Brandon is into movies and games. Like, really into them. His collection was huge when we first started dating thirteen or so years ago, and it has continued to grow each year since.
In our apartment way back when, we had four low Billy bookshelves with doors to house everything.
The doors limited the shelving placement inside, but they looked nice and we still had enough room for everything.
In the last house, we had three 6-drawer Hopen dressers lined up in Brandon’s office. We bolted them together to keep them aligned, then built them into the room by removing a portion of the base shoe and attaching them in back to a 2×4 that was secured to the studs. So yeah, those conveyed with that house.
How I long to have everything put away in this new home! We would be so much more settled here, if it weren’t for the boxes upon boxes of books, movies, music, and games. The books get a pass, because we’re planning to add built-in shelves to the house and don’t want to buy temporary bookshelves that we won’t need for more than a few months. The rest of the media though? Time to get on that.
I liked using dressers because it condensed everything into a smaller footprint, but Brandon prefers shelves. It would have been great to be able to fit all of his media in the same room as the TV (a room on the second floor, off of our bedroom), but there wasn’t a good way to add as many bookshelves to the space as we’d need. Three doorways, two windows, and a large radiator took up a lot of the layout, and the one long, blank wall was best suited to the TV itself. There’s a room on the third floor that works well though, in the finished attic. It’s an awkward space, but three low Billy bookshelves lined up along a low wall utilized one half well, and there was just enough room for two tall bookcases next to the door.
I bought and assembled the shelves, but the organization has to be left to Brandon. (I think I must have enough movies to fill about two shelves, but I’d be fine with keeping my top 5 or so and getting rid of the rest.) I’d love to get this little room looking great, and I think there may be space for a desk and a comfy chair in there, but that will have to wait until it’s free of boxes.
Getting organized after a move is super fun, amIright!?
Charity
January 15, 2014 at 11:36 amWhatever you do will look great. It always does. Putting a house together can be so frustrating. It’s like opening a can of worms with all the stuff that suddenly has to be changed. Right?!
merlin513
January 15, 2014 at 11:43 amI feel your pain. I’ve got 2 old buffets and a 5 ft tall bookcase full of videos and still overflowing…not even going to mention how many books i’ve got, but, they’ve taken over the house AND the garage! :D
Making it Lovely
January 16, 2014 at 9:51 amThey take over really easily! It’s nuts.
Lauren
January 15, 2014 at 11:46 amI took everything out of their boxes, and put them into CD binders so that they could be easily stashed out of sight. I put them in alphabetical order and then left a minimum of 10 slots between each letter so that the collection could be added to.
It has been a lifesaver!
Trish
January 15, 2014 at 12:20 pmI did the same thing! Well, something less organized — everything is in nice binders from Muji, but in no particular order. I stopped buying DVDs a while ago, but it’s nice to have the ones I so own taking up much less space than they would in their boxes.
Wilma
January 16, 2014 at 9:04 amI did the same. It takes up way less space and looks great. But I know that true movie buffs may not like getting rid of their cases. I, on the other hand, didn’t really care :)
Making it Lovely
January 16, 2014 at 9:53 amI like the idea of cases, or sleeves like we put our CDs in. They take up so much less room.
Kelly
January 17, 2014 at 3:35 amI did basically the same about a year ago. I bought plastic sleeves and storage boxes. I love it! So much less clutter.
Sarah
January 15, 2014 at 11:48 amI know the feeling! My husband also has loads of DVD’s (he’s a film buff, as he writes music for film and TV)… But I don’t like the look of DVD’s on open shelving (personal preference!). We’ve decided that we’re going to build built-in bookcases for our living room, but build doors for the bottom half of each bookcase, so the DVD’s can lurk behind there, and the books can then have pride of place on the open shelves above. In the meantime, the DVD’s are just higgledy-piggledy on two small bookcases, and it’s driving me nuts!
Marcee ... ILLINOIS
January 15, 2014 at 2:53 pmHaha. Cute.
Stacy
January 15, 2014 at 11:49 amHow cute was your old apartment?!
Amber
January 15, 2014 at 11:55 amWhat is it with men and DVD collections? My husband is the same way. He has things still in the plastic never watched after years but they “add to his perfect collection.” I put them in ikea storage boxes on the shelf as a compromise to still keep them in the living room but not have to look at them.
