Playing at home can be a wonderful experience, but creating a great gaming space with limited time and resources can be a massive challenge itself! Each week in our Gaming Spaces series we’ll be looking at an author’s gaming space, how they built it, and the interesting flourishes that make it theirs. This week we’re looking at TheArmorOfContempt’s basement gaming space.
Greetings, swine. TheArmorOfContempt here, dragging myself out of my dank and dark lair to give my… annual? bi-annual? contribution to this illustrious web site.
One of the biggest problems with this hobby is that it tends to take up quite a bit of space. Most of us have a closet or other storage area for our models, or even a nice little poorly lit desk that we can paint them and store our supplies at, but as we all know simply playing the game tends to take up the most space. Not only do you need a large table to play on, but space to maneuver around it, not to mention stage our models and various gaming aids, rulebooks, etc.
In recent years I have come in to possession of such a space, and while it might not to be at the level of such legendary gaming rooms as Carl Tutle’s Astronomicon, it is still very much good enough to be the envy of your average hobbyist. With that mind I am going to walk you through my area and give you some tips on how you can make your own and replicate what I’ve done, provided you have the space.
I built my game room about three years ago, not long after moving into my current home. This house came with a large, unfinished basement, and I made an agreement with my spouse that one quarter of it would be turned into a game room upon finishing it. This was not a simple process as I am not what you would consider a “handy man.” But with some patience, support from my wife, and useful instruction from my far more carpentry competent father-in-law, I managed to turn this:
Into this:
So lets go over what is important. Obviously, the centerpiece of the room is the game table, and once again this is where having supportive family was very helpful. I had just recently been married, and as a wedding gift my father-in-law built this beautiful gaming table:
On my request he even added a series of bars underneath to place terrain containers.
As you can see from the original picture we tore down the original “wall” of the room, and put drywall up, and then replaced the lighting. Lighting is a very important aspect of any gaming area, especially if you have no windows. Additionally, we repainted the walls, purposefully choosing a very light grey for the drywall, while going with more a gunmetal color on the brick to give it the feeling of being within a bunker.
I then set about decorating my new space. I did this largely by using the GameWorkshop Calendars and tearing out the pieces of art I liked the most, and putting them in cheap Wal-Mart frames. In addition, you can see I added other elements such a dartboard, and Gravity Falls themed clock. Decoration is another important element of your game space, and there are many cheap options one can use to do this.
Here we have a Tanith Banner along with pieces of artwork from White Dwarf and the promotional art from the Triumvirate of the Imperium boxes. As a final touch an old-timey “Game Room” sign snagged at a Yard Sale.
On the not-so-cheap side we have this Chapter Banner for my Ultramarines:
After you decorate your game room, you’ll want to look at storage and display options. This was done very cheaply through a combination of IKEA shelving for my board game collection, and using the Facebook Marketplace to find cheap china cabinets. This later option is particularly excellent as they seem to be very common items that previous generations loved to have in their house but have really fallen out of popularity with younger individuals. I also managed to get the Primaris Intercessor stand-up from the local GW store for free after they decided to replace it with the Stormcast Eternal cutout.
Display cabinets serve an excellent way to show off not only your models, but any other trophies or awards you may have acquired over time. They also keep your models clean and dust free!!
And there you have it! My lovely little game room. While I don’t spend as much time in it as I would like it is 100% an area that I am love with. As a hobbyist its great to have an area that doubles as a display for all your hard work, and introduce new players to the hobby.
Next Time: Mike Bettle-Shaffer Talks About His Space
That wraps up this week’s look at another gaming space. Next week we’ll be joined by Mike “Pvt Snafu” Bettle-Shaffer talking about how he transformed a dank room into a fine gaming space. In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
