A comment on Grumpy Gnomes blog from Dinah from Kabalor prompted this post.

The first essential is to have a partner who is also a collector. In my case Maree collects procelain dolls and has hundreds of them. With most individual figures costing the price of a whole 28mm army I am on pretty solid ground. Without this support and understanding I could imagine this would not be easy.

Maree’s collection on the upstairs landing and reception room

Pocelain figures are not all that bad – the “lingerie clad nymph” and the “broken lance”

Now for the important stuff! How do I store my library, figures and terrain? Firstly I am lucky in having our main house in Melbourne which the photos below are of, and a holiday home almost as large on the holiday resort of Phillip Island. As as result I am able to split my collection between two places to suit who and what I game with in both locations.

Spoilt with the right partner and spoilt with the luxury of two houses – I am in 7th Gaming Heaven!

Anyway here is what I have set up in Melbourne for those who have not already seen it:

The gaming table is a 7′ X 4′ billiard table with gaming top on. The top is in two parts so it is easy to swap from Wargaming to billiards or snooker quite easily. The fold up stool allows me to reach the hard to get stuff as I am somewhere between my giant of a younger son and the hobbit of my elder son!

There are eight draws underneath that were built by a cabinet maker (cost more than the table) that holds a large amount of the terrain.

In this case my American West township.

Frozen tundra for French Indain Wars and What a Tanker Russian Front etc.

Around the walls I have a combination of Ikea “Kallax” cubes and Ikea “Billy” glass cabinets with the “odd” piece of gaming deccor.

The cubes have a combination of glass shelves for models,

or doors for storing “stuff” ( a technical wargaming term),

or drawers for gaming paraphenalia like dice and measuring tapes etc.

Another pic of the figure shelves.

There are also slide in cubes for more terrain like rivers, or

jungle terrain etc.

Some of the cubes have glass doors (these were specially made as Ikea do not make them for the Kallax cubes) to store some large military figurines (SWMBO’s influence on me).

The other wall has the bulk of the library and figures that I use most often as well as the DVD collection.

Games are stored on top of the shelving. You will note a number of figure cases in the corners these are for my WW1 Wings of Glory planes, and my X-Wing ships as they would take up too much valuable shelf space and are not used that often.

This photo is a bit blurry but shows the rooms garden and fountain outlook, both of which are floodlit for night time “showing off”. You will also notice another open cabinet that has a half glass door for displaying figures and half solid door for hiding more terrain.

There is also sliding door outside to the BBQ area and “drinking and talking sh!t table”.

The games room is slightly less than 6 metres X 4 metres but with some good planning has been able to store more than enough stuff and still accommodate up to eight people for gaming.

Where then is all of the rest?

The garage gives me another MAN CAVE. Here is my work bench which doubles up as my painting table. The drawers underneath store my paints, modelling and basing stuff.

There is also another couple of Billy bookshelves to the left and storage cubes for tools etc on the right.

A new project being sorted out on the bench, as my son gave me some figures and accessories he didn’t want anymore. Not sure that I do myself, but hey we never say no to free stuff, do we?

Built around the ducted vacuum unit on the other side are more shelves for figures and some cubes which are mainly storing uninteresting household goods.

The four story cat condo and beer fridge.

The garage doubles up as a party and large games room as the laundry with sink etc makes for a handy wet bar. Carpet tiles and a wood heater will be going in soon to make the place more cozy. Yes the car does fit in!

So there you have what I have set up. You have probably gathered by now that I am a signed up card, carrying member of the neat police but at least I know where everything “should” be.

See my post on Building, Painting and Valentines Day. which shows this is not just a wargaming fetish.

Remember Guru say “neat people are just too lazy to look for things”!!!!!