[ChairmanMilo]

Morning all.

When I was taking some snaps last night of new additions to my collection, I thought that it'd be interesting to ask around and see how everyone else stores their collections. We all have more tanks and/or planes than we can display (unless you live on your own with hundreds of square feet of extra space and a six-figure salary to buy dozens of expensive Ikea cabinets). A lot of it ends up under the bed, in the closet, in the attic/loft, and otherwise hidden away until the next rotation and/or yard sale, haha All the while we hope that our significant others, children and/or grandchildren get into our storage area and end up having a mountain of boxes falling on top of them. Or, if you're me, I hope that my Lauren doesn't open the closet and start counting. She's a smart lady, and I love her to pieces, but she really has no idea how big old Chris' air force has gotten over the last year or two.

Here's my closet - see! There's room for clothes, Lauren! The Rubbermaid totes on the right contain most of my Star Trek/Star Wars collection, including loads of books and toys. To the left of the clothes is a stack of Forces of Valor display bases in a laundry basic, books, magazines, and a healthy serving of diecast boxes sitting on top. The top of my closet - the closet is at least 10' tall - is completely full of diecast boxes. It's intricately organized so that I can rotate the collection without much fuss. The arrangement leaves me just enough room to fit 5 large Corgi boxes stacked in the middle. I keep my newly procured items on the floor or on top of the plastic totes:



A mini-stack of 3 x Corgi He 111 and 4 x Corgi B-25 boxes with a Forces of Valor B-26 on top of them all for good measure. This is stacked to the right of my desk next to the printer, which ends up being behind the open door to the office anyways, so it's out of sight. That B-26 was only out for a week before I tossed it back into its box. It requires quite a bit of cleaning until it's up to snuff for display again... it looked like a "Friday afternoon special":



The only diecast that snuck into the bedroom - right by my dresser in the corner. A Corgi B:17 and Corgi B-25 box with three Corgi Wellington boxes stacked on top. Yes, that is an old Mac computer underneath it all. And CLEAN laundry stacked on top as impromptu camouflage. Works, don't it?



Post pics of your stash! I know I'm not the worst in the forum for stuffing just one closet full of diecast!

[Epapazian]

I use three types of storage space for those models I don't display. The biggies, plus some that I intend to display or repaint, in the near future are on book shelves in my "painting room". A fairly large number that are waiting to be rotated into "almost ready for display" status, along with spares for potential repaints, are stored in several closets where I can get at them readily. And then, there's the "bin". In my case this is large boxes in the attic which are heavily stocked with IXO, Model Power, Atlas, etc. product, plus surplus Corgis I bought too many of, years back---before I adopted a more rational buying policy.

[leeG]

I have a library/study, or as my wife says, "cave." So far, I'm lucky enough to have the room to keep the entire collection on display.

I store the empty boxes in plastic 12 gallon storage containers. I also have quite a bit of storage space in the mechanical room which is insulated, although not directly heated, to stack the containers.

It won't be too long before I reach the tipping point on display area. When that occurs, some of the boxes in the containers won't be empty.

[hworth18]

Okay CM, I'll play...
Here are some pics of the hall pantry and walk-in closet where I also have about 1/2 of my model kit collection. Most of my diecast collection is kept in paper boxes kiped from work but I also have 6 huge rubbermaid bins in the garage filled.

[hworth18]

Here are a couple more of the utility room in the garage which needs to be reorganised badly..

[Gort]

To accommodate my growing collections, I had to move an avalanche of models to my cellar, where it’s a teeny bit moist. To keep the model boxes from growing moldy, I hit on the following idea:

• I packed my models in shipping boxes. I numbered each box.

• I listed the models per box and box numbers in a special computer file (for easy model access).

• I securely taped each box.

• I stuffed each shipping box into a large plastic trash bag.

• I cinched each bag with a plastic pull-strap tie (makes for an air-tight closure).

• I numbered each bag according to its box number (makes locating a particular box easy).

Now I don’t worry about moisture damage, I can locate my models on demand, and I have loads of room upstairs for more models.

[flyXwire]

Originally Posted by Gort

To accommodate my growing collections, I had to move an avalanche of models to my cellar, where it’s a teeny bit moist. To keep the model boxes from growing moldy, I hit on the following idea:

• I packed my models in shipping boxes. I numbered each box.

• I listed the models per box and box numbers in a special computer file (for easy model access).

• I securely taped each box.


Now I don’t worry about moisture damage, I can locate my models on demand, and I have loads of room upstairs for more models.

Wow, you and I have the same ideas - the 3 highlighted bullets is what I did with my stored collection. I've also added a list of the models stickered on top of the boxes to easily identify the
contents inside...I know it's 'overkill' but that's how I prefer it. Works for me!

[trex0770]

Funny you should ask this question! I just got finished moving around 50 FM boxes from my house to the storage unit 3 miles away! It's just starting to hit me that the collection has grown grossly out of control! The upstairs bedroom where I had these stored still looks like nothing was done and I spent the whole weekend packing/sorting/reorganizing/transporting the collection.

I too have to start implementing a more rational/sane buying policy! I wish someone would invent packaging that was convenient. Sorta like add water to expand for repacking and heat to shrink when your models are on display.....now that'd be worth a million bucks!!!!

[Gort]

I’ll tell ya, my biggest concern was warping. I couldn’t live with bowed, kinked, pimply boxes for nuttin’. Thus the trash-bag expedient.

I used black 2 mil. bags (got 'em at Wallymart), wrote numbers on them with a silver Sharpie, and stacked them downstairs. Believe me, knowing my model boxes won’t warp or succumb to fungus or mold or mildew or some hideous disease-producing microorganism makes my day.

[Tundra04]

Wow, talk about timing! I was thinking about this exact thing...seeing as how my wife and I will be moving into a new house in two weeks (buyers-market my A$$, but that's another topic.) I keep my boxes in Rubbermaid totes and up until now they have been inside. Once we move, the boxes and totes will probably go to the attic and I've been worried about how the boxes and plastic bubbles inside of the boxes will survive in the attic. Since we live in the deep South attics tend to feel like broilers, especially in the summer, and I'm curious as to if they will make it!