Like many board gamers, the dream of having a dedicated room to store and play a plethorah of games is real. From day one of moving in together, my now wife and I have been planning some way to accomplish this.
Extentions to the house were the first port of call. Something adding to the back of the house perhaps, or maybe going into the roofspace that wasn’t being used. But the already expensive task of carrying out an extension had not long been made worse by the onslaught of Covid around the world; material prices were rising.
So for a while we gave up. We figured it wasn’t meant to be. Sure, many gamers dream of it, but not many achieve it.
And then, late 2024, I had a lightbulb momment. We have a garage that holds mostly junk, DIY crap, and my decades old comic book collection. Why don’t we look into the cost to get it converted? So we did. And it turned out to be a fair bit more affordable.
CONSTRUCTION
The job was started on Monday 28th April 2025.
We were told that it would take no more than three weeks, but possibly be done a few days early. This was exciting because it would hopefully be completed a few days before we headed off to UKGE. I was looking forward to knowing how much space we had available for exciting new purchases.
Unfortuntely this is building works we’re talking about, so a completion date is as meaningless as a fire extinguisher during a volcanic erruption.
The work went at a steady pace for the most part. The floor went in. The wall frames and insulation went in. There were days when I expected the builders to turn up and they didn’t, or visa verca. And all the while I was home studying, writing 2000+ word essays while a bunch of building work was going on at the end of the garden. This might not have been the best plan.
Eventually things started to fall behind schedule, enough that it would be down to the wire for UKGE. I started to accept that we would have to put off things like the decorating until after the Expo.
Then the news arrived that the door manifacture was very behind due to the colour choice we’d made (ie; not white) and the completion date went from May 16th . . . to the 11th June.
That’s basically a whole month past it’s original estimated completion.
Sigh.
DECORATING
With the delay in the door and window, a small silver lining appeared. We could get on with the painting ourselves before the floor went down. I’m not a fan of DIY, and painting is my least favourite thing to do. So doing this without a floor down to potentially get paint on was ideal for me.
I knuckled down, fueled by the mild depression bought on by the delay and my final two Uni assignments. I applied the base coat, taped over the lights and switches, and got that green paint all over the walls.
My Uni finished on June 3rd, so I was at home with a whole bunch of free time. This allowed me to use my days to just get stuck in without wasting away the evenings and weekends. One coat in the morning, and another late afternoon. It made the process quicker than it could have been.
Of course, I still hate painintg.
DOOR
Eventually the door did turn up. A week later than first advised.
And this is where my constant use of ‘almost done’ and ‘nearly finished’ comes from. You see, we asked for a door to open inwards. We got a door that opened outwards. It also looks to be installed the wrong way around based on the draft brush facing outside, and the rubber seal being inside.
Suffice to say, despite everything else mostly working out, we were annoyed at this point. It took a couple of conversations to get the door replaced, something we’re still waiting on.
At the end of the day though, the room was completed. It was air tight and functional. It was ready to receive all of our games.
FUNISHING
Turns out, we have a lot of games.
In the weeks building up to completion I had attempted to calculate the shelving space we had and what we might need. I knew we’d need some more shelves, but I didn’t think it would be too many more.
We picked up a table from IKEA first, to see what sort of room we had left over. I was starting to panic that it wasn’t going to be as spacious as our imaginations had encouraged, but things turned out well. Almost perfect, actually. It even fit playmats that I’ve not been able to use for years due to them being wider than any table I’ve owned before. It also has three lengths.
As for the Kallax shelves? Well, we started looking at other types of shelving available at IKEA, but we ended up just going with more Kallax. In fact, we visited IKEA in Southampton three times in about 10 days because I kept needing more storage. But it’s worked out great. We have a little excess space for new games, and we already have our eye on some games that can be culled.
As for the office upstairs, it’s finally feeling like a nice room to be in again.
STOCKING
Until this point, painting was the most physical work I’d put in on this project. That and carrying cups of tea to the builders at the end of the garden on occasion.
Now I was about to move into the phase equivalent to a tough gym workout. Over several days. Things were about to get sweaty and I was going to make my pathetic muscles really hate me.
Up until this point, our entire games collection was crambed into our not so spacous office. Of the upstairs rooms in our house, this one is the furthest from the top of the stairs. This meant I’d given myself the longest possible route to get the games from the top floor of our house to the new games room at the end of the garden.
It was a tough few days. The sun decided to put his damn hat on and give us a super hot week to start summer proper. You really discover how big your board game collection is when you have to walk it down a flight of stairs over and over and over again.
Eventually it was complete. The main goal was to not have front facing games blocking other games on the shelves because we wanted to be able to see every single game. It took an extra 2×4 Kallax at the 11th hour, but we managed it.
FIRST GAMES
55 days after the project began, we finally got to play our first game together in the new room.
Thanks to an Instagram poll I ran, we ended up sitting down at our new table, on a relaxing Sunday afternoon, to play THE CASTLES OF BURGUNDY: DELUXE EDITION. It was a close game, going down to just 4pts in it.
Less than a week later, on Thursday 26th June, we held our first TTRPG session with our ongoing ‘Land Of Eem’ campaign. It was so nice to have the group all sat around the table without being sat on top of one another. Due to everything going on in the weeks before, my prep work may have suffered a little (a lot) but the players ended up leading me through a very silly and fun session.
And that’s it. Well, except for the bloomin’ door. But it’ll get done, in time. The main thing is that the room is now functional and we’re loving it.
Not all dreams can come true, but for me, sitting in a purpose built games room, surrounded by our collection, and sat opposite my board game loving soulmate, I feel like a very lucky person.
Always Play Blue 