Board Game Storage Ideas: How We Store 1,284 Games

If you’re looking for board game storage ideas, you’ve come to the right place — we store 1,284+ games in our home and it still looks like a normal house. When I asked my Instagram audience to guess how many board games we own, most of them, people who see inside our home regularly, guessed off by 500 games or more. Some were off by over 1,000.

I consider that a win.

We own over 1200 board games. Board games are my job, my hobby, and a big part of our family culture. But that doesn’t mean our home needs to look like a warehouse. Over the years we’ve built a storage and organization system that keeps everything accessible, visually organized, and — apparently — well hidden enough that even our family and closest followers underestimate the size of our collection by a lot.

Here’s how we do it.

How We Organize Our Board Games

Before we talk board game storage ideas as it relates to shelving, the organization system matters more than anything else. Ours is layered and it makes complete sense to us, even if a stranger walking in might not immediately crack the code.

Our five main bookshelves are organized primarily by genre and game type. Cooperative games mostly live together. Solo games have their own section. Two player games are grouped. Games that are light and easy to teach — perfect for new players — are kept together so we can grab something quickly when guests arrive.

From there, games are further organized by publisher and by box size. This both aesthetic and practical. Matching box sizes on a shelf means you can fit significantly more games without wasted space. A row of mismatched box heights is a row of lost shelf real estate. If you’re only going to choose one organization method, let it be this one. You’ll store a LOT more games this way.

Our kids’ games live on row of smaller bookshelves at kid eye level. It sounds simple (or perhaps dangerous) but accessible games get played. Games kids can’t see or have to ask an adult to retrieve do not.

We also keep one dedicated shelf for games we’re actively playing or want to play next. If you want to increase the amount of games you play each year, I cannot overstate the importance of doing this. Each week or month, choose a selection of games, 2-4 is plenty, even just one game is enough, and set them out in your home somewhere you’ll see them every day. This will be a visual reminder to you that you want to play games over perhaps doomscrolling together on the couch or scrolling Netflix unsure of what to watch. This shelf keeps our current favorites in rotation instead of getting buried behind 1,200 other options.

Our Shelving

Almost all of our shelving is IKEA and we’ve tested enough options at this point to have strong opinions. If you want the full breakdown of what works and what doesn’t, we have a dedicated post on the best IKEA bookshelves for board games that goes deep on this.

The short version is that our collection lives on a combination of:

IKEA Hemnes bookcases — we have five of these and they are workhorses. Sturdy, deep enough for most game boxes, and they look like furniture rather than storage.

IKEA Billy bookcase large — the classic. We use the large extender to maximize vertical space and add extra shelves to tighten the spacing for smaller boxes.

IKEA Billy bookcase small — these are the kid height shelves. Perfect for lighter games and anything we want the kids grabbing on their own.

IKEA Tonstad shelves — for larger, oversized games that don’t fit standard shelving. If you have big box games this one is worth knowing about.

Storage for Smaller Games and Card Games

Not everything lives naked on a bookshelf. Card games, small box games, and loose components need a different solution.

Our current favorite is the Target clear storage organizer. These beauties are perfectly sized and we love them for small card games (and a bunch of other things around the house) because you can see exactly what’s inside and they keep small boxes from getting lost behind larger ones. You can’t beat them at $7. Buy a bunch.

For travel and small game storage, we also love 4×6 photo storage totes — they’re surprisingly perfect for this use and a MUST if you have a bunch of damaged card game boxes you’ve been taping and limping through game nights with. We have a post on how we use them as a board game travel case if you want the full details.

For games that are awkwardly shaped and we don’t need all the time we use Really Useful Boxes. These are stackable bins that are more durable than a cardboard box. They also last forever. We’ve had ours for years and they still work great.

For decks of playing cards specifically, we have a separate system entirely that is a fun hunt for any of you thrifty gamers — check out how we organize our playing card decks for that one.

The Games on Our Walls

A few of our favorite games aren’t on shelves at all — they’re on the walls.

Carrooka is a beautiful space-saving twist on pool and snooker that hangs flat and doubles as wall art. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s worth a look.

Crokinole is another one — the board is large and gorgeous and honestly looks intentional on a wall. We fell in love with this game and haven’t looked back.

Our Game Tables

The tables we play on matter too. Our main game room table is a Rathskellers SunnyGeeks game table — we’ve written about our full experience with it if you’re considering a dedicated game table. We also have a Rathskellers gaming table in our living room that doubles as a coffee table. This was our first gaming table and a fantastic choice for families short on space!

Watch the Full Game Room Tour

Want to see all of this in action? Watch the full game room tour and count on YouTube where we walk through every shelf, explain the organization system in real time, and count all 1,284 games.