Displaying your collection

[Dopplercb]

I'm money challenged and space challenged. What kind of shelving do you recommend? My room is only 10 feet by 7 feet and I think I have maybe a 2-3 foot section free once I box up my shoes and move the small bookcase currently housing those (I don't think the bookcase is sufficient for legos). I was thinking about getting an industrial shelving unit that you would find in a garage because the sides would be open for overhang and there'd be more room in general.

What do you think? All I know is I currently have projects sitting all over the garage unprotected because I've got no place to store them and it is scary to think about.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Dopplercb

[HawkLord]

I like that industrial shelving unit idea. You're right that the open design would help MOCs that don't conform to specific spaces.

I use a lot of wall mounted shelves which have worked well thus far. I have different lengths and depths and just arrange things according to those sizes. I'd also recommend IKEA or the like for cheap disposable display options.

[Dopplercb]

How much do wall mounted shelves run? I tend to worry about those because they aren't adjustable. Idk if you read my intro thread, but I'm poor as dirt, so my main collection is clones, and if got a large amount of architecture nano brick towers and I worry about height. I also am currently working on a large aircraft carrier that looks like it could be 2 feet long when completed. I'm not sure how tall, though.

I'm going to be getting the shelves in January (when I'll also be buying a Lego birds set, official Lego). January can't get here soon enough.

[dr_spock]

Wall shelving can vary in costs from inexpensive to expensive. You didn't mention what country you're in. You can find some inexpensive stuff at Home Depot. Alternatively, you could make your own display shelves or case out of old wooden skids. I some times see stacks of them with "free" signs at some local businesses. Do It Yourself is an option when money is tight.

[Dopplercb]

I'm in the united States, in Ohio. I'm not entirely sure my family would be down with me building out of skids. I'm going to look into home depot and see what I find. I'd like at least 12 inch deep shelves.

Why, oh why did I pick an expensive hobby? Or, I should say, why did it pick me? Haha. Cuz even the clones aren't always cheap.

[HawkLord]

I bought wall shelves from Target that were cheap. I was also working on a budget, so I didn't want to go crazy. They hold up well enough to display some scenes I made on standard baseplates, so the weight seems acceptable.

[Dopplercb]

What's the most weight you'd put on a bracket shelf that's 2.5 feet long? In your guyses opinions.

My collection is mostly light weight because I have a lot of Loz brand mini block models, and I have a few heavier clones, like a star wars x wing and the aircraft carrier I'm working on now which I think may end up weighing quite a bit. Plus I'm getting some Lego clone pirate ships in January (please don't hate me, I'm so unbelievably poor) that I'm sure will be weighty. Plus I'm think of getting the Lego Wall E. Or maybe just the birds. I have to look at my money.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Dopplercb

[dr_spock]

Weight of LEGO should not be problem if you screw the shelf brackets into the studs behind your wall. Be sure your screws are long enough. The shelving can hold up to stacks of books like LEGO set instruction manuals. I'm using 12" shelving.

[Dopplercb]

That's mighty impressive. I will have to look into getting a long screws. I'll have to use a stud finder and see if I can figure out where the studs are in the wall. Maybe I will do hanging shelves. Although I still think maybe a industrial shelving unit might be the way to go. I think having adjustable shelves is still something I want to have. Maybe I will ask the people at the hardware store their opinion. Or people at the Lego store. I'll be going there in the first week of January.

I definitely intend to solve my storage problem in the early part of January. Although I think I'm going to keep the manuals and those big storage containers.

[BrickBob Studpants]

Recently, I've posted a picture of my HP collection and thanks to a response by @KevinMD who expressed interest to see the rest of my collection, I then decided to look for a thread for that very purpose and came across this one. I know that resurrecting old threads is not exactly welcomed, but it's probably still preferable to opening dozens of new ones 

Maybe this thread could serve as a place to share your collection as well as tips for how to organize it? There's quite a few I use that might be useful to others and vice versa since space issues are the bane of all collectors existences 

Anyway, here's a preview picture:

Pictures of my current collection can be found in this flickr album: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darthguy/albums/72157709037604251

And these are some of the tricks I like to use:

• As you can see, I use LOTS of display cabinets. The room is surrounded by cabinets with glass on three sides (the fourth side has a mirror, making it hard to take pictures and I'm thus somewhat visible on some of them ) while I use 5 cabinets with glass on all four sides in the centre of the room. If you can afford to have a dedicated LEGO room, this is quite a good thing to have IMO.
• In order to display the UCS Falcon and the Cloud City set, I bought a pair of tables. It's really though to display those two sets any other way 
• I use trans-clear window panels to increase the height of some flying vehicles, which saves a lot of space if used correctly and is somewhat of a purist solution 
• I've recently purchased a lot of trans-clear 16x16 baseplates for my licensed CMF minifigs. I've placed the regular series in those awesome frames by minifiguresdisplay, but prefer to display the licensed CMF with their respective themes. Placing them next to another as is proves to be very tricky if you want to align them, so this is a neat solution IMO. It's not cheap though since those baseplates are hard to come by.
• I don't have any wall-mounted shelves and instead use freely movable elements. It's not foolproof though, which I had to learn the hard way  I also use shelves (aka wooden planks) to increase some of the display area.

Now's your turn, I'd like to see your collections and hear your tips 

Edited June 11, 2019 by Lego-Freak