Things are progressing in the house-buying department, and it’s looking more and more like we’re going to get the house without any major issues. With the big hurdles like home inspection and mortgage more or less cleared, my wife and I decided to start some preliminary planning in regards to where we’re putting our furniture. Of course, this led to a conversation about the game area, and where I’m going to be putting my stuff. Have a look.

The basement layout is pretty swanky. That’s a picture of what it looks like right now with the current owners stuff still there. I’ve obviously got lots of planning to do still, but what I wanted to focus on first was a basic concept of fitting a gigantic video game collection in this space. The right side of this picture is a flat wall. It’s just barely cut off in the image, but that part of the L-shaped couch is up against an otherwise unencumbered flat wall. My original plan was to have this whole area here straight across to the couch as floor-to-ceiling shelving units full of games. It seemed like the most efficient use of space, and I had it all worked out in my head, but reality, it seems, had other ideas. As my wife and I planned out how the house is going to work, it became evident that the basement is probably the best place for our kids to be able to roam free and play like the nut-cases they are. I had thought that the extra bedroom upstairs was going to be a playroom, but as we went through our options, the best solution seemed to be to have the basement as a kid-friendly zone. Blocking off the bar is easy enough, but changing my plans would be a bit tougher.

I have a lot of games that are worth a decent amount of money. I have a lot of games that are worth a couple of dollars. None of those do I want taken out and tossed around like coasters. I do my very best to discipline my kids and teach them what is and isn’t a toy, but in many cases, toddlers can’t be reasoned with. Take your eyes off a 1 year old for more than a few seconds and your DVD collection is now covered in drool and strewn about the floor. I have an almost 4 year old and an almost 1 year old. It’s going to be a couple of years before they’re old enough to appreciate that there are things of mine they absolutely shouldn’t touch, and even then, accidents, friends, and various other things will happen. Short of moving my stuff all the way upstairs and compromising this extra bedroom situation we want, a solution had to be devised for the basement. Plus, I just really want to make this work down here. It feels like the perfect place for it.

The best idea I could conjure up was to not so much change the placement of the shelves, but change the shape of them. It’s not the most accessible option, but I think it might just work. What I think I’d like to do is have shelves connected directly to the walls, but instead of having them on the floor, have them start about 3 feet off the ground and go all the way up to the ceiling. These shelves would stretch all the way across the wall up to where you see the current owner’s computer in the picture above. Maybe stopping a few feet before it. This way they’re not reachable by the kids, and it might actually look pretty cool. The current owners offered to let us keep that couch, and we’re taking them up on that, so I’m thinking for around there the shelving would just start higher on the wall. Now, this does sacrifice a few things. One, there’s less room for games on shelves, and two, the games themselves are slightly less accessible than they would have been in my original design. The shelves would probably have to be built instead of bought too, which could be something of an expense, but I have a few people to talk to about that.

I found this image on pinterest, and it’s about the closest I can find to what I’m trying to work out. Though now that I think about it, having some cabinets across the floor could be useful…

So the next issue is figuring out exactly how much shelf space I’m going to realistically need. I honestly have no idea how much space I’m going to need to display the games I want to display. It’s been so many years since I’ve actually lined up this stuff I have almost no realistic frame of reference for how much space it’s going to take up. This is also an issue because of a concern of my wife’s: aesthetics.

Before I go any further, let me say that my wife is a phenomenal partner. She has never had a problem with me collecting video games, and she would never ask me to get rid of them. But at the end of the day, this isn’t my house, it’s our house, and I want her to be happy. Her fear is that I’m going to turn our cool finished basement into a GameStop, I couldn’t agree more. My challenge is going to be finding a balance between having the gaming space of my dreams and keeping it a comfortable living space. I personally believe that this raised shelf idea I have, with them starting partly up the walls, combined with some meticulous curating and organizing, is going to look very classy. It’s hard to be sure until I actually see it with my eyes, but what I’m imagining is a very clean, organized look. Everything is going to be bookshelved, with no games laying on their sides or on top of anything else. The shelves are going to need to be spaced out so boxes of all different sizes can be arranged neatly within their own spaces. Boxed games will need to be separated from loose carts, and some things are just going to have to be kept in boxes in storage. 3D-O games in their original boxes are ridiculously tall. I can’t justify creating oversized shelf space just to accommodate the 7 or 8 boxed 3D-O games I have, so those probably won’t be making the cut. So, you know, those kinds of decisions.

Next is the question of organizing, and that’s going to have to be tackled more thoroughly once we’re moved in and I can see exactly how much space things are going to take up. The thought I’m currently sitting with is to keep them more or less grouped by company. All the Nintendo stuff stays together, all the Sega stuff stays together, etc. I’m also considering keeping the loose stuff completely separate from the boxed stuff for aesthetic purposes. For the sake of organizing stuff, this might drive me mad, but as far as a visual goes, keeping the loose carts grouped together closer to the wall past the couch I think would look very nice. Again, I’m going to have to wait and see how crazy having SNES games in 2 places drives me. I suspect it won’t be too much of an issue thanks to the joy of flash carts. I haven’t taken my EverDrive N8 out of my NES since I got the thing. I imagine that on the whole I won’t really need to access the carts/discs themselves all that much, so that gives me the opportunity to lean a little more toward form than function in the display department.

So this is the part where I’m super lucky to have an outlet like this blog to chronicle my game room because I get to ask you all for advice. What do you think of my plans so far? What problems haven’t I thought of yet? I welcome any and all suggestions, and if you’ve got pictures of your game room/area solutions, I’d love to see them.