The Backgammon Hearth: Backgammon Wonders of the World: The Backgammon Wall

Once upon a time, well ok, in August of 2008, I was cleaning my house with Alex. There were many others cleaning, too, it was a big house with lots of messes, but at the time Alex and I were alone in a room cleaning. Well, taking a break from cleaning. Ok, here's what I remember for sure: we were sitting on a couch in a room full of things ready to be taken to Goodwill. We had also just moved a large stadium seating apparatus out of that room and taken down a movie screen. We now had a room full of crap and an ugly blank unused wall.

"Geez, look around, this room is full of crap and that wall is ugly!" Alex got up and picked up a few spare backgammon boards from the stack. I remember seeing him walk toward the wall and holding the boards up to the wall, but I don't remember if he said anything. At that moment, my brain was exploding. At that moment, the Backgammon Wall was born.

Clearly, what this ugly blank unused wall needed was a beautiful, colorful, and playable backgammon mural! Alex was moving to Colorado in one week, so along with Annissa, Hanna, Kasey, and Brendan, we got to work immediately, sketching a scale plan and brainstorming colors. After considering literally every option in the rainbow, including the rainbow itself!, we bought paint for black and grey points on a red board.

What a busy week! That was also my first week back at work after summer break, and every day I'd come home to a full slate of of stencils, tape, rollers, brushes, trays, and trips to the hardware store. Like I said, Alex was moving in one week, so we worked late into the night every night to finish. We took our time, though; it was not a rush job. We all loved backgammon, and we saw the glory of this wall from the get go. Quality was the watchword. Alex and I got in at least one protracted fight during the painting process, I'm not sure why, but I think it was about arguing over painting methods.

To play on the board, we put 144 thumb tacks in the wall and painted 30 paper plates to hang on them as the playing pieces. Later another roommate made two giant dice out of cardboard boxes, and I made a giant doubling cube. Once it was finished, it was gorgeous and fully functional!