Board Game Storage Ideas

Fifty-Three Board Games and a Closet That Made Me Cry

I counted them on a rainy Saturday morning. Fifty-three board games stacked in a teetering tower inside our hallway closet, wedged between winter coats and a vacuum cleaner. Every time we wanted to play Ticket to Ride, we had to excavate through Candy Land, three incomplete decks of UNO cards, and a Jenga set whose box had given up on life months ago. The avalanche that inevitably followed each extraction was enough to make family game night feel more like a punishment than a treat. That closet made me cry, literally, one Tuesday evening when twenty games cascaded onto my feet.

The next weekend, I gutted the entire system and rebuilt our board game storage from scratch. It took about four hours and $150, and the result transformed not just our closet but our entire relationship with family game night. Games are now visible, accessible, and inviting. We play three times as often as we used to, simply because grabbing a game is no longer an ordeal. Here is exactly how I did it, along with alternative setups for different home sizes and collections.

The Vertical Stack Method: Why It Fails and What to Do Instead

Almost every family I know stores board games the same way: stacked vertically in a tower, one on top of another. It seems logical since the boxes are flat and rectangular. But this method fails spectacularly for three reasons. First, you can never get to the game in the middle without destabilizing everything above it. Second, the weight of stacked games crushes the boxes at the bottom over time. Third, kids cannot browse the collection because they can only see the spine of the top game.

The solution is horizontal filing. Instead of stacking games flat on top of each other, store them standing upright on their sides, like books on a shelf. This lets you see every game title at a glance, pull out any individual game without disturbing others, and browse the entire collection the way you would browse a bookshelf. Most standard board game boxes (roughly 10x10x2 inches to 12x12x3 inches) stand upright perfectly on a standard 12-inch-deep shelf.

The games that do not stand well upright, such as very thin boxes or oddly shaped ones like Bananagrams, can go in a small bin at the end of the shelf as a catch-all. Label the bin “Small Games” and toss in card games, travel games, and anything without a standard box.

Pro tip: If a game’s box is too damaged to stand upright, transfer it to a clear plastic shoe box from the Container Store ($2 each) or a gallon Ziploc bag. Write the game name on painter’s tape and stick it to the container. This extends the life of the game and often saves space since the plastic containers are more uniform than battered cardboard boxes.

Best Shelving Units for Board Game Collections

Not all shelves are created equal when it comes to board games. You need shelves that are deep enough to hold the boxes (at least 11 inches), tall enough between shelves (at least 11 inches of vertical clearance for standard boxes), and sturdy enough to handle the weight (board games are surprisingly heavy in bulk).

IKEA KALLAX remains the gold standard for board game storage among the tabletop gaming community, and for good reason. Each cube is 13x13x15 inches, which perfectly accommodates standard board games standing upright with a little room to spare. A 4×2 KALLAX unit ($90) holds roughly 40 to 50 standard games and looks clean and modern in a living room, den, or dedicated game room. The 2×2 ($45) works for smaller collections of 15 to 25 games and can sit on a desk or tabletop.

IKEA BILLY bookcase is an excellent alternative if you prefer a traditional bookshelf look. The standard BILLY ($50 for the 31.5-inch width) has adjustable shelves that you can set at exactly the right height for your game boxes. A single BILLY bookcase holds approximately 30 to 40 standard games with shelves adjusted to minimize wasted vertical space.

The Container Store’s Elfa system is the premium option for custom game storage. The ventilated wire shelves come in various widths and depths, and the adjustable bracket system lets you fine-tune shelf heights to the inch. A three-shelf Elfa setup (36 inches wide, 16 inches deep) runs about $100 to $150 and provides a clean, airy look that works in living spaces.

• Small collection (under 20 games): KALLAX 2×2 ($45) or a single BILLY shelf
• Medium collection (20-40 games): KALLAX 2×4 ($90) or full BILLY bookcase ($50)
• Large collection (40-80 games): Two BILLY bookcases or KALLAX 4×4 ($200)
• Massive collection (80+ games): Elfa wall-mounted system or dedicated closet with adjustable shelves

Organizing by Category: A System Kids Can Actually Use

Once your games are shelved upright and visible, the next step is organizing them in a way that makes choosing a game easy and putting it back intuitive. The system needs to be simple enough for a five-year-old to follow independently.

