Summer Project: Shelf Risers

After a bit of a recent mad unboxing spree, it became increasingly apparent that I really need shelf risers for the main wall. Three deep when most of them are the same height, you just can't see them all, and with the interior height of the shelf at 14 inches, I have the space to do that. However, with the size of some of the figures (and the bases/stands they came with), it may not be practical to do 2 tiers/3 rows like I was originally thinking.

This brings me to another question: how important is overall symmetry? If I have one shelf with 2 tiers next to a shelf with just one, is that going to look weird? Do I go ahead and make all 60 risers (6 cases, 5 shelves each, 2 risers per shelf = 60 risers), with the thought that even if I don't need them now, I might need them later if I rearrange the shelves again? Rather leaning in that direction...

I figured the max height of the taller tier should be 6 inches high, leaving enough room for even an 8-inch figure to stand on, and the shorter one should be 3 inches, elevating each row 3 inches above the other. It also seems logical to display the larger figures in the back, smaller ones in the front, maximizing the difference in height to my advantage.

While I was rearranging the shelves, trying to figure out how to best use the 6th bookcase that I emptied to use for figures*, I really had some trouble with groups. Having a continuous row of Marvel and DC is no sweat. Having a continuous row of McFarlane is not happening. So I grouped them it a way that made the most sense to me. It's my collection, I can curate it how I please.

I don't display many male figures (because I don't seek them out) and I don't vignette figures, generally, but when I got the Valkyrie/Odinson 2-pack (more accurately, my husband found it for me), I had to sacrifice a pair of tights to do this:

Yes, drag him back to your lair...

Not sure how I'll set that up with risers, but that little scene stays on the shelf! The other dude-commentary I have made is with good ole Steve Trevor, the only non-Wonder Woman figure on the WW shelf. But... he's seated, passive, with his long gun across his lap, while all the Wondies are in various poses of alertness.

"What I do is not up to you."

Sadly, risers on the WW shelf will mean moving that Wonder-ful print by the Satrun twins, but that means it will be more visible somewhere else. There's already a dais there with pegs in it for feet that came in a Wonder Woman/Wonder Girl box set, but I think that will have to go in favor of the risers, unless it will fit on one of them.

Really, now it's just a matter of tracking down the wood, and I think I have found a source for free scrap wood and "free" is definitely one of my favorite words, although it's a bit of a haul to get to. Once I have the wood, it's a matter of cutting, gluing and nailing. The natural wood will be fine, and disappear into the "birch" color of the shelving units. Then I just need museum putty to stick them to the shelves and risers, and I can do away with the dowels.

Since there's still nonsense happening in June with summer school and other commitments, I'm hoping I can knock this out in July over a couple of weekends. (LOL -- yeah... because it's entirely predictable that something else will come up to prevent this from happening until next year. ::sigh::)

UPDATE: This is the most recent set of photos of the collection, and why I need the risers in the first place.

Some of these shelves are so jammed with figures, it's hard to see anything.
Others have room for growth, and others are too bulky to allow
for much of anything, and risers may be problematic.

A-Force assembled! Definitely needs risers...

Unfortunately, these shelves are not deep enough, or have enough space between them to allow for risers.

...and neither do these.

Fortunately, Nancy Pearl doesn't have to compete with anyone else in the library upstairs.

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*It had originally not held figures, in part because it was separated from the others by a beam in the ceiling, breaking the line. We used it to hold graphic novels, and a few misc., but it became clear I needed the space so I got more bookcases to hold the GNs, and gained 5 more shelves for the collection. It still may not be enough down the road.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Collecting

Collections require some care and maintenance or else they're just hoards. If they aren't organized in such a way that they can be enjoyed or pieces found easily, you're in danger of being one of Those People they turn into zoo attractions on reality television. In our old house, we were pretty cramped but still had stuff, so it was pretty borderline there for a while. Now that we have the space to organize and display the things we love, there's the responsibility to maintain it. Since I'm the one who's home all day, and I'm the one who's a little obsessively completist, that task falls to me.

For the action figures, I maintain an inventory at DASH, which is more than just a database, there's also the ability to buy/sell/trade (I haven't done any of that myself, however). Sometimes I have to add a figure myself if no one else has yet, like the Justice League War Wonder Woman I got yesterday, so there are a few figures in my collection that aren't in the inventory database because I haven't added them yet. It's imperfect, but it's the best thing I've found so far.

For the libraries (main and children's*), I keep track of our collection with LibraryThing, which is an online database. It took a few months for me to get all the books put in (over three thousand), so now a trip to the bookstore means books go to my desk for entry first.

For the comic books, I purchased Comic Collector, from Collectorz.com, which also has an app (not a stand-alone app, you have to have purchased the program first!) that runs on my phone so I can double-check the collection when I'm rummaging in the old comics bins. They have various versions to suit your needs, it runs on Macs or Windows computers, and I love it. The same company also has inventory software for games, music, movies and books. They run sales every once in a while, and it's tempting to get some of the others, but I have covered, our movie collection that extensive, and our music is just weird... Anyway, new comics are dealt with the same way new books are dealt with: they go to my desk first and are entered into the database, and then they are read.

Once all this reading material has been dutifully entered into the computer, it gets read, or goes into a pile to-be-read. Read books often end up in piles in the library, to-be-shelved. Read comics go into a box to be bagged, then once bagged into a box to be taken downstairs to be filed with the others. Since I am the one who's home, once again I am the sensible choice for being the one to shelve and file, put away and straighten... and I hate that part.

