Photo Storage

Amongst other boxes of hard-to-store can't-get-rid-of items are my photos from middle school and high school. I'm so appreciative that my college years are all-digital and stored on a very large hard drive, but when flipping through photos it is surprising to remember the days when I took 36 pictures of an event and not 100. On the long-range to-do list is culling through and simply throwing out the photos that are out of focus or not worth saving, and selecting the best of the rest to have scanned by a scanning service the next time I see a groupon. But in the meantime, I need a storage solution that isn't a banker's box. I have one of these archival type boxes, but it doesn't even have a lid.

While these are a nice looking idea, I don't see myself putting 50+ sleeves of envelopes into them.

 Something like these are probably a better plan, because they will look nice on the bookshelf in the living room, and the lid is attached to it so I won't lose it. The price of $22 each seems a bit steep, because I know I will need at least three.

These are a cheaper alternative, but the colors don't match our décor as well. 

Turning to Ikea, purveyor of cheap storage solutions, yielded these boxes which are nice looking, or these, which are larger than necessary and ugly:

 There are also always the Cassett boxes, which would also store some of our CD jewel cases that we refuse to get rid of.

It's so interesting to have been a child of older technology and it's so amazing how much the world has changed.  I know my parents feel this even more, because they talk about typewriters and punch cards and carbon paper.  When I was a child, there was no way to imagine that photos would ever not be stored in boxes on a bookshelf.  Even once scanners existed, physical photos were still going to need to exist.  Once I saw the very first digital camera that my mother brought home (the Sony one which took a...floppy disk...), it was still so hard to imagine not having physical photos to flip through.  But within five years, the idea of film just seemed so old fashioned.  The same goes for music.  We keep our CD covers and I used to flip through them and read the lyrics, but now if I need to write a song lyric in a sappy card, I just google it.  Yet we are hanging on to our jewel cases.  We just get to the line between nostalgic and hoarder so much faster since we live in a small house. 

Wrapping paper

This box was the bane of my existence. It held all the wrapping paper and there was nowhere for it to go. I was going to put it behind the secretary desk because we store other tall awkward things there. 

And then I had the best idea ever. 

I folded the stuff that was on really long rolls (there was only 6-8 inches of it), and the rest of the rolls fit perfectly in the empty bottom drawer of the secretary. I particularly love this because the paper and tape is in the desk as well, and also several blank cards, and it's right near the front door and will be close to our holiday tree!

Wrapping paper

This box was the bane of my existence. It held all the wrapping paper and there was nowhere for it to go. I was going to put it behind the secretary desk because we store other tall awkward things there. 

And then I had the best idea ever. 

I folded the stuff that was on really long rolls (there was only 6-8 inches of it), and the rest of the rolls fit perfectly in the empty bottom drawer of the secretary. I particularly love this because the paper and tape is in the desk as well, and also several blank cards, and it's right near the front door and will be close to our holiday tree!