questions on STORAGE (comics/toys/records/videos-dvds/etc.etc...

[Jorge Galvan]

Hi everyone. I wanted to get your experiences-opinions on storage. I currently live in a very small studio and I rent out a 10x20 storage unit to store everything else.

And I do mean everything. Comics, toys, guitars, amps, albums, dvds, cds, magazines, books, videotapes. you name it. Any suggestions on storage in regards to using space more beneficially? I would love to see how you guys have tackled this problem.


Thanks Everyone.

[alex]

Another 8 posts and you'll get into the members toy rooms

[Marvelmania]

Never ever stack your records flat on the ground. Always store them upright, Comics and magazines need to be stored in comic and magazine boxes, bagged and boarded (good non acid bags and acid free boards). The storage boxes should be (IMHO) corrugated plastic that are water proof, rat proof and free from all other such critters. Also avoid bright lights, sunshine and especially florescent lights as they tend to do some serious fading.

[sprytel]

Never ever stack your records flat on the ground. Always store them upright, Comics and magazines need to be stored in comic and magazine boxes, bagged and boarded (good non acid bags and acid free boards). The storage boxes should be (IMHO) corrugated plastic that are water proof, rat proof and free from all other such critters. Also avoid bright lights, sunshine and especially florescent lights as they tend to do some serious fading.

All good advice... but the idea of these treasures hermetically sealed away in a pitch dark room kind of takes the fun out of it. I have gone the other way recently, and started to realize that if I don't have the interest or the space to have it out there to appreciate and interact with, then maybe I should part with it. It may hurt their collectible value a little having them out like that, but these things aren't mutual funds...

[Hedji]

My favorite media storage racks are these. They are not cheap, but they come in all sizes, and can be adjusted for CDs, DVDs, and or Blu Ray.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001KW0BHY...ELIEXWM6&psc=1

[Jorge Galvan]

Never ever stack your records flat on the ground. Always store them upright, Comics and magazines need to be stored in comic and magazine boxes, bagged and boarded (good non acid bags and acid free boards). The storage boxes should be (IMHO) corrugated plastic that are water proof, rat proof and free from all other such critters. Also avoid bright lights, sunshine and especially florescent lights as they tend to do some serious fading.

Hey Marvel! I do have my lp's upward and not flat, and yes, all my comics are in comic boxes. The silver age ones bagged. the rest unbagged. I actually keep my Golden age ones at my gaff!

[Nostalgiabuff]

I long ago did away with the jewel cases on cds and keep all the dics in CD albums. takes up way less space that way. I have upwards of around 1000 cd's so you can imagine how much room that was taking up. if you have your stuff in a storage unit, I hope it is climate controlled. extreme heat and/or cold is not good for stuff

[Mikey]

Go through your stuff and get rid of everything you KNOW you don't want but feel you HAVE to keep it .... That'll save you a TON of space.

[SKotK]

Having reached supersaturation point in terms of storage and then gone well beyond it, the question of what to do about storage has become very relevant for me lately.

A year ago, I moved into new apartment with a little more square footage than my previous condo had, so I had high hopes that I might be able to empty out my old (and now far too expensive) 10x20 storage rental space and relocate it to my new place. I had one big room that I would be using solely as my archive room, and I filled it with 7 large rack shelves and came up with a very nicely organized system for storing everything. Unfortunately, there was way more stuff than I anticipated and way less new space than I'd hoped. So I wound up most of last year with my new apartment completely clogged by boxes that didn't fit on my shelves, which effectively negated my entire new storage system and cause a lot of things that should have been well-organized to get lost in the mess.

So now I've got a new storage unit that's big but much more cost-effective. I bought more shelves to put in there, and started moving my "deep storage" things in there. It's going to take me a while to reorganize and re-sort everything that's been scattered around in random boxes and tubs for the past year (LEGO in particular takes a huge amount of time to organize), but I'm really looking forward to the end results. I can't wait to actually have OPEN SPACE in my house and be able to find everything once again!

The racks I have been using are awesome - they're these ones from Home Depot. Very lightweight, and they go up and come down in minutes, but are very tough and very sturdy and they hold a lot of weight.

