Media Storage

I finally finished organizing our CD's!  Up until a couple of weeks ago I had 4 boxes of CD's still sitting in a corner of the basement, waiting to be put away, more than a year after we had moved in.

I know that a lot of people have gotten rid of their CD's and switched all their music to digital, but we aren't ready to let go of the excellent collection we have accumulated over the years.  I like the tangible - being able to hold the disc in my hand and peruse the booklet art and lyrics sheets.

There are few storage options for large collections, so I'm quick to jump on anything that looks like it would work for us.  I saw this idea on another blog and stole it shamelessly.  First we purchased the Hopen dresser from Ikea.

We were able to use 4 drawers for DVD's and video games, as well as one drawer for remotes, controllers & gaming system hardware.

Then we ordered JewelSleeves for the CD's themselves.  It took me about 4 evenings to transfer all the CD's into their new sleeves.  It is a bit of a complicated process if you want to order from Canada, but it was worth it in the end.

Each sleeve is made of a durable, heavy duty vinyl that includes three pockets, one for the rear tray card, a pocket for the front cover booklet and a centre fabric pocket for the CD itself.  I left the CD's with specialty cases or double discs as-is, but transferred the rest.

The one drawback to the Hopen is that the drawers don't open all the way, so to make up for that I used 5" square foam blocks from Michaels in the back to keep the CD's forward and from falling down, and then had my hubby cut foam core board to fit between each of the rows.

This one drawer is holding over 400 discs.  I love that I no longer have to dust hundreds of CD's and that kids can't grab them by the handful and wreck my alphabetized system!