I use a three-zone color-coded system that works beautifully for families with kids of different ages. Each zone gets a colored label or piece of washi tape on the shelf edge:

Green Zone: Quick and Easy (games under 20 minutes, simple rules). This zone holds games like Candy Land, Hi Ho Cherry-O, Connect Four, Spot It, and UNO. These are the games kids can grab and play independently or with minimal adult involvement. Place this zone at kid height, ideally the bottom two shelves of your unit.

Yellow Zone: Family Favorites (20 to 60 minutes, moderate complexity). Ticket to Ride, Monopoly Junior, Clue, Sorry, Blokus, Qwirkle, and Sushi Go belong here. These are the games you pull out for family game night. Position at middle height where both kids and adults can easily reach them.

Red Zone: Advanced and Adult (60+ minutes or complex rules). Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, Wingspan, Codenames, and other strategy games live here. These go on the highest shelf where younger children are less likely to grab them unsupervised, since complex games with many small pieces are the most vulnerable to piece loss.

Within each zone, alphabetical order works well for collections over 15 games. For smaller collections, just keeping games in their zone is sufficient. The important thing is consistency: everyone in the family knows that a game goes back to its zone after play, and the upright filing method makes it obvious where each game belongs.

Dealing with Game Pieces, Cards, and Accessories

The boxes themselves are only half the storage challenge. The real organizational puzzle is managing the hundreds of tiny pieces, cards, dice, and tokens inside each game. Loose pieces are the number one reason board games get ruined or abandoned.

Small zip bags are the universal solution for loose pieces. Buy a bulk pack of 2×3-inch and 3×4-inch resealable bags from Amazon (200 bags for about $8). Sort each game’s pieces into separate bags: all the red tokens in one bag, all the blue tokens in another, all the cards in a third. This takes about five minutes per game during initial setup and saves countless minutes of searching and sorting during future play sessions.

Rubber bands destroy cards over time. I learned this the hard way when our entire Ticket to Ride card deck developed permanent curves from being rubber-banded for months. Instead, use small deck boxes or card sleeves. Ultra Pro deck boxes ($2 each on Amazon) hold standard card decks perfectly and protect them from bending, moisture, and wear. For games with multiple small card decks, label each deck box with the card type.

Plano tackle boxes are the secret weapon for games with many different types of pieces. A Plano 3600 series tackle box ($5 to $8 at Walmart) has adjustable compartments that can be customized to hold exactly the pieces for a specific game. Serious board gamers often buy one Plano box per complex game and keep it inside or next to the original game box. This is especially useful for games like Settlers of Catan, Agricola, or any game with more than four types of tokens.

For games missing their original insert or organizer, foam core board from Dollar Tree ($1 per sheet) can be cut to create custom inserts. Watch a five-minute YouTube tutorial on foam core game inserts, and you can create a professional-looking organizer that keeps every piece in its place when the box is stored vertically. This is particularly satisfying for games where the original cardboard insert was useless anyway.

Living Room Display: Making Games Part of Your Decor

Here is a perspective shift that changed how I think about board game storage: your games do not need to be hidden. A well-organized board game collection displayed in your living space is warm, inviting, and tells guests exactly what kind of family lives here, the kind that values spending time together.

Curate a display shelf in your living room or family room with your most beautiful game boxes front-facing. Games like Azul, Wingspan, Parks, and Dixit have stunning box art that rivals any coffee table book. Place three to five of these face-out on a picture ledge or floating shelf as decorative objects. Rotate them seasonally or whenever you add a new beautiful box to your collection.

A dedicated game cabinet with glass doors adds sophistication while keeping games dust-free and organized. IKEA’s BESTA unit with glass door fronts ($200 to $400 depending on configuration) creates a beautiful game storage display that looks intentional in a modern living room. The glass doors mean you can see your collection without opening anything, and they keep curious toddler hands from dismantling your carefully organized shelves.

The coffee table solution is worth mentioning for families who want games immediately accessible. Several furniture companies now make coffee tables with built-in game storage. The IKEA LIATORP coffee table ($200) has a generous shelf underneath that holds 10 to 15 games in easy reach. Alternatively, a large woven basket next to the sofa ($20 to $40 from Target or HomeGoods) can hold five or six current favorites that you rotate weekly.

Whatever display method you choose, the principle is the same: visible games get played. When your family can see the options, someone is far more likely to say “hey, want to play Qwirkle?” on a random Tuesday night than if the games are buried in a closet. Our visible shelf system increased our family game nights from once a month to two or three times a week. The storage solution did not just organize our games; it revived a family tradition. And nobody has cried in the closet since.