In the living room I've got about 8 folding shelves I'm using temporarily for DVD/BD/VHS media, but I intend to replace them later with narrower and more appropriate media shelves. On the opposite side of the room I have 3 2x8 cube Kallax-style shelves from IKEA: 2 standing vertically, and 1 in the middle sitting horizontally that the TV sits on. Inside the cubes I've put most of my vinyl collection, which was previously stored for decades in banana crates(!). This method has its ups and downs: while it looks much better and fits nicely in the Kallax shelves, it's not extremely easy to read the spines of all the records to tell what I'm looking at...and import 12" records with thin spineless sleeves get completely lost. I have to have an extremely good method of organizing them to know what's what, since I can't just flip through the records anymore.

My CD collection is against another wall, and is currently stored on a mix-and-match group of shelves, none of which are very nice looking. These I hope to be able to transfer to better media shelves I intend to get later, so that they can join the DVD/BD/VHS collection.

At some point, I hope to rent or even own a house that's got at least one more good-sized room (and hopefully garage, attic, or basement as well) that can take the place of my storage unit, so everything can be easily accessible once again. That's the end goal.

--SKot

[Nostalgiabuff]

thosde storage shelving units are great skotk. I have a bunch of them in my garage and laundry room/pantry for household and food storage. inexpensive and as you said very easy to assemble and disassemble

[megoat]

Hmmm, I've always had a rule that if I can't access or see my stuff then I prolly have too much stuff. What fun is stuff if it's shoved in plastic tubs and locked away? But that's just me.

Unless living in a small space is just a temporary situation and you plan on moving to a much bigger space, I'd say get rid of stuff....

[J.B.]

All good advice... but the idea of these treasures hermetically sealed away in a pitch dark room kind of takes the fun out of it. I have gone the other way recently, and started to realize that if I don't have the interest or the space to have it out there to appreciate and interact with, then maybe I should part with it. It may hurt their collectible value a little having them out like that, but these things aren't mutual funds...

I feel the same way.

[SKotK]

Hmmm, I've always had a rule that if I can't access or see my stuff then I prolly have too much stuff. What fun is stuff if it's shoved in plastic tubs and locked away? But that's just me.

Unless living in a small space is just a temporary situation and you plan on moving to a much bigger space, I'd say get rid of stuff....

In one sense I agree with that; if you can't access it or even see it, and no one else can either, what's the point of owning it?

In my case, though, I tend to go through cycles of obsession. So I may return to one of my hobbies and be really obsessed by it again for weeks or months, and then after a while it cools down and I get really obsessed by one of my other hobbies again. And I only have room currently to obsess about one or two things at a time, at best. So by having it stored away, I can pull out the thing I'm currently obsessed with, go crazy with it for a while, and then return it to its storage place until the cycle comes around again. Sometimes it may be a year or two before I cycle back to a particular hobby again...maybe even longer. So the things I have that I am into more constantly stored in my house, and the things I only pull out every few months/years go into deep storage. In theory, it works pretty well.

Ideally though, I should have a big enough house to store and hopefully even display everything locally, eliminating the need to pay for (and have to access to) off-site deep storage. This is my plan for the future.

There is another thing I've done for a couple things I've collected that I have trouble storing, or just don't have the energy to deal with anymore: I've managed to find local businesses who were more than happy to take them on permanent loan to display in their store. For instance, I have a skateboard collection going back to the 60s that I've loaned a portion of to my local skate shop, and they've had that stuff on display since the 90s. This works great for me, since I still technically own it but don't have to store it...and on top of that, people get to actually see it every day, and that makes me happy. I also had a big collection of gourmet root beer/sarsaparilla from the 90s that I recently perma-loaned to my local Rocket Fizz soda shop, where the owner put it all out on display. What previously sat for decades sealed up in a box out of sight is now out where people can enjoy it, including myself whenever I drop in. It's great!

--SKot

[Jorge Galvan]

HEY Everyone, thanks for the advice. And yes, I have all the racks mentioned, and honestly, I can NOT discard any cds as I am NOT a "digital" person or into "downloads". I was hoping for more encouraging and practical advice, I need to find someway to once again rearrange everything in a way where I can walk in and move around freely. I have two racks of cds. one rack of dvds and will need to buy another one. I have toys some boxed, some out in open. I have about 6-8 guitars and two amp and cab combos and tonnes of comic and magazine boxers. Sadly this is everything I have probably ever collected. I don't foresee a time of moving into a new home any where near the future and I really don't want to give up anything. So I guess I am screwed.


Thanks again all.

[Mikey]

The guitars you can hang on the wall perhaps with modified gun racks