Right now, I am procrastinating from doing the laundry. I don't actually mind the sorting/washing/drying part. I loathe the folding/putting away part. And socks. I bloody well hate socks. So laundry goes upstairs to be folded on the guest bed, where it usually sits in a wrinkled heap until I guilt myself into dealing with it... usually about the time I have to do laundry again.

Months ago, I organized our comics. I got all of them entered into the database, put them all in order, put out a few accidental duplicates that I found, left room in the boxes for new comics to be filed... and since then, have taken down new comic, laid them on top of the lids of those boxes, or taken them down in other boxes and just left them there, waiting to be filed. *sigh* I hate filing. I don't mind data-entry, but filing is awful.

Part of the issue (ha!) is that when I take the boxes off the bottom shelves, I'm going to cause an action figure avalanche. Then I'm going to cause another one when I put them back. Every. Time. Having the boxes on the bottom shelves of the figure display is awesome, because the bottom shelf is no good for display (plus dog temptation risk), but I suspect that once I take all the comics we have right now and file them, we're going to have full boxes, with no room for more. That means a new home is needed, and soon. But that's a task to procrastinate another day...


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* We turned the formal living room into a library, but there was no room for children's books. We bought a bunch of bookcases for the guest room, adjacent to our daughter's room, and put the kids books there.

So Much to Do!

My basement is a mess. It's making my brain kinda messy, too. I have packaged figures I need to photograph and get on the shelves, comic books that need to be boxed, art to frame, and a wall to paint. I've been working on the basement in fits and starts since August '12, and I just can't stand it. I have so many things I want to do with the space, and can't because it's a mess.

My goal right now is to get the clutter taken care of so that by this summer, I can paint the wall. Once that's done, I will have more time to devote to the curation of the collection, and of the list of heroines. I have so much I want to do with that...

I bought my pass for Geek Girl Con in October, and I'm trying to talk a friend into making a trip down from Ontario so we can go to G-Fest in July. The end of June is my target date to get the basement "done." (It will never be completely done; there will always be something that needs doing.)

I have a pretty clear goal, less clear solutions for reaching it, and a headache that is getting in my way. C'est la vie, non? Le sigh.

Another motivation for getting it done once and for all? I promised myself a "geek tree" once the basement was clutter-free. I even put all the geeky ornaments in a separate box when I put everything away earlier this month. And so many ideas for geeky ornaments to make... I am a woman on a mission, and just as soon as the painkillers do their job, I am on it! (But until then, I think it's gonna be me, on the couch, with a notebook making lists...)

Comics!

In the basement are boxes of comic books, 19 in all. I knew their contents were a mess, and I knew I wanted to get an inventory of them, like the one I did for our library using LibraryThing (I highly recommend that, by the way, it's so easy to use). I ended up buying Comic Collector, by Collectorz and am satisfied with it. There are a few holes in their database, but adding manually isn't a big deal. (There's a trial version you can download if you need to kick the tires first.)

I hauled the boxes upstairs to my computer, more or less one by one, and started entering them into the database, bagging any loose books, sorting by publisher, consolidating boxes. Presently, I have 2 empty boxes. I don't think I'll be able to consolidate much more than that, but we'll see...

Now I am down to the last box of comics... well, two, because one series is screwy in their database (as well as being somewhat screwy from the publisher), so I need to figure out where the people who entered it initially screwed up and try to fix it for my database. Well, and a box of magazines that sort of fit in with the comics. AT ANY RATE, I'm nearly done, as soon as I get another pack of bags. Presently, the inventory is at 1408, my estimate is that by time I'm done, I'll be at about 1600. (Not so many; that guy on Collection Intervention had 30,000!)

Once that's finished, I need to go back through and alpha/sequence the boxes, and sort the non-Marvel/DC boxes so that publishers are grouped together. Because if you're going to do it, you should do it all.

Then have to go through the database and make a list of the missing issues and start filling in holes, because having a series that's missing a title or two makes me nuts. And I'm still trying to figure out where my issue #32 of Lee's Action Figure News & Toy Review went (it's sentimental - the tipping point into starting my female figures collection).

"Deadliest of the Species - Collecting Female Figures"

Some of the boxes I inventoried contained trades and hardcovers. They belong with the comic collection, but not in with the comic books. I think I need one more of those Ikea "Kilby" bookcases to replace a smaller bookcase I have down there already, so I can put the graphic novels there, next to the figures and the comic book boxes. Plus it will look better integrated, if all the cases on that wall match. (It's going to bug me until I fix it.)

I'd like to continue to working on finding first appearance issues for some of my figures, but some of those are pricey and not a priority. What I would really love to do is print out miniature versions of the 1st App covers and display those with the figures... because I so needed another project.

At any rate, getting this finished is a large part of my basement overhaul. OK, you may be thinking that an inventory and general maintenance of the comic books doesn't really make the basement less free of clutter and stuff. But it is part of the basement, it is something that needed to be done, and when I'm down there working on getting the piles eliminated, the chaos in those white boxes nags me. Soon, there will be order. Soon there will be finished grownup space. (Hey! they may be toys, but they belong to an adult and they're displayed as a collection.) Soon I will have my girlfriends out to party down there. Of course, "soon" is relative -- if I can make it happen within the next 4-5 months, I'll be thrilled.

And dammit... if the comic book shop didn't open until bloody noon today, I could have been done with the comics by now...