The Great Organize and Purge: Games

You guys. Getting rid of stuff is addicting. Like honestly, don't start if you actually want to stop. Sure, there are times where I get to a complete stand still and feel unmotivated, but then once that motivation comes back. Oh boy, watch out. I become a complete mad woman once I get into purging mode. The other night, Eden went down extraordinarily early (never happens) and the wise thing to do would have been for me to follow her lead. Ask Josh if that happens (answer: never). So, in one of my crazy rampages I decided the board games must be dealt with.

Our board game collection is not very large by most standards. The sadder part to that is...we haven't even used them more than once in over five years of marriage. They have all been stacked up in closets where pulling one out meant having the rest topple out onto your head. Not ideal and definitely not something I looked forward to. So, they sat. And sat. And sat some more. Since moving into my parent's house, they have been housed in an Ikea bag way up high to where no one could reach them. I had known I was over the whole cardboard box thing since most were falling apart or just large and annoying, but hadn't done anything about it. I knew changing our current system could only result in good things so I went for it. This isn't magazine worthy by any means, but I'm posting it in hopes that it will help someone out there get motivated to look at a system in their house that isn't working, and change it. 

I started off by pulling each game out of its box, which resulted in a giant stack of cardboard. 

Excuse the phone photos. I've turned lazy and no longer use my big girl camera for projects. 

I thought taking the games out of their boxes would be painful. I am so weird about stuff like that. But nope, it felt great. One box literally was so huge and all it held was a small game board and a handful of marbles...the rest of the box was filled with a filler piece of cardboard. Seriously?! What a waste of space. 

Once I had the games out, I put all the small pieces into snack sized baggies. I then put all of the small bags of parts with the game rules and any larger items from the game into a gallon size baggie. I used a permanent marker to indicate what the game was and moved on to the next game. 

Can you believe that the giant stack of cardboard boxes resulted in such a small pile of game materials? It felt so relieving. At this point I was left with a few large game boards and a stack of plastic bags filled with games. I knew we had an extra basket that we had from Ikea in our living room and I knew it would be a great spot to store the games for now. The game boards that didn't fit into the basket are living in our ottoman so we can grab them out as needed. 

Sweet relief. The games are now easily accessible and hardly take up any room. I love knowing that when we move the amount of space the games will take up in a box is so minimal. I'm all for an easier move. So, I know it's not the prettiest sight. I do have plans to add cute labels to the bags and the game boards, but for now, it works. The goal was to only use what I had on hand to make this work, and I am proud to say I didn't spend a penny. It was such a quick project and I am so happy with the results.

Here's to more family game nights!