The Return of the Games Room: Why Affluent Homes Are Making Space for Play Again
From chess tables to backgammon sets — why the dedicated games space is back, and what belongs in it.
From chess tables to backgammon sets — why the dedicated games space is back, and what belongs in it.
There is a room that keeps appearing in the conversations we have with clients. It is not always called the same thing. Sometimes it is the study that has quietly acquired a chess table. Sometimes it is the snug that now holds a backgammon set of some seriousness. Sometimes it is a dedicated space — a lower ground floor room, a garden building, an outbuilding converted with intention — that has been given over entirely to the particular pleasure of sitting down, facing someone across a board, and playing properly.
The games room is back. Not as a nostalgic affectation. Not as a nod to the country house aesthetic of a previous century. As a genuine expression of how a certain kind of home is being used, and what the people who live in it have decided they actually want.
This article is about that shift — why it is happening, what these spaces look like when they are done well, and what belongs in them.
Why now
The honest answer involves several things arriving at the same moment.
The pandemic reconfigured how people relate to their homes in ways that have proven surprisingly durable. Homes that were previously way stations — places to sleep between work and social life — became the primary site of almost everything. People invested in them differently. They thought about what each room was actually for, and in many cases concluded that the answer was unsatisfying. A dining room used four times a year. A study that functioned only as a background for video calls. Space that existed without purpose.
The response, for those with the means to act on it, was a wave of considered renovation that prioritised how a home felt to live in rather than how it would photograph for a sale. Rooms acquired function. Spaces were given permission to be specific.
The games room — or the games corner, the games table, the dedicated leisure space in whatever form the house allowed — is one of the clearest expressions of this shift. It is a room that exists entirely for the pleasure of the people in it. It does not perform for visitors in the way a kitchen or a drawing room does. It simply offers the particular satisfaction of a space designed for play, conversation, and the kind of unhurried time that most people have too little of.
There is also a broader cultural current running underneath this. The revival of physical games — chess, backgammon, poker, dominoes — among younger affluent audiences has been building steadily for several years. Games cafés have proliferated in London and other major cities. Chess clubs have seen membership growth not seen since the 1970s. Backgammon has acquired a following among a generation that was not raised on it. The screen, for all its dominance, has not killed the board game. If anything, it has made the tactile, face-to-face quality of physical play feel more valuable by contrast.
What the space actually is
The games room of the popular imagination — snooker table, dartboard, beer on tap, carpet the colour of a betting shop — is not what we are talking about.
The spaces that interest us, and that our clients are creating, are something quieter and considerably more considered. They share certain qualities regardless of size or setting.
They are calm. The palette tends toward the dark and enveloping — deep greens, rich charcoals, warm walnut and oak. These are rooms designed to feel removed from the rest of the house, to carry a sense of occasion without formality. You enter and your shoulders drop slightly. The outside world becomes less insistent.
They are deliberate. Every object in the room earns its place. There is no spare furniture, no stack of magazines, no items that drifted in from elsewhere and were never moved. A well-designed games space is curated in the way that a good library is curated — not obsessively, but with clear intention about what belongs and what does not.
They are comfortable. Good chairs. Proper lighting — ambient enough for atmosphere, direct enough for a board. A surface at the right height for the game being played. The physical experience of being in the room is part of the point. Discomfort is the enemy of good play and good conversation in equal measure.
They are personal. The best games rooms reflect the tastes and interests of the people who use them — the games they actually play, the aesthetic that speaks to them, the pieces they have chosen rather than inherited or acquired by default. A games room that could belong to anyone belongs to no one. The specific and the personal are what make a space worth spending time in.
The games that define the space
Not every game suits every room, and not every room needs every game. The spaces that work best are built around a considered selection rather than a comprehensive inventory.
Chess is the natural anchor of the serious games room. It requires no introduction and no justification — it is the game of patience, strategy, and long evenings in good company, and it has been so for a thousand years. What it requires, to be done properly, is a board and pieces that are worthy of it. A mass-produced chess set placed on a beautiful table creates a dissonance that undermines both. The board — its material, its proportion, its weight and finish — should match the seriousness with which the game is taken.
Backgammon has made a remarkably strong return. Faster than chess and considerably more social, it is the game of choice for those who want competition and conversation in roughly equal measure. A beautiful backgammon board — leather, wood, resin — is also one of the most visually striking objects a games room can contain. Closed, it reads as a piece of design. Open, it announces itself immediately.
Poker and card games reward investment in the right table surface, the right chips, the right presentation. There is a significant difference between a poker game played on a kitchen table with a plastic set and the same game played with properly weighted chips, quality cards, and a surface designed for it. The experience of the game changes when the objects around it are serious.
Dominoes is underrated at the luxury level and almost entirely unclaimed by serious makers. A set of hand-finished resin dominoes, weighted and polished, stored in a fitted case — this is an object that most people have never seen made properly, and that rewards the attention considerably.
Draughts, Go, Nine Men's Morris — the older strategy games sit beautifully in a games room that takes its history seriously. They also occupy a different register from chess: less laden with competitive expectation, more relaxed, more accessible across generations.
The question is not which games to include but which games will actually be played. A beautiful board for a game nobody in the household enjoys is a decorative object, which is fine in itself — but a beautiful board for a game that gets used regularly is something considerably better.
The objects that make the difference
Beyond the games themselves, the objects that populate a games room determine whether the space feels assembled or designed.
The board itself — whether for chess, backgammon, or a multi-game surface — is the centrepiece of the room. It should be chosen with the same care as any other significant piece of furniture, because it functions as one. Material, proportion, finish: these are not secondary considerations. They are the primary ones.
Storage matters more than it is usually given credit for. Pieces in a fitted box, chips in a weighted tray, cards in a case that opens with some ceremony — these small acts of containment signal that the room and its contents are cared for. A chess set stored in its original box and placed on a beautiful board is a missed opportunity. The same set in a fitted case of leather and velvet becomes part of the aesthetic of the room.
Lighting is frequently the most underinvested element. Overhead lighting that flattens a room is the enemy of atmosphere. A games room benefits from layered light: something ambient that sets the mood of the space, something directed that illuminates the board without creating glare. Table lamps, wall sconces, a pendant positioned over the playing surface at the right height — these are worth thinking about properly.
Seating should be chosen for hours of use, not minutes. The games worth playing are the ones that take time. Chairs that become uncomfortable after forty minutes will quietly but reliably prevent the room from being used as intended.
A room worth commissioning for
We make game boards and leisure pieces for exactly these spaces — bespoke, unhurried, built to the specific dimensions and brief of the room they will live in.
A commission might begin with a chess board designed around a specific interior palette. Or a backgammon set sized for a particular table. Or a complete games room brief — several pieces developed together so that the space has visual coherence rather than the slightly mismatched quality of objects sourced from different places over different years.
Every commission begins the same way: a conversation about the space, the games, and what the finished pieces should feel like to use and to look at. If you are in the process of designing or redesigning a games room — or simply have a beautiful table that deserves a beautiful board to sit on — we would be glad to talk through what might be possible.
Kent & Vale is a bespoke British atelier creating handmade resin and wood objects from our workshop in Kent, England. The Games Room collection covers bespoke game boards and leisure pieces made for play, display, and inheritance.