The eternal struggle with space - Part 2

In my original post on this topic, I was pondering different ways that I could create some additional display space in my media room (or Man Cave, as the wife calls it). It's been several weeks and I've managed to get some work done to help improve my situation, so I thought I would give you a little glimpse of how things are moving along.

As planned, I condensed our CD and DVD collection a little. I either boxed up stuff I want to keep or banished unwanted media to the cabinet where I store the books/CDs/DVDs I sell on half.com. Being a life long collector has taught me that I sometimes just need to let go of items. I have adjusted to this reality because when I sell an item it usually means I'm going to buy something else.

This shuffle of items helped free up enough space to get a few 18 inch shelves along one wall. As you can see, this space is largely populated with some of the newer sets I have picked up in the last few months. The shelves only have an eight inch depth, so nothing really big can go here. Still, I think it does a fairly good job of affording me some additional room for a regularly rotating cast of the sets that do not take up very much space.

My bigger goal with this project was to have a solid and large row of space where I can set up my modular buildings. On my larger empty wall, I installed two four foot shelves next to each other. Each has a depth of 12 inches, which is perfect for the modulars and gives a little buffer of space in the front. It's not enough to set up a street scene, but at least I no longer have to worry about them hanging out into open air.

Between existing shelves and a glass display case I already had in the room, this now gives me about 35 feet of combined shelf space in the room for displaying sets. This should be more than ample to keep a regular rotation going. That is, as long as I don't go too crazy on building this winter. That's is a real concern, given the fact that I live in Wisconsin and it does tend to get a little cold here during the next several months and building in the basement should keep me fairly warm.

My next goal is to get my storage system more organized. My storage room is a bit of a mess still and I don't really have much organization yet for the collection of parts I use to free build. I'm looking at a few options right now, although I was fairly impressed with what a member of our LUG has managed to do with plastic tackle boxes. Those, combined with a system of plastic drawers, should help me get a better handle on my parts inventory and allow me to quickly find what I need when working on a project.