The Need for Storage

*Originally published on 11/13/09


I've often mentioned how I live in an apartment and have a limited amount of space. I always envision having a whole house, where there are rooms aplenty to store all of my books, comics, movies and other assorted things. Yet, my parents have a house, and they too have a storage shortage.
It seems like no matter how much room you have, you need more. Back in elementary school when I collected Star Wars cards, my parents often asked me when enough was enough, and they asked the same when it comes to my movie or comic collection.

My answer is that it's a collection, the whole point is to get as many as you can. For the hardcore collector, especially a collector who has more than one hobby, storage is a problem.

The weird thing is that it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult a problem. If you have a lot of books or movies, just buy another shelf, if you have a lot of comics, buy another box; yet somehow people struggle with having enough space for their stuff.

It's gotten to the point where companies make money, simply by offering storage units so that you can keep all your stuff somewhere. I never saw the point of that, yeah you have storage space, but if you want to get to any of it, you have to make a trip out there to do it.

I saw one episode of Yes, Dear where the main character took all of his old stuff to one of those storage units and fashioned himself a man cave. If I were to rent a storage unit, I would do the same thing, because that's kind of awesome.

Some people get to the point where store bought shelves aren't good enough, they need to redesign a room to line the walls with shelves to hold all of their stuff. A lot of houses have built in shelves, which is great, but even that only gets you so far.

Everybody likes stuff, it's hard to argue this. I don't know what the appeal is, but I know that I like stuff. The stuff you have is good, but there's still some stuff out there that you want to get. Some categorize this as greed or some manifestation of the problems with capitalism, but that's a load. It's fun, there's nothing wrong with indulging in a hobby. The only problem comes with making enough room for it all.

It's gotten easier in recent years. With so many digital transactions, that makes things a bit easier for collectors of music and movies. Heck, even books are going digital with e-book readers like the Kindle. Still, some prefer having a hard copy, even if they don't have room for it all.

Even with space saving techniques, it is very difficult to hold on to extra space. It's a surprisingly elusive thing that many people struggle to find. It's not the Holy Grail, but finding it is a challenge in its own right.