Hi.

For my books, I decided to store credits on paperbackswap.com instead of having a bookshelf. Since I really don't need that many credits, I took most of the books and donated them to goodwill. Now I have just one bookshelf for 'reference' type stuff and no bookshelves for fiction per se.

For our children's DVDs, my husband built them a small desk (for their computer) and under the desk he built a long shelf across the back that is just high enough for DVD cases. We measured how many linear inches of DVD cases we had, and he built the desk that long plus a few just in case. It keeps the DVDs out of the way for sure, and the shelf is shallow enough that it's not even close to their knees or legs when they're sitting at the desk.

For cookbook storage, I use the center portion of the lower glassed-in shelf of the china cabinet. The non-glassed lower portion holds the kids' art supplies, and the remainder of the glassed upper cabinet holds the only knickknacks and memorabilia we have.

For office supplies, since my desk has no drawers but it DOES have open shelves below the desktop, I use solid-color photo boxes. The green one has the 'frequently used' supplies, and the pale pink one has less-frequently used supplies. The dark pink one has the hooks and clips that use the removable adhesive–you know, the stuff that's advertised at christmas for hanging stockings and the like.

For linens, my husband recently created a new linen closet for us out of the wasted space above the cold-air return in the hallway. That one is golden–a whole new closet!

For kids' toys, we use the cube-cubby things with the canvas box drawers you can get at home centers and superstores. They are almost the perfect size for everything, they're colorful, and they hide what the stuff looks like. We make little signs for the front with stick-figures to tell the kids what's inside (they're 4).

I know you were asking about Media solutions, but everything is media here. Toys become art, sheets become tents, dress up clothes become theatre.. It's all one.

You might think from this that my house is totally organized and tidy–but no, alas, it's not ALL under control yet. We take it a little at a time.

shris

My solution is simple but rarely used. For the DVD's that take up so much space in our home, I bought cute CD Cases and store them in there. for any CD's that don't have a descriptive exterior I print out CD labels on the computer adn let my kids decorate tem like the movie. That frees up so much space in my media center. I keep the DVD Cases in a shoe box and that goes in the top of a closet in case I want them in the future. Simple and space saving.

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I actually need to replace my entertainment center. It's huge and oak and has large spaces for holding not only the television, but also pictures and other 'junk'. Right now, our DVDs are just stacked in one of the cubbie holes. It's not attractive. It's not organized. It's colorful…but that's not really what we were going for. I want to replace my entertainment center with something much smaller that also has a cabinet to hide all of the DVD cases. That's OUR media organization dilemma.

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I wanted a different look for our DVD storage then what I was seeing in the store, so I had to think "outside the box". I carried around a DVD cover with me, so I could measure whether DVDs would fit in whatever piece I was considering. One day I stopped at a local furniture outlet and saw a black chest of drawers that was very "pottery barn" looking but for a 1/4 of the cost. Believe it or not, DVD covers fit in it spine up, two rows and holds a ton, plus it looks great in a corner of our familyroom.

I found that the abundance of CDs in their plastic CD cases were very difficult to store, as I quickly ran out of room in the CD holders. So now I am working on uploading all of my CDs onto my itunes and eventually when that is done I will sell or give away the actual CDs and just keep them in digital format.

Luckily, neither my husband nor I am avid CD/DVD hoggers. The ones we have, we sort alphabetically in a binder. It works for us, but I can't imagine maintaining the system for a larger collection.

I purchased a binder at the Container Store for DVD's. My 12 yr old son can't seem to grasp the concept of putting them away in their jackets, so this has helped a bit. Each page holds 2 DVD's & the label.

What I NEED is a place for the gaming clutter & DVD player in the front room. So unsightly…

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For the problem of too many books, I purchased a digital reader and then made a list of all my books, (minus the ones I wanted to keep) then stored them in plastic tubs and taped the list to the tub. With the extra copies of my list I gave to friends and family and they could pick which book(s) they wanted and I gave them their choices with the expressed consent that they were to pass them on to the next person who wanted them! So I solved not only my storage problem, but future storage issues for others!

We put all our CDs and DVDs in disc storage books, this cuts WAY down on the space needed to store them. Thanks for another super giveaway!

