Shelving Solutions for the Sophisticated Gamer

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

Outside of the big collection threads, I haven't seen any topic dedicated to the details of shelving and how users display their collection, so here we go. I've still got some work to do, but I've made some nice progress recently that I wanted to share. I also wanted a place for people to post links to the best shelving units and really get into the nitty gritty of custom carpentry.

In my opinion, the cleanest look for anything is built-in or floating shelves. When we finished our basement I decided to give it a try and converted one wall to a showpiece for my NES collection. Unfortunately, due to a poorly arbitrated treaty, this area is shared with my son's infinite toy collection, but I digress.

For the shelves, I used off-the-shelf components from the local Home Depot. This made for poor choices when it came to brackets, but ultimately still worked well. I went with white for a clean look that matched our grey/white color palette in the media room.

For brackets, I used Everbilt White Designer Brackets. For the shelving I used Primed Pine Finger Joint Boards. I cut the boards to ten feet and then placed the brackets so at least a few of them were anchored into the studs. This lead to some asymmetry which is undesirable, but not the end of the world. On a side note, my absolute favorite drywall anchors are Hillman DuoPower Anchors. You can buy them in a contractor set which comes with the bits and they are extremely sturdy, despite being plastic.

The pine boards are not perfectly flat (and neither is your wall) so they aren't perfectly apposed, but they serve their purpose well. I also didn't account for the size of the bracket covers on the lower shelves, so this causes some games to jut out and ruin the feng shui. To prevent the games from falling over, I use Business Source Bookends which are surprisingly sturdy for the price. Overall, this was a learning project for me with acceptable results.

These shelves hold about 400 games and I can fit another 100 games on top of my son's toy shelves. Anything over 500 total and I need to put additional rows on top of his toy shelf, making visibility of the back row a problem.

This is how it has been for months until I finally spent some time researching media shelves and went with the Furinno 7-Cube Reversible Open Shelf. It's meant to stand upright, but when you lay it on its side, the compartments are a near perfect fit for NES boxes. I just put one together today and love it. The white lines break up the monotony of the boxes nicely and the whole thing can hold at least 72 CIB games with box protectors. I plan to buy at least two more of these units and stack them on top and place some type of custom brace to hold them safely in place.

I also bought a vertical unit from the same company (Furinno 5-Tier Open Shelf Bookcase) that will hold my overflow games. I'll put that in another room and get pictures up when I finish. I'll also get pics of my custom Ikea entertainment center at some point.

So now it's your turn. Show me them shelves!

Edited September 26, 2021 by DoctorEncore

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

I like floating too. But its not a great idea in earthquake country, Thats why mine have doors.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

9 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

I like floating too. But its not a great idea in earthquake country, Thats why mine have doors.

Thankfully that's not much of a problem in Georgia.

[ALTQQ | 87]

I just have IKEA billy bookcase with doors on them like most ppl. Cheap and effective 

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

4 hours ago, ALTQQ said:

I just have IKEA billy bookcase with doors on them like most ppl. Cheap and effective 

I'd love to see them if you have a pic. Most of the pics I've seen here are of open shelving.

[ALTQQ | 87]

9 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I'd love to see them if you have a pic. Most of the pics I've seen here are of open shelving.

Quick shot of the shelves. I have 3x billy case with doors and I made one shelf myself . They hold a lot of tapes. I sold most of my collection though so it looks all spread out now

[Sign Collector Guy | 334]

I went with commercial steel. Found these from a bookstore going out of business. Got all these and then some for $250. 4 foot sections just insert into steel uprights. Only 4 uprights hold all these to the wall. The LED lighting was a nice touch too. 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Sign Collector Guy

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

6 hours ago, ALTQQ said:

Quick shot of the shelves. I have 3x billy case with doors and I made one shelf myself . They hold a lot of tapes. I sold most of my collection though so it looks all spread out now

Nice! I've never seen Billy bookcases used like that before. I think I looked at them a while ago, but decided they weren't going to work for my purposes. I do like Ikea stuff though. I have an entertainment center I designed using their stuff and I'm in love with it. I also see you have some Amiibo in there. Good man.

1 hour ago, Sign Collector Guy said:

I went with commercial steel. Found these from a bookstore going out of business. Got all these and then some for $250. 4 foot sections just insert into steel uprights. Only 4 uprights hold all these to the wall. The LED lighting was a nice touch too. 

Holy cow! It's like a '90s rental store in your own house. It must be so awesome to just browse the racks and pick what you want to play. Do you need a stool for the top shelf? Thanks for sharing!

