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How do you all store your collection? We have run out of room and my husband is getting frustrated. We looked at JoAnn yesterday and saw the doll armoire Laurie got, but we were thinking it might not hold many of the outfits. We purchased Josefina's trunk, but it is already full and I can't see buying another doll trunk from AG yet. I would like to hang the clothes up or at least be able to keep them out of sight unless we are using them. Does anyone have any ideas? We are getting sort of desparate [img]redface.gif[/img]
Kim
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Hi Kim,
yes, I know the armoire won't really hold too much, but I'd at least like to get some items hung up. I've also been thinking along the lines of a storage item that would look like a quilt rack (only my hubby is really not handy in this are)
here is a link to one I saw on ebay awhile ago:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWA:IT
If you have someone who could customize one for you with proper sizes, that might be the way to go. My though was that it could be taller and have two racks, one on top of the other. (I have that in my daughter's real closet, shirts and skirts go on one side on two separate poles, longer dresses hang on the other)
Good luck to you. We don't have a room issue (luckily there are only 3 of us here, and we still have one extra spare room that someday I plan on converting to the dolly room) but STILL we have clutter that really gets out of hand!
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LOL! I understand about the clutter [img]smile.gif[/img] For us it is worse in that we are trying to get the house ready to sell so we can move to more space. I told my husband when we get to the farm, I am having a separate doll house to hold all my doll stuff. It will be free standing and we can visit it when we want [img]smile.gif[/img]
Thanks for the link. We bought my husband for Father's Day the Book "Making Doll Furniture in Wood" and he seems interested in making storage, but has been so busy with the house I hated to make him take the time to make doll storage. Of course it is all AG's fault. If they would stop retiring stuff, we wouldn't have to keep buying it [img]wink.gif[/img]
Thanks again for the ideas and when you get your armoire finished I'd love to see pictures of it!
Kim
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We store our doll clothes/furniture in big plastic bins with snap lids from Target and the Container Store. If you lie the clothes out flat, you can avoid wrinkling too. Plastic isn't the best choice for long term storage (you probably want to look into cedar containers then), but if you change your dolls fairly often, I find that it works perfectly. You can stack the bins up in a closet or storage room, so they definitely stay out of sight and really don't take up much space.
Good luck figuring your storage dillemna out... I know it can be quite a toughie!
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I have a small house and I totally understand your storage woes. What works for me is a sweater storage unit- the cloth kind that hang in the closet and are shelves. I have one that is a kind of cloth that allows the stuff in the shelves to breath but keeps dust out. I keep all the dresses, hats, socks, aprons, etc. laid flat in a stack on the shelves. Each of my historicals takes two shelves, so one standard size unit will hold about three to four historical clothes collections. I don't have as many problems with wrinkles as when I used to fold them and store them in boxes, they're easily accessible and visible without opening a bunch of containers, and I don't have the bulk of hanging all those little clothes (which I tried until I ran out of room and got sick of some dresses that don't get used often getting dusty). Just my own solution- good luck finding yours!
As for accessories, I keep them in their original boxes together as sets and store them in a hope chest. It's a huge chest (about 2' deep, 4' long, and 2' high), so it stores about four historical collections of accessories (no furniture though- that's always on display or in a closet). The biggest challenge for me is storing furniture, since I currently can only display one doll's collection at a time. [img]frown.gif[/img]
Hoping for a doll room in our new house...
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Thanks Georgia and horsemom!
Boy, I wish I had kept those boxes! I just got through tossing them all to try to help with the space issue. I think I will try both ideas. We have the outfits folded over in Josefina's trunk and other places and they are getting wrinkled and it is very hard to find what we're lookng for. I had thought hanging them up might help, but I can see this isn't the best option with the dust. I think both ways will work well for us.
Thanks [img]smile.gif[/img]
Kim
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I purchased a heavy duty plastic hangar and hung all the clothes on it with their original hangars and then I hung it up in my closet. But I used to have a rubbermaid container that I drilled holes in for a dowel rod and put all the clothes in there. Molly and Sam have very nice trunks but they really don't hold much.
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We use a combination of "real" furniture, storage furniture and doll wardrobes. It all matches our decor, so when everything is put away it looks like a "normal" (LOL) grown-up's house. You can see pictures on my website. The link is in my signature. Click on "Collecting" in the menu, and then on storage.
P.S. Just in case you're curious, the trunk under the sideboard holds legos and the antique wardrobe holds Little People stuff.
<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ July 12, 2004 02:23 PM: Message edited by: ubarose ]</font>
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I have two AG Storage caddys. But they too do not hold much. I had four+ outfits per red holder. Last night I could not stand it, so took the canvas off and the red hanger of the caddy became the "main" outfit storage, I now have more room for more outfits!
I use a BIG AG Historical box for shoes and another for socks, every other little AG thing goes in the AG caddy canvas. My dolls share my closet! LOL! I would like to make them their own one day.
[img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]wink.gif[/img]
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Thanks everyone for the great ideas! I now have a lot of ideas for storing all this stuff and I think I can sucessfully "hide" it when not in use. My husband will be very happy!
ubarose, I love your website. Thanks for the link [img]smile.gif[/img] We have a Bombay Company Outlet up the street (of course I think the prices are the same as in the stores), that would have nice storage furniture and cases like this. I'm going to check it out tomorrow.
Thanks again. I really appreciate everyone's ideas!
Kim