Marcee ... ILLINOIS
January 15, 2014 at 2:52 pmOhmygosh. Frustrating.
Heidi
January 15, 2014 at 12:01 pmWe were starting to accumulate quite the DVD collection and made the decision to store them in CD binders. My mother-in-law was NOT happy with that decision as she’s a huge film buff, but we just didn’t have room for them anymore.
http://jax-and-jewels.blogspot.com
jennski
January 15, 2014 at 12:04 pmI stopped buying dvd’s a looong time ago, I hate the clutter.
My husband buys used games and it only takes him a few days to finish them. He then returns them for something else. The negative is that he gets bloodshot eyes for a few days.
Clare
January 15, 2014 at 12:06 pmWe have so many CDs and books (thanks, husband) that I definitely feel your pain – and look forward to how you make a room filled with shelves look cute – I know you can do it! We are still relying on (way) old bookshelves from his first days in grad school in Boston, but I dream of one day getting gorgeous built-ins to house his insane collections. And he’s definitely in Brandon’s camp of keeping his CDs in their jewel cases, as opposed to transitioning to your fantastic drawer storage from the last house. Oh well – at least the toddler has picked up on the love of music and likes to play along with his “instruments”. Good luck unpacking!
Amanda
January 15, 2014 at 12:07 pmI can totally sympathize. We just finished our kitchen remodel and I hate to sound like I am complaining BUT, I had mastered the art of cramming as much of our stuff into our old, cramped kitchen so well that I am now suffering from major where-to-put-it-all-now syndrome. We have more storage space, but it bugs me that I have to devise an entirely new setup for it all. Organization (especially when it must be lovely) takes so much time!
Laura
January 15, 2014 at 12:53 pmAnother shout out for binders, at least for those lower on the favorite list. You keep all the art work and lose the plastic (Is he sentimental about plastic? We’re not talkin vintage vinyl here). The entire contents of one packed 48″ wide and 18″ deep drawer filled one binder with room for more. http://www.amazon.com/Case-Logic-KSW-320-Capacity-Prosleeves/dp/B00025HIO4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389811978&sr=8-2&keywords=cd+binder
Kris Mays
January 15, 2014 at 12:56 pmYou know what we did? We removed all of our movies from their cases, chucked the cases and put them into white DVD/CD envelopes in a box, labeled and separate by genre.
He probably won’t go for getting rid of his cases. But it is very freeing and saves SO MUCH SPACE.
Kate
January 15, 2014 at 1:14 pmI have the same problem with my husband. When we moved into our house, we made a special trip to IKEA to get some shelving for his extensive DVD collection. He also doesn’t want to remove them from their cases, and wanted to be able to see all of the spines of each case without stacking them two deep or having to turn them on their sides.
Our solution — we got two tall BESTA units from IKEA, bought some extra shelves to maximize the DVD storage space and got doors to cover them so I wouldn’t have to look at them. You can see our exposed CD collection is ordered by color (much to my husband’s dislike) and he was fine with having doors on the cabinets so that he could organize them as he wished.
Here is our “media wall” with one billy bookcase in center, two cd storage shelves on either side and the BESTA cabinets with doors for DVDs. I’m going to have to get another BESTA one of these days, as he has now outgrown the two cabinets! ARRRHRHRHRHRH!
http://retroranchrevamp.com/2012/08/19/house-tour-entryway-and-den/retropinkden2/
Here is a link to the BESTA cabinet we purchased, they have several configurations:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20253906/#/90221648
They are nice because they are just deep enough for DVDs and dont take up too much of the room.
Good luck with your organizational task at hand!
Bere
January 15, 2014 at 1:33 pmI have to say that i totally get it! My husband and i are movie freaks and we love our DVD collection… our wish is to have a house one day with a room just for entertaining purposes, with floor to ceiling shelves full of movies…
If i didn’t live in an entire different continent i would gladly apply myself as your personal dvd-in-alphabetical-order-organizing-person… ;-) but since it’s not happening als i can say is: hang on!
Kathie M
January 15, 2014 at 1:34 pmI have steadily been taking our dvds and converting them into electronic files. We have a mac mini (with a large external hard drive) hooked up to our tv and I just pull whatever we want to watch open via itunes. All of our dvds are stored downstairs in the basement in stackable bins.
Salena
January 15, 2014 at 2:14 pmI have mine in binders but I took out the movie covers and put them in separate binder & number which dvd binder it’s in!
