years (like my husband’s board games from the ’70s) it’s even harder.

The first thing I did was store the “heirloom” games that never get played anymore. I put these into our keepsake storage bin.

To be honest, I only kept two of these games because the others were in such bad shape. Had it been more, I would’ve found them new homes anyway because they weren’t being played.

Next, I went through the whole closet and pulled the games that could be donated. I then trashed the ones with missing pieces. That left me with the games that needed organized.

Keep in mind my kids are eight years apart. Their interests are quite different, so they argue about what to play on family game night.

My 11-year-old loves Sorry! and my 19-year-old would rather play card games. So, after the purge, we still have a large variety of games to organize.

Game Organization

First, I put all the cards and other games without boards into the photo boxes, labeled them, and put them into the organizers.

I fit seven games into this organizer (two decks of cards and Phase 10 into one case and Apples to Apples took up two cases).

Granted, cards don’t take up much space, to begin with, but their cardboard containers had seen better days. I knew they would be more orderly and look more streamlined in the cabinet with the other games.

Next, I bought several document cases in both sizes with plans of returning what I didn’t use. I matched the game board and pieces with the right-sized case and labeled it.

If you decide to do a project like this, don’t forget to include the instructions. Some games have the rules printed on the underside of the cardboard lid. If they are still legible, cut them out and put them with the game inside the document case.

That’s It! I placed all the shallow cases vertically, along with a few deep cases, on the bottom shelf of the cabinet. On the top shelf, I stacked the deep cases and put the card games next to them.

I couldn’t believe how little space this took up and how much space I was freeing up for something else in the closet. I love how it turned out.

A bonus to this game organization project is that my 11-year-old can reach the games whenever he wants to pull one out. Moreover, the games live in this little spot, close to where we actually play our games.

There is no room for tossing things in the cabinet haphazardly the way our boys did in the big closet. This system keeps everything tidy. It’s one of the few areas of the house everyone enjoys keeping in perfect shape.

Keep in mind these cases could fit on a shelf or in a media cabinet as well. You don’t need much space at all to hold several games.

Final Thoughts on Game Organization

There were some hiccups along the way, and I will always share those with you. I want to make sure you know how to solve issues when they pop up.

A few game boards did not play nice. See what I did there. The Scrabble, Life, and Candyland boards were too long for the cases. This was very frustrating, and I searched and searched for a solution that would work and still fit in the cabinet.

Ultimately, I couldn’t find anything with the proper dimensions. So, I put them on the top shelf under the document cases.

Then I put the rest of the pieces to those games in their case with their instructions. For example, the Scrabble board is on the shelf, but the letter tiles, instructions, and tile racks are all in the case below.

Also, a few games I threw out (such as Sorry!) were in bad shape, but we still enjoy playing them. Knowing that I wanted the games to fit into the new document boxes, I bought new versions of those games.

Some of the newer versions have smaller boxes and gameboards than past versions, so they fit perfectly into the document cases.

The games are organized and tidy and within easy reach for everyone. And now, I can use the previous game closet to house my craft supplies.

There are two takeaways that I hope you get from this post: 1. I hope you are playing board games because you are never too old to enjoy them (and fun doesn’t have to include a screen). And 2. Sometimes you literally have to think outside the cardboard box in order to use the space you have more efficiently.

Do you have a lot of card and board games at your house? Where and how do you store them? Let me know if you think any of these products can help you organize your games.

Thanks for reading!