Organizing DVDs and CDs for Small Spaces

There is still much to do before we move into our tiny house motor home, but slowly, slowly, we are making progress. Hubby bought the shipping container - finally! (But now he has to insulate it to keep our books, family photos, etc. nice and dry.) And I'm trying to start packing and get rid of 14+ years of clutter that we've somehow accumulated. Among those items that we want to keep, but which take up quite a bit of room, are DVDs and CDs. The question was: How do we keep them easily accessible when we're living in 180 sq. ft.?


The only solution was to get rid of the DVD and CD cases and use some sort of compact storage system. I looked high and low for ideas and considered everything from ordinary binders with CD sleeves to these acrylic boxes. But this ready-to-go "wallet" is what I finally decided upon. It's such a great price and is better made than any of the other CD and DVD wallets or binders I've seen in local stores.

So a couple of days ago, I started packing DVDs into it.

I admit, initially it was hard for me to throw out all those DVD cases. I'm not really sure why. It wasn't that I was worried about selling the DVDs at a later date. (I haven't found that selling our used DVDs is really worth the effort, with the exception of young children's educational DVDs). And it certainly wasn't that we ever spend much time looking at the cases. Happily, as the project progressed, I found dumping all those cases into the trash can felt wonderfully freeing! I'm glad the cases are gone.

Into the trash with DVD cases!
I chose to put the DVDs in the same order we've had them for years: Somewhat alphabetically (all the titles that begin with "A" together, all the titles that start with "B" together, and so on), with a separate section for the kids' movies. Some people prefer to put DVDs in general categories (like "Romance," "Action," etc.) because it makes adding new DVDs to the collection a wee bit easier. But I really wasn't feeling up to totally reorganizing hundreds of DVDs. (Yes, hundreds! This project made me wonder why we have so many DVDs when we mostly watch Netflix...and I pared down our collection - a bit.)
The DVDs are actually now much handier than they were before.
When I was done, I'd cleared 5 shelves and 2 storage ottomans of DVDs. And as you can see in the photo below, the wallet takes up the same amount of space as just 10 DVDs in their cases. It's an amazing space saver! I should have done this years ago.



The wallet holds 336 DVDs or CDs and takes up the same amount of shelf room as 10 DVDs in their cases.

2 comments

  1. best solution for the proper storage and basic organization of all your discs.thank you

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