When does a collection room not work?

Pretty well every collector yearns for their own room dedicated to displaying their collection.  Or, once you have one, spends hours setting it up, tweaking it, and enjoying it.  But does a Geek Cave work for everyone?

The short answer is no, and that's why Marie and I are separating our collections.  While I love the Cave and tend to spend time there every week, Marie didn't tend to spend much time with her collection in there, unless there was a specific job to be done.

However, Marie works from home and her office is in the basement (where our tv room and my art station also are), so naturally she spends a lot of the day down there.  When we started adjusting the tv area to better fit our house and our lives, we also decided to try moving the MOTU/POP collection downstairs.  Marie quickly decided that this was a far better way to enjoy her collection.  She can visit it during the day when she needs a break from work, or when we're relaxing in the evening.

Of course, we still needed to take the cats into account, and we have two confirmed chewers in the house. So we’ve been slowly collecting closed cabinets to protect the collection.  There’s a long way to go, but it’s starting to look good.  And most importantly, it works for the collector.

Elf

The best we could do

 How it started:

It's a mess

The MOTU have come out, opening up some new spaces for ponies.

How it's going:

Mostly retro G1 stuff is now gathered on the vintage side.

I'm calling the week in the Cave a win, although I wasn't able to acomplish quite as much as I wanted.  Moving anything in the Cave starts a domino effect that only ends when you either find room for everything or give up and abandon it on whatever flat surface is clear.  By the end of the day on Monday the room was truly a mess and it was difficult to find enough floor space to get back to the door and I didn't think I'd be leaving the room better than I found it.

There are a few vintage pieces on top as well.

On Tuesday I decided to bring everything pony-related still outside the Cave into the room.  Although this exacerbated the space issue in the short term, it meant that everything was localized within the room and could be placed.

The special G3s have a better display space now.

I quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to get everything placed exactly as I wanted this week.  We have plans to add two more Kalax cubes under the large display table, but these aren't currently available locally. This necessarily limited some of what I could do, especially as the space these new cubes will occupy is currently filled with odds and ends and G4s still in package.

The BAB plush fit perfectly on the modern side.

I had planned out what I wanted to do with certain areas of the Cave however, so I focused on these first.  One thing that has long bothered me is having the Build a Bear G4 plush on the vintage side of the room. I cleared off the top of the shelves on the modern side to make room for the BAB plush, which allowed me to display more retro G1 items on the Vintage side.  I was also able to finally develop a display space for my party supplies.

Party supplies out on display

Toward the end of the week my focus changed to finding space for everything, even if it was only temporary. When the other two Kalax cubes have been added I'll be able to split the four under the large table between storage and display.  Right now, only a few of the cubes are being used as displays while most are temporary storage.  At least I was able to find the floor!

Reference, books, binders, and bits and piece.s

Overall, I'm happy with how the clean up went.  It's nowhere near perfect and there's plenty of stuff still on the floor, on the table, and just generally in the wrong place.  But a lot of other things are displayed now, or at least better organized than they have been for the last several months.  There's room to move and do things, like photographing new additions to the collection, and I'll be able to sneak in and do small adjustments now that there's room to breathe.

A collection room is never done.

Elf

It's time to move forward

It's time to move forward with the Geek Cave.  Supply chains aren't improving and we're still waiting on some new furniture for the Cave and the new display space, but we're tired of the state of things.  I need some space made to display some new pieces.

So happy to have these two - now I need display space to appreciate them!

I also need some space to display some old pieces.  The Cave has been left to itself for months now, but it's time to get back to organizing and making sure the display works.  Right now, I can tell you it's just a mess.

Needs work

However, over the next week we'll be packing up the MOTU and POP collections for temporary storage.  The following week, I've taken a much needed week off of work and I plan to spend a fair amount of time dealing with the toy explosion.  I already know I won't get everything I want done (I never do on a vacation), but I hope to at least clear room to walk!

For the Honour of Grayskull!  Let's get going!

So watch this space.  In a couple of weeks I hope to show you some before and after pictures of the progress that's made.  Here's hoping you can tell the difference between the two pictures.

Elf

Planning Ahead

We’re making plans for the autumn and the return to organizing the collections.  Roomy has very kindly offered (again) to pack up her figures until we can find a display cabinet of the right size and type for her new display space.  Through the summer I refused this offer, because I was busy in the garden and packing up the figures meant an inevitable jumbling up of accessories and bits and pieces to be sorted out later.  However, the last time she offered I suggested I’d take her up on the offer if we’re still searching for a cabinet when the weather turns.

Having the MOTU packed up will allow more freedom of movement in the Cave (always a struggle) and also make it easier to keep reorganizing my collection.  Naturally, if we go this route, I’ve promised to help Roomy with matching up her accessories to the right figures when the time comes (I do love a good accessory organization party).