Kelly
January 15, 2014 at 2:21 pmIt’s amazing how many new ‘systems’ are needed when moving to a new house (I’m always amazed at home many new trash cans I need to buy every time I move). My weakness is books and we’ve just started a renovation project that forced me to be very brutal with weeding them out. Some were given to a local used book store, some donated. DVDs are the next on organizing list. I’m debating between putting them in binders or sleeves. Any really strong opinions one way or the other for those who have taken that step?
LMN
January 15, 2014 at 2:42 pmyes you are correct! i seriously love this organizing stuff.
lmn
Marcee ... ILLINOIS
January 15, 2014 at 2:49 pmWow. So many DVD’s, etc. Thankfully, I do not collect those. There was a time I had maybe a dozen or so. Had to let them go because of all the room they were demanding. Also, if I see a film once or twice, that’s enough. For me, the big, giant, huge issue = cookbooks. For real I must begin unloading. Not sure how. Give them away. I still love looking, and reading them. To me most of these books are definitely art.
Mar
January 15, 2014 at 5:28 pmI notice that you have both DVD and blue-ray…does that mean two players or is there a machine now that can play both type of discs? And I keep all of my discs in the original cases…I almost had kittens when you redid your CD’s…the only thing that kept me following you was that you didn’t get rid of the liner notes!!! LOL!!!
ash
January 15, 2014 at 5:40 pmThe blu-ray players play regular dvds.
ash
January 15, 2014 at 5:39 pm…and then they came out with the xbox One…
I hate my husband’s movie & game collections and I could get rid of 95% of them and not look back. (If he wasn’t paying attention of course:)
They have to be put away, like in the dressers you had. That’s a lot of visual clutter for me personally.
Jodi
January 15, 2014 at 9:27 pmokay, that settles it. chris & i need to move to oak park so he & brandon can hang out and talk games & movies. ;)
Becca
January 16, 2014 at 4:10 amWowsa! Why not just put them into case logic files? Keep a spreadsheet with name, details and file location and you’re all set.
Janine
January 16, 2014 at 9:46 amAhhhh, I feel your pain. We just bought a house, and to sell our existing house we put our DVDs and books in storage and threw out our busted up old bookcases.
We need new book storage really, really badly in our new house.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t love the idea of lining basement walls with bookcases, because what if the foundation leaks? It would wreck your books, but it might also take a long time to spot the foundation leak if it happened behind a bookcase.
Kim // Yellow Brick Home
January 16, 2014 at 10:28 amI hear you!
We still have more than a few rooms that have unpacked boxes – boxes that have been taped shut since last June! But it seems silly to unpack them just to place things on temporary storage. We’d rather (try to) get it right on the first try, instead of spending money on something we’ll give up in a few months.
holly
January 16, 2014 at 11:25 amHi Nicole, I really like the wall color in your apartment. It complements the wood so nicely. Do you remember which color it is?
Alice
January 17, 2014 at 7:39 pmI hear you! My husband has LPs and CDs a plenty where we have to commit a room for him. I am still building shelving for the CDs but I finally have the LPs shelved. He is very particular about the organization (alphabetical and chronological). We have been here a year and after one more shelving unit I think he/we will be finally unpacked.
Rob
January 18, 2014 at 3:45 pmI so hear you my kids collections of dvds and video games are scattered around our house, I just want one organized place to put them all!
lara jane
January 29, 2014 at 1:35 pmThis is exactly why we ripped all of our DVDs and started downloaded anything new.
We’d previously moved our DVDs to super-slim cases (for films) and binders (for TV shows), and we had an awesome program for cataloging & rating everything and the cases were labeled & alphabetized in drawers. It was pretty rad. But it got to be too much, too overwhelming. We’d have to re-drawer things when we added too many new movies, and forget about binders… Sure, you can add pages, but you still have to shift everything if you want to be truly alphabetical! Ack! I am anal about few things, but this is one of them!
With everything on a hard drive, it’s like 6 or 7 terabytes at this point. We had to upgrade recently, because even digital media take up room. ;) But aaaaah… So organized. So neat.
Books, though… We have a lot of them digitized, but I will never ever get rid of my real books.
rhondajoy
February 24, 2014 at 2:17 pmI too, like the purple wall color in your apartment! I’m thinking of painting our bedroom and would love to know what color that is! Thanks for your time!