November 2015
You never really know how much you have in a collection until you have to box it up and move it from the room it used to be displayed in.
Yikes.
I did a pretty good job of keeping each display of figures together, either in plastic bags or boxes. That way I can put the collection back together a little bit at a time. A few things I didn’t count on was how to safely store my movie posters that are mounted on wood and exactly how big a container is needed to corral about a dozen various starships and other vehicles. But the room is empty and it’s painted; step one complete.
I wanted a sort of Death Star or Star Destroyer grey but ended up with a more blue/grey colour for the walls. As it turns out it this was a better way to go as the room looks brighter and there is a lot of similar colours in a lot of the merchandise I’m displaying. I have the Return of the Jedi poster with the image of a lightsaber being held by two hands. The predominant colour in this poster matches the walls quite well, as does the blue in my vintage curtains. I didn’t paint the ceiling yet as there wasn’t time before the new flooring was installed and I anticipate having to move around the hanging ships anyway.
Wow, what a difference! I don’t know what I like better, the floor or the walls. It’s pretty much a new room now, and it’s completely empty. Time to start bringing in the furniture and shelving. In an attempt to make things a little more symmetrical I placed the two tallest bookshelves on either side of the TV. Luckily they are also both a dark wood colour so that will help the overall look as well. That’s one thing that really bugged me as I started bringing the bookshelves back in, there are four bookshelves and none of them match-I think I claimed them all from friends who were going to get rid of them. At some point I would like to replace them all with identical units, maybe even glass with doors instead of wood to cut down on the dusting. As I’ve said many times, always in motion is the Star Wars Room, so that will be a project for the future—like maybe after Episode 9 hits theatres!
I had an extra week before I had to bring my collectables back in from the garage so I spent some of that time planning what I would do on each shelf. Since I was in retail for about 10 years I went back to my experience using ‘planograms’ and basically mapped out the whole room ahead of time. First I made of list of what I wanted on each shelf. Next I used Apple’s Keynote app (Powerpoint, basically) to layout each bookshelf, cubby and floating shelf that I have. These really helped see the big picture and allowed me to create extra space for my more current interests. Namely, Star Tours and Disney related merchandise and my slowly growing vintage Kenner collection.
The progress has been slow, maybe slower than I wanted but I’ve managed to get a few things out of storage. My small collection of Black Series 6-inch figures have a more permanent home than before and since I don’t intend on collecting beyond what will fit on this shelf, I probably won’t have to revisit the spot they fill above the closet. My Original 21 figures have moved from above the couch to above the TV as it continues to be one of the main focuses of the room—these figures, bought on vacation in March 1978 are the reason I have a Star Wars Room almost 40 years later.
The room is still in disarray but it’s at least back to being a living space again. The flat screen, Xbox and Apple TV are plugged in and most of the boxes are gone from the floor. Next up is to hang a few posters on the walls. Stay tuned!
Mike Tarkin.com 