My CD Storage Mistake – Save Yourself Some Trouble
June 22, 2008 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Home & Living
Maybe you remember my CD storage series a few weeks back:
- Save Space by Dumping the CD Jewel Cases
- Where To Recycle CD & DVD Cases
- Where to find CD and DVD file folders and cases
Well, I did it; transfered all my CDs and DVDs to disk folders. There were some pros to this solution for sure.
- My DVDs and CDs collections have gone from massive piles to one nice tidy folder each.
- I’ve saved loads of space.
- My son seems to find it easier to put DVDs back into the folder than the cases.
What was my mistake?:
I sorely underestimated my collection size. I actually underestimated both my DVD and CD collection, but in varying amounts. I bought two 72 disk capacity folders; which I mainly decided on after just sort of looking at the pile of disks and estimating. Now, I don’t have 72 DVDs, although it’s getting up there, so frankly I could have gone maybe to 100-120 capacity. If we buy many more DVDs we’re in trouble, but for now it’s ok. The major issue was with my CDs. I didn’t think I had so many, because I mainly play records, I guess I assumed my CD collection was super tiny – like 50. Um, no.
I had way more than 72 CDs, a fact I realized after moving half of them too thank you very much. What to do? As luck would have it, I had another disk folder in the house, a huge one I use for computer disks. There’s only about 60 disks in there so I transfered them to the one I bought for the CDs and moved the CDs into the large folder.
Long story short – this solution rocks in terms of saving space and ease of use, however, count your disks before buying a folder. Estimating is hard.
Has anyone else done this yet? Transferred disks?
I store my CDS in disk folders that hold 100 disks each. I just keep on buying additional folders as my CD collection grows.
They are all the same brand and color so I can line them up like books.
I was thinking of color coding the folders for the DVD collection. Blue for drama, red for comedy, etc.
I have gotten rid of most of my CDs by transferring them to my computer into mp3 files with free software from Music Match. My computer is in my home office, and I bought a receiver that will stream my computer’s audio wirelessly to my living room’s stereo for under $50.
I did it a few years ago – got all the cd’s into great looking leather books I found online.
My big mistake – my husband is a visual/browser, not a categorizer. He liked to browse his inventory. Now he hardly ever listens to CD’s because he can’t find them in a book organized by category.
I had already tossed the cases.
My computer cds, photo cd’s are all in the notebooks except my husband’s and kids’ games.
It works great for me.
Yes! I did this several years ago, and it’s worked GREAT for us. We went from literally having an entire piece of furniture full of DVD cases to having one small corner of a shelf with two DVD books in it.
I do like a previous poster and have more than one book, and I’ll buy another when these fill up.
We had been thinking about moving to CD albums for a while, and your article was the catalyst we needed. We decided to allot 2 slots for each CD, because reading the “liner notes” is half the fun. (Knowing who played what, who wrote a song, who produces other artists’ CDs…)
I found beautiful faux-suede CD albums and CD storage pages, all for cheap. Right now, the collection takes up MORE room than before, because we are gradually moving CDs from one system to the other, and both types of storage have to be present at the moment. But, I think it will be very usable when it’s all in place. We are keeping the same organizational system, basically classical and everything else, alphabetized by artist within the two categories.
Advice on getting jewel boxes recycled is here:
http://www.green-networld.com/tips/misc.htm
Mrs G – that color idea is really cool, if you happen to have that many disks. You could apply it to music too (quiet, 70s, rock, etc). Nice idea.
@Lisa that’s the best clutter-free method, but some people do still collect. I don’t buy any CDs anymore, but will buy LPs, sadly, you can’t fit them easily in a folder.
@Allison that’s too bad about your hubby. But cool your system is tidier for the rest of the family.
@Jenny I know! We had shelves of movies and CDs, now two folders. It’s SO nice.
@Amy I actually have a CD folder that has room for both the liners and disk; unless the liners are book style – I have a few of those, which I keep in their own slot. It is sort of chaos to get going, but once you’re done it’s such a relief to have it all condensed.
We did this to our DVD collection a few years ago. It works out really well, as we have a nice large capacity zippered binder with a handle and we can tote the DVDs to the van for a trip, or to the grandparents for an overnight visit, etc. The only thing that is a downside to this method is that if you plan to resell items after your family grows out of them (kids movies, music as an example) you may not be able to get top dollar unless you’ve kept the case and insert. OH! And the kids get into the binder and mess up my order of things…don’t they know that Toy Story 2 disc 1 and 2 really should be on the same page in the binder! sheesh. LOL