The Slippery Soapbox

[chefjoe]

Been ill again, haven't been able to get any covers done so thought I'd share Pics of some of my collection, hope you enjoy....

[chefjoe]

More, images resized now...

[chefjoe]

and more...

 Hope you like...

[ctaulbee]

Cool stuff Chef love the sports memorabilia too, hope you are feeling better buddy

[Fogdude]

Very cool! Thanks, Chef!

[bankska22]

Cool!!! How bout them Cubs!

[Wrench]

very cool

[VincentLupo]

Very nice collection Chef.

[chouette]

OMG Chef, this is an amazing collection! Love the Star Trek toys and was wondering what was in that box with the Beatles on it? Anyway, everything looks super nice. We pretty much have the same taste in movies and TV Series by the looks of it.

[2getted]

I'm curious as to what you've used for bookcases and if they are a known brand or something you've made or adapted yourself?

The reason I ask is that I need something larger but everything I've looked at has the shelves too deep, which means the cases sit too far back and leave too much wasted space. There's plenty of do-it-yourself storage options online you can build but I'd prefer something like what you have if it can be purchased and easily assembled.

The best sized shelving I've come across is Ikea's Gnedby unit. The problem with these is that they're only wide enough for about 11 single cases per shelf which works out at only 110 single cases per unit. So if you stack a few of them beside each other there's too much wasted space with the sides if you get what I mean.

Ten Ikea Gnedby units side by side.

[Fogdude]

I think you're going to have to resign yourself to making your own. It's really not difficult. I had to give up trying retail shelving & do my own as my collection grew beyond reason. I have an 8' tall, 8' wide shelving unit in my main room, covering the better part of one short wall. It's anchored to that wall. I used 6" x 8' x 1" birch planking. It's all tied together with nylon lattice stapled to the shelves on the back, for lateral strength. The 6" shelf depth is perfect for DVD/BD cases & the shelves are spaced to leave 1.5" above the cases on each shelf. Even with the lattice for stabilization, with the 8' span, it was necessary to insert vertical supports here & there, more or less randomly, or to separate groups, to keep the shelves from sagging. It worked out very well & only took a few hours to build, once I had all the measurements worked out. It only required a finish nailer ( you could do it old school, with a hammer, but I'm lazy), a heavy duty stapler, a saw & some construction glue, though it could be done without glue, if you're using ridged finish nails. I laid the whole thing out loose on the floor, face down, then simply went shelf by shelf, nailing them in place & then laying the lattice on it & stapling it. The hardest part was lifting the monster up & putting it against the wall. Then putting in angle brackets along the top to anchor it to the wall. A stud finder is helpful here, if you don't already know where the wall studs are.

It was great, right after I put it up & populated it. Then, as I started pulling cases to rewatch films, I found myself reverting to form, so right now, the shelves are slightly depopulated & I have several large boxes of DVD cases that need refiling (which will likely never happen during my lifetime).

I'd had plans to construct more shelves, but as the boxes in my office continued to collect cases that I was never going to bother putting back in place, I realized how foolish the whole effort had been & decided to decase many of my collection, put them in sleeves & file them in cheap plastic stacking drawer sets I bought at WalMart. That is now my primary storage method. But, that's what I get for accumulating too many DVDs.

[topmeasure]

Nice collection Chef, cool sports memorabilia.  

[chefjoe]

Thanks gang! Funny you'd ask about shelving,hejee Mine are all pieces of any old bookshelves picked up at walmart over the years, There's also 2 more bookcase full of old DVD media not shown. I've slowed somewhat in my collections, and try now for top o the crop so to speak.

