1y ago

How do you store your bigger games that don't fit your shelf?

Hi friends!

Recently-ish I move to my own appartment with my SO and bought a 5x5 IKEA Kallax to store all my boardgames. Picture attached.

Unfortunately some games are just too big for the Kallax, I can't store them neither vertically nor horizontally. For the longest time I've just had them just on top of the Kallax freely, but recently we (finally) got an AC unit and they would block the airflow.

Currently they're sitting on the floor but I feel sad for them :P

I considered getting a small Kallax, like a 2x2 or something and put them on top, but seems a bit overkill and I'm not sure it would be aesthetically pleasing.

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We have some Ikea Billie shelves with the glass doors and adjustable shelf height. The bottom shelf is extra tall but since it's not deep enough, the bigger boxes are there on an angle.
- They don't fit, they're either too tall/wide or way too deep :/
  
  Adjustable shelves on the Billie model

I build my 5x5 but didnt add some of the vertical slats in. Its a little warped since we took out too many but having a 2-wide whole fits our wide games.

The ones that don't fit inside a Kallax cube - you should hear my guttural growl when the smaller side is exactly 1 centimeter larger than the cube width - then it goes on top of one of the Kallaxes.
Thankfully it's not too many games that don't fit and I have four Kalaxes (ranging from 3x4 to 5x5) to put stuff on top of.
Still, I wish game designers and publishers tried to respect those standard measurements whenever possible.

I just buy wider shelves for the wide-box games: https://imgur.com/a/otbkAdm

I'm pretty sure just like transport containers were standardized by ISO to make transport easier, game boxes should be standardized to fit in Kallax.
- Standard box sizes in general is something I'd really really like.

Built my own. Fits ticket to ride Europe (special Edition), and a few other boxes, all while being above my dog's crate. Not the answer you were looking for, I assume.
Edit: photo attached.
- You built that yourself?! Hats off to you my friend!!
  
  Thanks. The worst part was the fact that buildings never make 90⁰ angles, so mounting it was tricky. But it's been there a year now and it's not moving. Some day I'll put a long kallax like shelf above it to span the doorway, but I'm in no rush, too many other projects.
  Edit: my favorite part is the storage in the back, it fits a couch table on one level and maps, cards against humanity and a few other long things on the other.

While we also use Kallax for this purpose, we did not go with a 5x5, we went with individual units of 4x1 and 2x1. We attached them to the wall in rows the 4x1 at the top, some space, one 2x1, some space and another 2x1 with doors. It opens the option to store things on top of the units itself. We usually used it a bit like a display for the games we played most.
- That setup sounds really sweet!

i bought a storage ottoman - all of my board games fit inside. i don't have nearly as many as you do though, but it fits all of the weirdly shaped games and i can keep them in the living room area where they are used. the ottoman itself works great as a table for the games, with everyone sitting on the floor around it.

I went with wider shelves for this reason. The Kallax looks great but not necessarily the most practical way to store games.
- @donio bingo. I'm of the opinion that Kallax are the low hanging fruit of boardgame storage; looks nice enough, but just isn't optimized for the job. I use an old bookshelf with adjustable shelving that I took the doors off of and that allows me to use almost every cubic centimeter of space. That means I can fit anything up through the BattleCon big box set on it (so 2x the El Grande big box) without my difficulty.
  The super long stuff that is also wide is where I run into problems; stuff like Kaivai where it's both long and wide gets stuck on top. I generally don't have a ton of those games so it's ok.
  
  are the low hanging fruit of boardgame storage
  It was definitely a budget option for us. It looks nice enough and I don't think I can find something cooler for 120 euros.

On top of the shelf cluttered af duh

We got Box Throne brand shelves.

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