STATE OF THE BACK ROOM - Insanity in the game room (TOO MANY GAMES!)

My game room has been a horrible mess for the past 2-3 months. Probably longer. And I seem to have acquired a good number of games (I've been trying to cut back, but it just doesn't ever seem to actually happen!) And, they have been piling up to the point where I was getting stressed about it.

Piles of games on side tables, on the game table, on the floor! Even worse, they were piling up in my garage as well! Earlier in the year I cleaned up the garage and got a bunch of stuff out (or re-organized) such that I had some extra storage space for my thrift finds! Boy, those shelves sure filled up fast!

As I mentioned before, this was all stressing me out and I finally bit the bullet. GASP! I was considering cutting back on my game collection. GASP! I was considering selling some of my games off!

Well, first steps in June involved setting up a BGG auction. I put up 50 items and sold nearly that many! YAH! Cash in my pocket! YAH! Games cleared out! YAH! And I didn't even miss them. Not ONE!

I have to admit I made some tough decisions in some cases. My criteria became: what is my excitement level when I think about this game? Am I excited about it enough to want to play it? If someone asked me about getting it to the table would I really want to, or would there be something else I'd want to play instead?

And, interestingly, I found some games to get rid of. Quite a few more, in fact, than I thought I would. It became easier as I thought about it more. It was freeing in fact!

Unfortunately, the tide turned again. I was hitting the thrift stores. Then my wife was hitting the thrift stores for me (without my prompting, I might add). And she actually found some really interesting games! Heroscape! The Omega Virus! Squad Leader! Axis & Allies! We even hit a bunch of stores on our way home from Portland, OR, and found some decent games. 

Now, mind you, often times I'm not just looking for games for me to keep but with the intention of re-selling them. The right games can bring in some decent cash if you know what to look for!

However, it got to the point that I was (almost!) dreading her calling from the thrift store asking about games and finding more good stuff to bring back! I had too many games!!!


The real problem here is that it takes time to list games. At least, it does for me. I'm a perfectionist and detailed oriented about the whole process. I have to take several pictures, weigh them, measure them (to ensure proper shipping costs and such), then I have to research the potential price, then write up the listing (which involves inspecting each game, sometimes counting dozens or hundreds of components) and decide when to list them and for how much. Phew, it's a lot of little things that add up to TIME because I'm not going to do it half-assed!

So, earlier this month I determined it was time for ANOTHER auction. I set up a 6-foot folding table and started piling it with games, and more games, and MORE games! Dozens of thrifted games that I hadn't 'gotten around' to selling. IT WAS TIME!

I then started going through the game room and pulling games I decided I didn't need anymore. Some kind of hurt (Age of Steam plus a bunch of expansion maps), some hurt a lot (American Megafauna/Origins combo which I had pimped out but NEVER even played!  ) There were several others as well. Some that I even surprised myself with in choosing them to sell. These games I piled up on a separate card table. 

Then, I rifled through all the games, made value choices on the thrifted games and got everything listed in another huge BGG auction. I sold a good number of them, too! It also took me a while to get it all shipped out. A few went on ebay and a couple of those sold as well.

While the auction was still running, the neat piles on the tables had become a jumble, plus a couple more had been added from more thrifting (AGH!)

The good thing was, I realized I had more shelf space again in my game room! So, I pulled EVERYTHING from the shelves and started sorting by box size (exact sizes as much as possible). Oddballs were set on a separate side table or on the floor. Eventually, everything was sorted. Then I carefully started stacking them back onto the shelves. I was a little extra OCD at first with the boxes that had several all of one size - I sorted THOSE by color as well. I know.......don't say it.......

Anyhow, I eventually got everything back onto the shelves, more neatly organized than before. Well, ALMOST all of it. A few still had to go on the ledge below the shelves. But, it was DONE! It looked great! And I didn't feel embarrassed to have friends over for games again!

Here's how it looks now:


"The Wall o' Games"



"Collection o' Dice"

Coincidentally, right after I finished cleaning up my game room, I got a message from my friend Andy (Count Von Luckner) stating he was cleaning out HIS garage and he had a set of plastic drawers he didn't need anymore and asked if I wanted them. It was EXACTLY what I needed:



The old drawers I had were relegated to 'box' storage:



Here's a few of the games ready to ship out!



I was sad to see them go but happy to have the space and the $$ in my pocket!

I still have some insanity to tackle in my garage (that 6' table is still there and stacked with games), but my game room is no longer driving me crazy.....for now.