Pause for the Cause

Its been a hard slog and I'm not done yet but I have broken the back of rearranging my room and have decided to pause for a much needed game.

House cleaning at Fort MacDuff. 

For the last month I have been contemplating the congestion and various possible solutions but in the end I could see no useful option that did not involve taking down the sorting and packing station that I had set up last year when I had a need to earn a few dollars by selling off some figures. That has passed but I've been dragging my heels because it was a lot of work to set up and I anticipated it being nearly as much to take it down and disperse it.

There were three main goals:

1. Reduce congestion when moving around the room and make room to have more than 1 guest over for gaming.  
2. Make room for a bigger table for special occasion
3. Get the table away from the window to make it easier to take pictures on bright days, esp as the sun is going down. 

Reducing the clutter would also be good but that's phase 2.

Looking North

As luck would have it my sister phoned a few weeks ago to ask if I wanted Mom's old kitchen table, our grandmother's before her I believe. It is a grand old round table with lion's feet dating back to around the turn of the 20th Century. This was more than a decade before my maternal grandparents left England so it probably came with the old farmhouse they ended up with in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. (about 40 km from the Fenian Raid "battle" of Eccles Hill. )  Well, the table I grew up eating at is now lodged in the kitchen of our old farmhouse and the table I bought for my first apartment in 1977 is now ensconced in my game room.

While the table would be, and has been in decades past,  suitable on its own for a small game, especially in 15mm or smaller, its not big enough for a standard game with big figures. However, with a protective cloth it is big enough to set a wargame table top on.  In the pictures I have used my current top now removed from its legs. I have experimented and it can be set up either way (esp once I finish moving the last bits like the filing cabinet with CD player on it). This means that on special occasions I could set up a 5x8 again. I don't expect to but do plan to set myself up with an 8x4 for special occasions leaving the 4x5 for ordinary days. There is room behind the long bookcase to stash the gaming top. Take the leaves out and the small round table slides easily on the floor and leaves ample room for a cot should I have overnight company willing to rough it in the midst of armies.

Looking South.
(goodness only been 8 years since I painted the floor and it already needs doing again)

The two main immediate chores that remain are sorting a few odds  and ends of furniture and finding somewhere to tuck all the stray figures, scenery, and various bits and bobs,  Later will come redecorating, paint, pictures etc.

But first, a game, tomorrow afternoon I hope.