"Game room / office advice" Topic

I need help from my fellow TMPers across the pond. As you have generally more experience than we yanks about economizing space can you help me out. Here is a link to the original post that explains my predicament:
TMP link

My room is 16' x 14' and I need to fit storage, a gaming table (the bigger the better) and my office desk. Any thoughts would be appreciated or at least any serious ones.

You mention that there is a closet in the room; is it a wide closet, with the sliding panels? If so, you could remove the panels and turn the closet into your desk area. If the closet is wide enough, you could build shelves in the closet to store figures and unfinished projects.

Consider using vertical space for storage. For example, you will probably need several chairs for you and your guests to use during games. Buy good folding chairs, and install hooks on the wall where the chairs can be stored up out of the way.

Folding tables for your gaming table?

It seems counter intuitive, but a 32" high desk in the middle of the room can easily coexist with a 44" high game table that is up against the wall when not in use.

After all most of the time the room only needs to handle one person so optimize room flow for game nights when you have several.

My game/office room is nearly the same size. One wall is now a bookcase, leaving 14 by 14 useable space. I have a 4 by 8 game table on wheels, a 3 by 5 table also on wheels (which can fit under the bigger table) and my computer desk also at 5 by 3.

Over the years I have found I use my big table less and less, and use my 6x4 table most of the time. Just saying, as using a 6x4 table may open up more options for you.

Put the table on wheels so that one side can go against a wall.. You can then move the table away from the wall to get to the other side – it lets you fit a table into a space which normally only has 3 feet on one side of the table…

I have a 9 x 5 table tennis table in my games room/packing room/workroom (which is 21' x 11') but I ended up taking one side down to get more space as I found I hardly ever used the full table.

I tend to play on 4.5' x 5' or put up the other half for a big game and use 4.5' x 10'

Mike

My game table is made up of three 2 1/2 x 5 foot folding tables.

I built a 6'x10' table on small bookcases as the legs in my basement. You can store stuff underneath and have a place for your rules on the shelves of the bookcases. You don't have to make a table that big. 5'x8' would work.

Phil

Matakishi documented how he installed a pre-fab cabin in his back yard. The game room is smaller than yours, just over 11x9', but maybe his storage and organization ideas will help.

matakishi.com/thecabin.htm

At the bottom he shows his cleaned up basement painting area; if you attached that to his game room, the project approaches the size of what you are working with.

Definitely folding tables for your gaming. I have a smaller space of about 12' x 9', but it's wargames only, no study. I can put up a max of 8' x 6' and still leave room around it for players and storage.

Ikea is your friend for storage. A mate of mine has a LOT of their glass fronted wall mounted display cabinets to house his collections.They come with frames surrounding the glass doors in various wood finishes and are not too deep. Just right in fact. Much thinner than a bookshelf. Lighting and glass shelves inside.

I personally went for the Ikea "Besta" units. You can configure a mixture of glass and solid doors, the latter with lighting and display shelves. It's a full depth run of cupboards which holds a lot, and can display models or armies in the cabinets. Paints and terrain etc get a solid door.

P interest helped me a lot when I was designing my room. Search on that site for wargames room and wargames table and nick all the best ides.

Oh, yeah, and don't forget lighting. I have a seperate ceiling mounted circuit with several ceiling points each fitted with power saving light bulbs which throw out iirc 100w (equivalent) light power.

Folding chairs take up no space when stowed, and I do have a 4' x 2' baize covered table which is permanently out. As well as being there for board games, it exactly matches the height of my fold away bigger tables to extend the surface. Mainly though it holds troops waiting to arrive.

I put a 4x 2 piece of hardboard on top and attach my daylight lamp with magnifier and I have a painting station where I can leave stuff set out to try to do 1 hour or so every day…..

I am a subscribing member, do if you drop me your email address I will send you some photos.