As far as making plans, last February I slightly expanded the G1 display space so all the ponies had a little more breathing room between them.  This made sense as the G1 collection will certainly be the area with the most expansion happening in the future (read: biggest wishlist).  G2 follows up with the 2^nd biggest wishlist, but since that list was small to start out with, they don’t get all that much geographical space.  For both G1 and G2, there is one more playset each that I’d like to add to the collection. So I’m keeping that space in mind without actually leaving a blank area, because who knows when these will make it into the Cave.

G3 and G4 are the easiest to deal with now since they’re essentially complete collections from my point of view, meaning that there are so few other pieces that I want to pick up I can confidently identify the amount of display space needed to house them. Now that G4 is officially over, I’ll probably spend some time tweaking their display to take up the least amount of space possible while still looking good.  I’m still very fond of the Canterlot portion of the display, but there’s room for improvement elsewhere.  I will also look at expanding the G3 display slightly, as the ponies look crowded to me right now and I’m not enjoying that.  There won’t be huge changes there, however.

There's also the question of displaying merchandise.  This can be tricky because of the various sizes and shapes that merch takes and I've not yet found a display style that I like for my merch.  I think it makes sense to group like with like, so I'll probably display all my party supplies together, then stationary and stickers, then other bits and pieces.  I'll probably also divide them by generation, partially because  I think the vintage art looks so much better than the more modern pieces, and I want to give both the chance to shine.

Stay tuned.

Elf

Series Speculation

I bought a thing

Actually six things.

I wonder if collectors all have a particular kryptonite?  One of mine is that I can’t pass up a special series.

This is slightly odd, as with the main bulk of my collection, the brushables, I’m not a completionist at all.  Which is not to say that I don’t have complete sets (I have several) but in instances where I decide that I only want 5 of the 6 ponies offered, I have no problem with passing up the 6^th pony and considering that set complete for me.

Sorry, Tassles

It gets different when we get into special sets.  Suddenly it’s like I’m chasing Pokemon and no, I don’t want just one, I want to catch them all!  Slap an anniversary sticker on it, or make a convenient collection of all the main characters, and I am on that like a sweet tooth on discounted high end ice cream (this also applies to me). 

Funnily enough, with the original 6 Basic Fun ponies, I had intended to only get Snuzzle and Cotton Candy.  My cousin happened to get me the other four ponies for Christmas that year.  Clearly the universe intended me to have all six.  At least I managed to keep the Rainbow ponies down to only my three favourites (Windy, Moonstone, and Skydancer).

There is an element of sense in this.  The set still has to appeal to me.  I won't pick up a special set just for the sake of having it.  There is still an aspect of curation here, even if it's slightly overshadowed by a bit of mania.

I don't see a change in my mentality happening here any time soon, and that's not a problem until I run out of space. As that hasn't hapened yet (I'm surprised too), I'm not overly concerned.  It gives me another fun aspect of the collection to ponder and go on about.

Elf

The Next Generatiion

We’re in an interesting moment in our collectors’ home here. Roomy’s MOTU fandom is on an uptick, with the recent She-Ra reboot, the new He-Man continuation, and all the associated toys (note to Mattel: needs more POP).

On the other hand, I look at the new G5 toys and I just…no. I think the animation looks great, I’m looking forward to watching the movie, and if kids like the toys that’s fantastic, but the toys are doing nothing for me.  It’s the heads. Those faces (eyebrows?!?) make me think of them as people in horse costumes, and I’ve never been the biggest fan of the times when MLP veered more toward doll than pony.

Still my favourite generation

This is not a bad thing.  On the one hand, I don’t have to figure out how to fit another Generation into the Geek Cave (yet).  On the other, it’s not such a bad thing for only one of us to have a major influx of new toys at a time, especially when our display spaces are being adjusted and can’t actually display new items yet. The family room is starting to look a bit like the backroom of a toy store, with all the unopened figures in there, but it’s a temporary state.  Who’d have thought that finding an appropriately-sized cabinet for the space would turn out to be so difficult? If only Grayskull fit on a Billy bookcase.

In the autumn we'll get back to organizing things.  There's months of winter to spend with our collections coming up.  Something to look forward to.

Elf

The Summer Without Ponies

I am still here. I did not intend to take a blogging break but somehow weeks kept going by and every Friday I would think “I haven’t written a blog for the weekend.”  And then continue not to do so.

Part of the problem is, things with the collection have not been moving much these last few months. Let’s recap, shall we? Geek Cave – still a mess. New shelving for MOTU – still looking. Camera – still broken. Also, as an avid gardener and a person who hates winter, a lot of my free time has been spent outside in the garden.  Plants wait for no one.

All of this makes it hard to get motivated to talk about the collection, or customs, but I could at least post a shelfie on Instagram occasionally.

None of this should be taken as an indication that I’m losing interest in my collection.  Far from it (there have been purchases this summer, but they’re not here yet). It’s ok to take a “break” from time to time, however.  When the weather sadly gets cooler and the garden goes to bed, I’ll be ready to turn my attention back to finding the floor in the Geek Cave.  In the meantime…

Elf