Geek Interior Decorating 101

For quite some time, my wife and I have been confounded by our inability (or rather our sons' inability) to keep our sons' (cough...and my...cough) Nerf gun arsenal in order.  Their friends come over regularly and race through the house, firing foam darts at one another.  While we completely expect the darts to pop up unexpectedly under chairs, on bookcase shelves and in the bathtub, the guns themselves have posed the biggest problem.


Needless to say, I have been overcompensating on behalf of my sons.  Sure, I yell at them to put the guns away, but I have been more than prepared to gather them all up on my own in order to prevent my wife from getting too frustrated by the mess they leave, lest she become less tolerant of my occasional participation in the Nerf battles.


Last weekend, my wife picked up a gun herself and got in on the rapid-fire fun.   She had always appreciated how much my sons and I enjoy playing with their Nerf guns, but her respect for the absolute awesomeness of the toy increased exponentially.  (Furthermore, I discovered that she corrects her aiming pretty quickly and is quite adept at hitting a moving target.  I love her more each day.)


Completely immersed in the world of Nerf, my wife became more eager than ever to give the foam firing weaponry a place of its own in our home.  She did not only wish to keep the guns organized.  She wanted them to be on display.


Suddenly, a large wall in our basement, the wall one would face immediately upon descending our stairs, was dedicated to the display of Nerf guns.  My boys and I were elated.  We hopped in the car and immediately drove to gather supplies.


When my wife suggested we stop off at the Ace Hardware closer to our home, I said emphatically, "No!"  I love Ace and prefer the smaller, customer service based stores to the big box giants, but on this occasion, I knew that what we were looking for would be found at Home Depot.  I didn't want to take the slightest chance that the inability to find the exact product we were looking for in the massive quantity we were looking for would allow my wife to rethink what she had just agreed to do.  She was willing to commit a wall in a large common room of our home to display Nerf guns.  I could not give her the opportunity to change her mind.


The project started immediately.  With a few holes already drilled in the wall, the point of no return had officially been breached and I could now take my time to complete it.  Behold the epic results below:

Mind you, this does not include the handguns that are hung on the wall of the stairway leading to the basement, the placement of which did not allow for a decent picture.


I used to bring friends down into my basement to show off my television.  It was a bastion of sports and video gaming.  Now, I cannot seem to take my eyes off of the colorful plastic display that is our Nerf arsenal.


The project is simpler and less expensive (not including cost of the Nerf products) than one would imagine and I would be happy to discuss its completion with anyone hoping to do something similar in their own homes.  But for now, let us just behold the splendor.


Ahhhhh...breathtaking.