[chouette]

I'm not sure about Amazon in Australia 2getted (or even if it exist in your part of the world), but their US and Canadian website have what you are looking for. I'm not sure about the quality or cost of shipping. Here in Canada, they are more expensive than US, so maybe look that way if you don't want to make them like Foggy did. Personally, I store my DVD movies like him in crates that I find easily at any Dollar Store or Walmart. If I wouldn't do this, I would not have enough room in the house to store them. I don't know for Foggy, but I normally make a printout on paper of labels that I find here or make my own, cut them, insert them inside my sleeves in front of my DVD's. I only do it for the looks if the DVD doesn't have a nice image. The only thing I store in these DVD Bookcases are my Blu-ray's and TV Series. And even that is starting to be quite overwhelming. I never had any problems finding the correct size of bookcases for DVD/Blu-ray. But then again, I don't know about where you live, it might be more difficult. Good luck.

[2getted]

I have the same problem, way too many DVDs. So for my DVDs I've also put them all in large storage cases, given away or thrown out the Amaray cases and stored the covers separately. Much easier to sort them by year, title, & genre that way. But for UHD and normal Blu-Rays I would rather store them on shelves and in their cases so I can readily see and display what I've got. They're just too expensive to be out of sight and I only get what I really want and like anyway in this format. Unlike DVDs which are so cheap that I seem to "collect" most everything.
As for the shelving, it's the small shelf depth that's hard to find.   mentioned using 10" but for me that is too deep (phrasing) and leaves too much wasted space in front of the cases. Ideally I want something 140mm to 155mm (around 6") deep. That way there's no wasted space in front of the cases and less space to collect dust. Just like the first couple of pics Chef attached in the first two posts. The only problem with those bookcases that I can see is that they're not high enough - looks like only a maximum of six shelves in each. They also look like they have a larger base for stability so stacking them on top of each other wouldn't work. All other bookshelves I have seen around have shelves that are just far too deep.
I think   is right in that I might have to build something myself. I've seen an Ikea hack where shelves have been built between two Gnedby units, so I might try that out as shown.

Gnedby hack option 1.jpg (28.29 KiB) Viewed 2071 times

But if I had the space and inclination, here are some nice ideas. Definitely keeps the dust out!

Pipe dream storage 1.jpg (66.65 KiB) Viewed 2071 times

[Fogdude]

My apologies, everyone. I mis-remembered the width of the planks I used for the shelves. They're actually 6" deep, not 10". I've edited my original post on this. I most often use 10", so I just automatically used that figure, but for the DVD shelving, I used 6", which leaves NO wasted space in front of the cases. Also, they're only 8' wide, instead of the 12' feet I originally stated. I had planned to do 12' & there was space for it, but I found it easier to work with all 8' planks & if I had actually done it at 12', I doubt I'd have been able to lift it to the wall without help of two large gorillas.

It's a crappy picture & was taken shortly after I finished the shelves. No, I didn't even bother to paint them. Too lazy & I didn't want to wait for paint or stain to dry. I was still pulling storage boxes off the stacks in my office & migrating the cases to the shelf.

The vertical splitters/supports are not fixed, they're just sized so they fit snugly & left freestanding so I can move them as needed or add more.

Again, I apologize for the rawness & poor quality. I didn't do these as a showcase, as most of you do. I did it out of desperation.

Yes, I did eventually fill the shelves & clean up the area. It's unrecognizable now & I have to keep a small stepladder at them because I can't reach the upper shelves without assistance, being vertically challenged, as I am.

Some may wonder at the small space at the very bottom. It's the remaining roundoff from making the shelves evenly spaced & also avoids having cases right at the floor level, where they'd inevitably be kicked by me as I struggled to reach the shelves above.

[2getted]

Thanks Fog, beautifully done and makes a lot more sense now I see it. So simple but effective and that's exactly what I'm after as well. I like the idea of the use of single length planks for the shelves and the vertical supports to stop any sagging. I guess you'd have to use a hardwood for the planks as anything else would sag too much. And the nylon lattice on the back is also a simple but effective solution for stability.

The small space at the bottom on the floor you mention is actually a great idea and preferable, as besides what you mentioned, it does prevent the collection of dust from the floor building up on the bottom shelf. If people want a more aesthetic look instead of a gap, then a short width board can be put in place along the length at the bottom at floor level to hide the gap. Also if people have skirting boards and want the unit to sit flush against the back wall, it's a simple matter of cutting a section out of the back of the uprights to fit around the skirting boards.