[coffeewithmrsaturn | 100]

Does anyone have suggestions for shelving specific to GBA boxed games (same size as GB, GBC, and VB if that helps)?  I have a shit ton of them I need to put somewhere, but I want to minimize the wasted space and money from having a height adequate for NES boxed games (for example).  Maybe a shelf from IKEA made for CDs?

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

On 12/16/2019 at 9:50 PM, coffeewithmrsaturn said:

Does anyone have suggestions for shelving specific to GBA boxed games (same size as GB, GBC, and VB if that helps)?  I have a shit ton of them I need to put somewhere, but I want to minimize the wasted space and money from having a height adequate for NES boxed games (for example).  Maybe a shelf from IKEA made for CDs?

Of course your best option is always custom built. Barring that, I remember thinking it would be awesome to have some sort of enclosed floating shelves with a modern style. Unfortunately, I can't find the shelves that inspired that thought. I do think you could do some cool stuff with IKEA Lack shelves if you've got some ingenuity, money, and time. If I find the other ones I was thinking of, I'll share. 

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lack-wall-shelf-unit-white-60282186/

These are pretty cool, but expensive.

https://www.wayfair.com/storage-organization/pdp/ebern-designs-drea-4-piece-wall-shelf-set-w001914148.html

Or if you want something minimalist and cheaper, Amazon has a bunch of acrylic shelves. For example:

Without ledges: Blingsoul 2 Pack Clear Floating Shelves   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079FW8B7R/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_tVM-DbTJNG408

With legdes: unum 15" Acrylic Floating Wall Ledges/Display Shelves   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXP3VXA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_KWM-DbB4EWQZG

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by DoctorEncore

[coffeewithmrsaturn | 100]

@DoctorEncore thanks so much!  Those will be really helpful

[Splain | 2,560]

You guyses shelves look DOPE. I like to keep my games hidden from view for a few reasons, so as much as I want Twizer's shelves for my GB collection...

 

...it's just a little too visible to the kids and their grabby hands. (And that amount of wall space would not be wife-approved anyway.) So for years now, I've kept my games in boring boxes, stacked on a shelf by my workbench. But for a bunch of reasons, I want to build a big drawer or two to keep them all in, and install it in that same shelf, roughly 4ft by 2ft. imagine the shelves above, but laid on their back and with a handle on the side. That's what I want. Maybe with a lock. And moisture packets. I'm already measuring.

That way I can gaze upon my collection, access everything for playing, but also be able to hide it all away. The smallness of GB games is part of why I collect them.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

3 hours ago, Splain said:

You guyses shelves look DOPE. I like to keep my games hidden from view for a few reasons, so as much as I want Twizer's shelves for my GB collection...

 

...it's just a little too visible to the kids and their grabby hands. (And that amount of wall space would not be wife-approved anyway.) So for years now, I've kept my games in boring boxes, stacked on a shelf by my workbench. But for a bunch of reasons, I want to build a big drawer or two to keep them all in, and install it in that same shelf, roughly 4ft by 2ft. imagine the shelves above, but laid on their back and with a handle on the side. That's what I want. Maybe with a lock. And moisture packets. I'm already measuring.

That way I can gaze upon my collection, access everything for playing, but also be able to hide it all away. The smallness of GB games is part of why I collect them.

Those are some crazy custom shelves in that pic. 

I like the idea of your pull-out storage drawers. I've dabbled with that idea in an upright orientation (think library archives), but always worry it will encroach on the room too much. Open shelves give that feeling of more space in the room, but require the collection to be prominently displayed. That is the collector's conundrum.

[Sumez | 2,934]

It kind of bothers me that Billy bookcases are the standard cheap IKEA solution.

They have another line of shelves, Bestå which come in a 20cm deep variant which is completely perfect for DVD or CD case sizes, as well as NES, SNES, MegaDrive, and most other console formats.

It saves a lot more space in a room than a Billy shelf, and you don't get a ton of awkward empty space on your shelf which will eventually end up used for a mess, or games stored in double layers (ugh). Unfortunately the ~190cm tall version of the shallow frame variation isn't a part of the lineup anymore - at least not around here, and they are getting really hard to come by. You can get a similar result from stacking three 60cm ones, but that requires a lot more wall attachments and wastes a good amount of shelf space.  

For bigger items however, the 40cm deep variant is still super useful. I'm really proud of my storage solution for arcade PCBs using one of these, though unfortunately I've run out of space again since:

Edited December 19, 2019 by Sumez

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

3 hours ago, Sumez said:

It kind of bothers me that Billy bookcases are the standard cheap IKEA solution.

