I am a firm believer in trying your very best to blend form and function.  I like things to be aesthetically pleasing and I work really hard at trying to make things work.  I value that greatly and so from time to time I will spend a little more of my money on something when I think it will work beautifully in my home.   Enter…the pie safe.  I found this piece on Craigslist a couple years ago.  I saw it and fell in love with it online.  One of my best friends and I discussed it at length…trying to decide if I should get it or not.  I believe it was around $300 and that felt so expensive but it was a unique piece…super versatile.  Finally she said, “If you don’t buy it I am going to buy it.”  So I did it…I drove 1 mile to a neighbors house and bought this very special cabinet.  It’s  a pie safe.  Do I bake…heck no…I barely know where my kitchen is.  What I saw in the pie safe was potential.   I had a little nook right next to my fireplace in our den where I thought it should live.  What I decided to do with this cabinet some would think is strange.  I decided to store the family games inside.  Inside this cabinet are our board games, card games, puzzles, lacing cards, blocks and  memory games.

I went to Target this week and they had lots of  storage bins on super clearance.  I couldn’t resist and decided to make a little investment on making my pie safe even more functional than it had been.   I recycled all the boxes that were broken and damaged and not functioning well.   The next step is to label all the bins so that the kids can easily find what they are looking for.

Voila…the game closet.  Top shelf has games that are too old for my kids, and board games that I prefer they play with when the toddler is not around.  Second shelf has card games in the basket and then some puzzles and games that are just for the two bigs.  Third shelf is free for all…toddler friendly and big kid friendly.  The bottom shelf are the puzzles.  Technically toddler friendly but she doesn’t really know how to do them alone.

Do you have a game closet or shelf?  Have you done something like this with your own games?