I will now have to hunt around for the right sized planks and see if I can rig up something similar.
It's a very simple but elegant solution.

[Fogdude]

Actually, 2getted, I've tried hardwoods in similar applications & they're not as effective as I had expected. Any wood will sag, under any load, over such a span. Since intermediate supports were a reality, there was no reason to go with more expensive hardwood that comes in fewer size options. Birch is much finer grained than pine, which is why I chose it. It's still dense enough to hold nails well, but soft enough to take them without splitting. It takes paint very well, also. Yes, I considered a kick panel at the bottom, but decided against it & yes, relieving the bottom back of the ends would help putting it flush against the wall & I almost did that, but as I considered it, I decided that a very slight angle on the bottom of the end planks would let it lean back against the wall & give it better stability with less load on the anchors at the top. It also gives the shelves a slight upward angle at the front that keeps cases from migrating off the edge. I'll always take the help of gravity, where I can.

Good luck with your project. Can't wait to hear (& see) how it comes out.

[stampe]

cool stuff chef

i made my own shelf as well. mines 150mm deep. i used black colored 19mm MDF. screwed to the wall
i even have an old horrible phone pic of it lol



i made it before i owned blu-rays, so ive changed it and half of it is now for blu-rays.

[chouette]

These are cool units Fog & Stampe! I should maybe invest in something similar to this instead of paying the big price, especially that we have to assemble them anyway. If you don't mind me asking, were those units expensive to make? Wood of any kind is not cheap, so I'm just wondering if it's cheaper to make them vs buying them.

I'm thinking the ones that 2getted is showing must have a nice price tag, especially the second image where the units can slide in and out.

[stampe]

i dont exactly remember what i paid. im sure you can get it all cheaper in the US than here in Switzerland though lol.
mine was anywhere between 100 and 200 bucks. its just 10 boards 2000x150x19mm plus 10 angled bracket thingys and a bunch of screws
its 7 shelves, 2 meter wide. you can do the math yourself how many dvd/bd you can get in there and compare it to the price of bought shelves that can house as many items.
i mean that Ikea Gnedby shelf houses 110 items according to 2getted. mine has room for about 10 times that hehe

[Fogdude]

Well, I don't remember the specifics of the costs, but I can assure you I would never go to that much effort if it cost very much more than buying them outright would. Most lumber of this kind sells for $1 USD or so, a foot. So, considering it takes 13 planks at 8' each, that's $104 just for the wood. Any manufactured shelving with finishes, even if unassembled would cost many times that. Of course, there are other costs, especially if you don't have the tools, etc, already, but the investment in those pays for itself many times over.

Those sliding shelves are unimaginably expensive. I used to have responsibility for records retention at a very large organization when I was in IT management & I know systems like that can costs tens of thousands. They're incredibly space efficient & ridiculously nice for regular access, as they're balanced & roll on bearings, etc., but the cost is prohibitive.

BTW, that's a very nice setup you have there, Stampe, but my climate is totally inhospitable to MDF, which is why I chose to go with natural wood planking.

[chefjoe]

This has become a way cool how to post, anon want to share you're toys feel free!!!

[2getted]

I should apologise Chef for just about hijacking the thread, and I hate to say it but if you weren't ill again, then we wouldn't have seen your cool setup and paraphernalia. Then I wouldn't have been prompted to see how I could better setup my gear.

I have to ask though, when I see all the figures and items out on display, I do wonder about how annoying it must be to keep everything clean and dusted. Must take you a while. Me, I hate cleaning, because you know you are just going to have to do it again later on, but I do like the end result once it's been done.

So take care of yourself and thanks for sharing what you've got.

[chefjoe]

hehe can be a pain, but it's my mess and I'd have it no other way, other than to have the room and money to get more, hehe.