They have another line of shelves, Bestå which come in a 20cm deep variant which is completely perfect for DVD or CD case sizes, as well as NES, SNES, MegaDrive, and most other console formats.

It saves a lot more space in a room than a Billy shelf, and you don't get a ton of awkward empty space on your shelf which will eventually end up used for a mess, or games stored in double layers (ugh). Unfortunately the ~190cm tall version of the shallow frame variation isn't a part of the lineup anymore - at least not around here, and they are getting really hard to come by. You can get a similar result from stacking three 60cm ones, but that requires a lot more wall attachments and wastes a good amount of shelf space.  

For bigger items however, the 40cm deep variant is still super useful. I'm really proud of my storage solution for arcade PCBs using one of these, though unfortunately I've run out of space again since:

I love the Besta series! I built my entire entertainment center out of it and it looks super sleek and modern. Thanks for bringing this up.

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

Nice and easy shelves from Amazon (Prepac), a custom made super shitty but get the job done for N64, and a Billy for overflow. Bonus IKEA display case for Zelda and IKEA Kallax for overflow consoles.

Edited December 19, 2019 by a3quit4s

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

19 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Nice and easy shelves from Amazon (Prepac), a custom made super shitty but get the job done for N64, and a Billy for overflow. Bonus IKEA display case for Zelda and IKEA Kallax for overflow consoles.

 

Nice work on the custom shelves for N64. 90% of the struggle with new projects is just getting started. Now that you've got one under your belt and learned some pitfalls, you can do it again and upgrade all the components. I started with unpainted slats and low quality brackets in my closet as a learning project before my nicer media room shelves. Those aren't perfect, but definitely a step up from my more amateur projects.

Also, your overflow console area looks great! Nice use of the Kallax shelves. The Besta is also great for projects like that.

Edited December 19, 2019 by DoctorEncore

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

6 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

Nice work on the custom shelves for N64. 90% of the struggle with new projects is just getting started. Now that you've got one under your belt and learned some pitfalls, you can do it again and upgrade all the components. I started with unpainted slats and low quality brackets in my closet as a learning project before my nicer media room shelves. Those aren't perfect, but definitely a step up from my more amateur projects.

Also, your overflow console area looks great! Nice use of the Kallax shelves. The Besta is also great for projects like that.

Biggest learning points for me are to use wayyyyy thinner boards and just take my time and make sure everything is level. My cuts with my circular saw were pretty bad as well

[Addicted | 2]

I couldn't fit the Billy bookcases in my basement due to the drop ceiling so I went with Kallax shelving and Drona boxes (the grey ones on the left).  I like that my collection is accessible without having everything displayed. The Drona boxes work well for carts, blu-rays and cd cases but are just a little too small for DVD cases to fit perfectly. I'm still working on organizing the room so sorry for the messy pics. I'll post some pictures of what the boxes look like with games inside later.

 

NES games fit well and are two deep:

 

 

PS3 Games fit reasonably well:

 

DVD Cases are ok at best:

 

I still need to buy more boxes/totes so that's all I can share for now.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by Addicted
add pictures

[drxandy | 3,225]

@Sign Collector Guy it looks great but I would be worried about using the electric fireplace, does it not heat up?

[Sign Collector Guy | 334]

51 minutes ago, drxandy said:

@Sign Collector Guy it looks great but I would be worried about using the electric fireplace, does it not heat up?

Its a gas fireplace and I did IR gun testing all around the perimeter while it ran before adding games to the shelf. I rarely use it anyhow. Stays pretty warm in our basement. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

1 hour ago, Sign Collector Guy said:

Its a gas fireplace and I did IR gun testing all around the perimeter while it ran before adding games to the shelf. I rarely use it anyhow. Stays pretty warm in our basement. 

Now this is a man who puts some thought into his projects.

[austin532 | 467]

I wouldn't want my games anywhere near a fireplace whether it's used or not. Same with bright LED lights as those just fade out boxes.

[Sign Collector Guy | 334]

10 hours ago, austin532 said:

I wouldn't want my games anywhere near a fireplace whether it's used or not. Same with bright LED lights as those just fade out boxes.

I researched the UV Radiation output of the LEDs. It once had me concerned until I found out the level is extremely miniscule. 

[drxandy | 3,225]

Yeah that's definitely a temp lower that I would have imagined, not much different than a warm room.