Board game storage: shelves that fit the boxes

Many medium-sized board games come in a square box about 300 mm across and 80 mm thick. Standing upright, they need a shelf 300 mm deep, with shelves 400 mm apart between bookends.

This guide to board game storage covers the sizes to plan around, whether to stand boxes up or lay them flat, and when a cupboard or a drawer does the job better than an open shelf.

How should I store board games on shelves?

Store the square boxes upright, like books, on shelves deep enough that they don’t overhang. Keep the big, heavy boxes flat at the bottom, and put card games and small boxes in a drawer or a basket.

Upright storage lets you read every spine and pull out one game without lifting the rest. Bag or tray the pieces first, because they can slide when a box stands on end.

Lay a box flat only when it is too big to stand, or when its pieces would spill. Keep flat stacks to three or four boxes, so the bottom game is easy to reach.

Measure before you plan board game storage

Box sizes vary more than book sizes, so look at three groups in your collection.

Ticket to Ride’s box is 300 mm by 300 mm by 80 mm, and its popularity helped make that a common size for medium games. Some games come in bigger boxes than the standard square, and those decide the deepest shelf you need. Card games and travel editions get lost on a deep shelf, so a drawer or a box keeps them together.

Write down three numbers: the widest box face, the tallest box when it stands up, and the total thickness of the boxes you want on each shelf.

How deep should shelves be for board games?

Shelves for board games should be at least as deep as the box: 300 mm for the common square boxes, and deeper for the larger ones. A shallower shelf leaves the box hanging over the front edge.

Our shelves come in three depths:

• 220 mm, our standard shelf, suits books. A 300 mm box overhangs it by 80 mm.
• 300 mm fits the common square boxes. We make it on arms or between bookends.
• 360 mm, between bookends only, takes larger boxes and leaves room at the front.

How far apart should shelves be for board games?

Measure the tallest box as it will sit on the shelf, add 18 mm for the shelf board above, and round up to the next 100 mm. Our shelves hang on steel pins every 100 mm, so the gap between them changes in 100 mm steps.

• Square boxes standing upright are about 300 mm tall, so set the shelves 400 mm apart. That leaves 382 mm clear.
• A flat stack of three 80 mm boxes is 240 mm high. Add the 18 mm board and round up, and the shelves go 300 mm apart, with 282 mm clear.

Those gaps are for bookended shelves, which keep the whole gap. On a shelf on arms, the arms hang about 80 mm below each end, so the space under it is about 80 mm less at the ends.

How many games fit between bookends

Bookends at each end of a shelf stop a row of upright boxes tipping sideways when you take one out. On our bookended shelves, the board is 64 mm narrower than the bay, so in a 600 mm bay it is 536 mm wide. Six 80 mm boxes take 480 mm of that, with room to slide one out.

Doors, drawers, or open shelves?

Open shelves put the collection on show and make every game easy to reach. Doors keep dust off the games you play less often. Our two-door cupboard is 360 mm deep, enough for standard square boxes to stand upright inside.

A deep drawer suits the boxes that never sit neatly on a shelf. Our one-drawer cabinet’s front runs the full 395 mm height of the cabinet, so it takes board games laid flat. For smaller things, such as card games and dice, the two-drawer cabinet splits the same cabinet into two drawers.

Is a full games shelf too heavy for the wall?

It can be. We do not give a single kilogram rating for our shelves: safe loading depends on the wall, the fixings, the installation, the bay width, and how the weight is spread.

Our planning guide rates solid masonry for heavy loading, and stud and dot-and-dab walls for light to medium loading. Lath and plaster walls are not suitable for our shelving.

We check your wall type with you before we send the fixings. If you are unsure what it is made of, check before you drill, and ask a professional if it is still unclear.

Treat a shelf full of games as heavy loading. Keep those bays no wider than 600 mm and spread the boxes evenly along the shelf.

Board game shelves that grow with the collection

Units with fixed square compartments suit square boxes, until a box arrives that is too big for the opening. On our rails, a shelf moves up or down in 100 mm steps when a taller box arrives, and you can add another bay when the shelves fill up. A shelf keeps the depth we make it in, so a deeper box needs a new, deeper shelf.

On Mestra shelving, each bay can be any width from 500 mm to 800 mm, set when you order. For a games wall, we’d start with two bays no wider than 600 mm, with 300 mm shelves between bookends, 400 mm apart, and a cupboard at the base for the games that only come out at Christmas.

If you would rather hide the big boxes, the one-drawer layout puts a deep drawer at the base instead. Both layouts come with 220 mm shelves on arms, so change them to 300 mm bookended shelves in the configurator before you order.

Our bookcases page covers shelf depths and bookends in more detail, and adjustable shelves explains what moves later and what stays fixed.

Next step

Plan the shelf depths and spacing for your own collection in the configurator.

Frequently asked questions

What size are board game boxes?

Many medium-sized games use a square box about 300 mm across and 80 mm thick, the size of Ticket to Ride’s box. Big campaign games can be larger, and card games much smaller, so measure your own collection.

Can board games go in a cupboard?

Yes, if the cupboard is deep enough. Our two-door cupboard is 360 mm deep, so standard square boxes about 300 mm across stand upright inside it.

Sources

• Ticket to Ride (board game), Wikipedia: box size of 300 mm by 300 mm by 80 mm, and the game’s popularity helping to make that a common size for medium games. Read 12 October 2026.
• Mestra shelving planning guide: shelf spacing rule, 18 mm board, wall types and loading.
• Mestra layout pages for the cupboard and the one drawer: cupboard depth and board games, drawer front height.