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For the DVDs, I have a binder for kids movies and a binder for our movies. It works great for our vacations, we grab a binder and go and all of the movies fit in the storage compartment in the car.

For the games, each gaming system has a small CD binder, then I bought a storage cube for each for all of the controllers.

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For the DVDs I bought a few of the fabric covered boxes/baskets (no lids) and we store them easily accessible right on the shelf underneath the dvd player. I have two right now and I think I will have to buy another one soon. I have a 10 month old and she likes to take them all out but it doesn't take but 30 seconds to put them all back in because they fit so well.
We put all our CDs in a large binder. We put all the kids cds in a smaller binder we can take in the car.
Our real problem that we haven't solved is what to do with the computer cds. My husband is a self proclaimed geek and he has all these random cds/dvds laying around.

Webought an old farmhouse in which to renovate. We needed to move a very large Empire-style bedroom set to the 2nd floor. Because the staircase is twisted and narrow - we decided against taking out a wall or window to accomplish this.

So, one of the pieces was a 7'x4'x3' armoire that we decided to keep on the 1st floor. I ended up removing half of the back, taking out all but 1 shelf, and removing the bar that you are supposed to to use to hang your wardrobe.

I inserted the remaining shelf at the very top of the inside space and placed the stereo components, cable box/PVR, and DVD player there.

The open space in the middle (with the missing back) is used for our large HDTV. There are 2 medium shelves on either side of the HDTV, so I use those spaces for books I am currently reading.

The bottom 1/3 of the armoire has 2 pull-out drawers. These I use for our collections of DVD's (top drawer) and music CD's (bottom drawer). Everything in its place and clutter free when the doors are either open or closed.

I've tried a piecemeal approach as my fiancee and I are drowning in a wide variety of media. Our several hundred CDs were reduced into some simple black leather binders. My software library was moved into simple three ring binders using the proper inserts. The biggest problem came with the books. We both are bibliophiles and alas even four large bookshelves only allow the "nice" books to be displayed. Paperbacks and out of date technical books were largely donated.

DVDs and a few VHS tapes occupy part of one book shelf but were severely pared down with 90% of the VHS being donated to local hospitals and the DVDs pared down through a little donation.

I have all of my cd's and dvd's in crates. I have no other place to put them. Whenever I get a new cd I rip them to my PC so I'll always have them. I do the same with movies I feel are worth saving. The few books I still have are in boxes right now.

We have a real mess–2 CD towers and a free standing TV stand with a couple of bottom shelves for he DVD player and satellite receiver. Everything is mismatched–hence we are on the market for a new TV stand/media organizer that can fit into our small livingroom and that will not block the light coming from the windows on either side of the wall where the TV is situated.

My husband took our entire CD collection and downloaded them to our external hard drive on our computer. We each kept our favorite CD's (mine would be the Christmas ones) then sold the rest to a local store that buys used CD's. The ones they didn't want we donated to the library.

We have our dvds on our entertainment center.

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I like to keep things simple and I also do not like visual clutter. My goal was to have our CDs and DVDs hidden, yet accessible, so I repurposed a bureau drawer in our bedroom armoire to store our collection. In order to accomplish this, I needed to do a major decluttering of the clothes in that drawer, so two goals were accomplished.

We use one of those behind the door cloth shoe storage things on our the wall of our basement stairs. It keeps all the kids pairs of shoes organized and out of our front hall closet.

I have to admit that I love a sturdy shelf for media control. (Of course, my kids believe that if it's on a shelf, it's in the wrong place. "Crash-Bang" back home to the floor it goes!)
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This is so weird; I have been on the internet all day checking prices and comparing this TV Stand with other stands and entertainment centers and had already decided I loved its simple elegant look. I desperately need something with lots of storage space to store all my components plus I want to buy a larger flat screen TV and this one is perfect! I was directed to Stacks & Stacks because I was looking for something to store my many other items beside it and voila I found your contest; what a blessing. I am so excited! I also subscribed to the newsletter; I can’t wait to read everyone’s solutions.

I subscribed to the newsletter, but failed to mention it in my previous post. I apologize, but hope it gets counted!! Thanks.