The Big Board's New Home

I've been away from the blog for quite a while.  Couple of reasons for that.  First my computer started dying and for some weird reason it took weeks to get it replaced, something that should have only taken a day or two.  While that stupid saga was being thrashed out, great events were on the move.  The Mouse family is growing and Mrs. Mouse's mother is moving in with us for a time which means less space in the house for me and my stuff.  Up until now The Big Board has inhabited our attic.  I'm giving the room which used to be my library to my son.  There was just no way the attic could accommodate the contents of the library and all my game stuff.  Some sort of drastic action was called for.

There is an old garage on our property which we use to store just about everything other than cars, and above that sits an old apartment, built, I believe, in the 1940s.  Over the last couple of decades or so it had fallen into disuse and had been over-run by bugs and other godawful things, but I could think of no better place in which to establish a new stronghold.  So, armed with several hundred gallons of pine sol, spackle and carpet shampoo I waded into the mess and, over several  weeks, got it cleaned up and somewhat sorted out.  It's still a work in progress, obviously, but I'm actually pretty pleased about the way the little place is shaping up.  Anyway, that's where most of my hobby time has been invested over the last couple of months.

The Big Board, shown here scaled down considerably to fit my new Deep Cuts Studio mats.  (More on them later.)  Nice little floor to ceiling book shelf by the window holds most of my board games, mini rulebooks and my entire collection of Osprey books so that's nice.

Ginormous, cavernous f*%$ing closet actually holds all my painted figures AND...

 ...all my terrain!  It's like it was meant to be.  I worked for it, though.  More sweat and elbow grease went into cleaning this closet than every other room in the place put together.  There was so much dust and junk and so many long deceased vermin in here that it felt like I was schlepping out the Augean stables at times, but it was worth it.

Mrs. Mouse says I should get a decent table for The Big Board to sit on.  She's probably right, but the fact is that the Big Board has been resting on those milk crates ever since my friends The Troll, The Ratboy and I stole them from the college cafeteria for this very purpose, and that was a very long time ago.   The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that I really should get a proper table, but it's hard to let go of tradition.
The Troll, by the way, donated the ginormous tv. Can't play a game without old favorites like Predator, Ran, A Bridge too Far and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean going in the background. Still a tremendous amount of work to do on the place.  The library is going to be on the other side of that white door, and the bathroom needs a hell of a lot of work, but it's coming along.  So anyway, this is what I've been up to for the last couple of months.  I need to come up with a name for the place.  So far I'm torn betwixt Festung Maus and The Jersey Lily.