You’ve got your cornhole boards finally and you’ve just used them at your first party. It was glorious. Everyone complimented you on how nice they are and how fun it was to play. The cool guy from the office was on your team and you guys won a bunch of games together. Probably shared your first high five, and you made that super clever joke about how Bill throws the bags, and the cool guy laughed. Couple ladies checked you guys out, too. Melissa gave you flirty eyes and winked at you. You think. I mean, it could have been a wink, but it was pretty windy outside so I suppose it could have just been that….but no, she’s definitely into you. Go for it man!
Anyway, it was a great day, all thanks to cornhole.
So now that you’re done, how do you take care of your boards so they can keep helping you pick up chicks and start bromances for years to come? There are a few things to keep in mind.
1 - Your wooden cornhole boards do not like water.
It’s always a good idea to take a towel and wipe down all surfaces of the boards when you’re done playing. Some people might spill drinks on them, or the grass might be wet, or the bags get a little damp, or it tried to rain on you. Whatever it is, dry them off. Water is no bueno and you certainly don’t want to put the boards away with water on them.It should be mentioned, too, that you want to keep them in a dry place. If they don’t like having water ON them, they certainly don’t like sitting IN water. So if you have a garage that gets wet because of snow or rain or whatever, don’t store them there. If your basement floods often maybe you should just move somewhere else, but definitely don’t store your boards down in the flooded basement. You get the idea.
2 - No direct sunlight please
Of course your boards will see the sun and get some much needed Vitamin D while you’re playing outside, but they shouldn’t stay outside all the time. Partly because of Number 1 (no water, and outside is where the water is), but also because you don’t want your boards to STAY in the sun when you’re not using them.Bring them inside when you’re done and keep them in a darker place. It doesn’t have to be a Harry Potter hidey hole under the stairs or anything, although that would definitely work, but anywhere out of the way where they won’t be sitting in sunlight all the time would be a good option. Long exposure to sunlight can damage the boards and any designs you may have on the board, over time. It may not be immediate, but a quality set of boards can last a LONG time. So maybe two years down the road they still look great, but 10 years later they may be looking a little more like folks at their 10 years high school reunion (which for most of us means “not as good”).
3 - Store them flat, and no stacking!
So this can be interpreted a number of ways, really. What’s a good way to reference this? Think of the orientation of a document on your computer screen. You can store your boards standing up tall, like “portrait” mode, or on their side like “landscape” mode. You could also store them flying flat, like when you’re playing with them, but then you might be tempted to put a bunch of other stuff on top them and that’s no good.Basically you don’t want anything to potentially warp the boards over time. That means no stacking all garage or basement crap on them - they’re not a table. Don’t have them bridging a gap between two piles of hoarded stuff you haven’t thrown away yet. I don’t know how you’d store them in a way that twists them, but if you can figure that out, don’t do that.
Stick to the two main options. Stand ‘em up tall, or on their sides.
4 - Get a case!
Easiest thing to do is a get cornhole carry bag. It protects them from water during storage, it keeps them dark like the vampires they are, away from sunlight. Things won’t scratch them or damage your designs because they’re wearing clothes now! And storage cases often have handles so they can be–you guessed it!--carry cases too! This can be especially great if your boards don’t have carry handles built in to the sides (although you can always carry them by the hole).
So those are the four main points to storing your cornhole boards.
1 - Stay dry
2 - Stay dark
3 - Stay level
4 - Get a case
Now go call that nice lady who maybe winked at you earlier and stop reading about cornhole board storage. Priorities man! For more information, check out our page on Cornhole Care.