New Media Bookcase (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

For me, it's always been a war for shelf space between my books and my discs. When I downsized to apartment living, I moved all of my movie DVDs to binders and boxed up all of the cases in my parents' attic because there just wouldn't have been enough wall surfaces for all of the book cases necessary.

Since then, my Blu-Ray movies and and TV on DVD/Blu-Ray have been scattered across my various living quarters wherever I could find room. Recently, I ran out of space for my paperbacks on my bookshelves, so that necessitated a new location for my TV on disc collection.

I had two tall-ish, narrow media cases I'd built with my father when I first started collecting DVDs circa 2001 or so. My purchasing rate for Blu-Ray has been much slower than my purchasing rate was for DVD, so they still held the bulk of my movies. I had about three feet of available wall space in my current living room, so I decided to build a roughly three-foot-wide media bookcase with the same height and shelf spacing as my two existing narrow media cases. Those were built out of pine, but since this is so much wider I decided to build it out of red oak.

Now for the first time in a long time, my entire video collection (except for all of the DVD movies in binders) is one place again:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Unfortunately, as you can see, I'm going to be out of space again probably by the end of the year.

 

[DaveF]

1. What are the rocks(?) on display?
2. Alpha, Genre, or other?
3. You have insufficient Futurama seasons. How do you plan to rectify this?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

1. What are the rocks(?) on display?

I have a rather sizable collection of rocks and minerals, alas also in disarray at this point in my life. Not only are they not all collected in one place, they're not all collected in one domicle. But I rotate the largest and most visually appealing around various unutilized surfaces.

2. Alpha, Genre, or other?

Alpha by movies, then alpha by television show. If a movie franchise has a strict continuity, it is kept together in chronological order. If it doesn't, the titles are scattered throughout, based on where they fall in the alphabet. Same deal with TV shows; if there are multiple volumes, I try to keep them together in the order they should be watched.

3. You have insufficient Futurama seasons. How do you plan to rectify this?

Another victim of the Golden Age of Television. Try as I might, I can't keep up with it all. I don't think I've even seen 90 percent of the episodes made since Fox cancelled it and Comedy Central brought it back.

Hopefully by the time I'm ready to catch up, 20th Century Fox will have remastered the early seasons in HD!

 

[Mike Frezon]

You SHOULD be happy with how it turned out, Adam.

The new unit is a perfect match. Very nice.

How do you like the binder system?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

You SHOULD be happy with how it turned out, Adam.

The new unit is a perfect match. Very nice.

Thanks, Mike!

How do you like the binder system?

It's the only practical solution given my space constraints, but I do find that I watch my DVDs less than when I had them all out in their cases accessible to me. Now if I want to watch one, I have to figure out which binder it's in, and flip to the right page -- a more laborious process than with binders full of paper.

I took advantage of Walmart's Disc to Digital program to purchase HDX streaming copies of a lot of my DVD movies. I find those get watched more than the DVD movies that are disc only.

 

[DavidJ]

Looks good. Well done.

 

[Sam Posten]

1. What are the rocks(?) on display?

Dammit Marie, they are minerals

 

[DaveF]

My niece FaceTimes me to ask me about rocks she found because "I'm a scientist".

I do photons, not minerals

 

[Mike Frezon]

 

[DaveF]

^ Yes. Precisely.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Well, just over a year later and my video collection is going to be split across multiple rooms again. I'm out wall surface in my living room, and all of my existing media shelving filled up over the last several months. So I built another narrow media case, this one out of red oak like wide one from last year. Much to my regret, I didn't keep my notes on what stain I used last year. For this one I used two coats of Minwax Red Oak stain. It's not a terrible match with the existing ones, but it is a few degrees darker than the rest of them. Were I to do it again, I'd only use one coat of the stain:

For lack of a better place to put it, it's going in my back office, at a 90 degree angle with my bookshelves (which were stained with Golden Pecan -- much lighter color):

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ve been doing some major downsizing this year and the thought that I can finally get everything neatly into my shelves without having to weirdly cram things into every micron of space is very exciting to me. I hope my shelves look this neat by the end of the year!

 

[DaveF]

This was part of my motivation to try the HTPC: get all the bits on hard drives and move the plastic and cardboard out of the way, even into closets.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I need to get to that halfway point between what I have and going HTPC. I always forget that disc to digital is an option, but I should probably do that for some of the more marginal titles and call it a day on those. That’s a great idea.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Much to my regret, I didn't keep my notes on what stain I used last year.

It always seems like the most obvious thing to do---when you need to revisit a project and want to match something up. WHYYYYY can't we think to do it when we finish the initial project?!?

But the picture makes it look like a pretty close match to last year's effort, Adam.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I bought a house in late June, moved in early July, and finally tracked down all of my Blu-rays and UHD titles (DVDs long ago moved to binders to save space) and got them back into order:

Already, I find I'm nearly out of space. So it will be building season again soon enough.

 

[David Weicker]

I bought a house in late June, moved in early July, and finally tracked down all of my Blu-rays and UHD titles (DVDs long ago moved to binders to save space) and got them back into order:
View attachment 107047

Already, I find I'm nearly out of space. So it will be building season again soon enough.

Those are impressive

But I'm curious why they are only 5 shelf units. Most walls should be able to accommodate another 2-3 shelves.

In my apt, finding a spot to put a unit is based on finding an open section on the wall, but once I've found one, the ceiling's the limit.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

But I'm curious why they are only 5 shelf units. Most walls should be able to accommodate another 2-3 shelves.

The first unit was one of the skinny ones, back when I figured my collection would top out at 50-60 titles, built when I was renting a single room in a house and only had minimal space available.

All of the subsequent ones were built to match the same height and shelf spacing as that first one.