DIY Network

Organizing Entertainment Learn now to organize your video and music collections. From "Home Made Easy" episode DHME-162

Jessica Sabat, DIY's Organization Made Easy expert, joins host Stephanie Lydecker and shares tips on the most productive way to organize music and video collections.

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	Guest Jessica Sabat shares tips on organizing your musical and movie collection.
	Figure A
	Figure B
	Figure C
	Figure D

Organizing Entertainment

Note: The first thing you need to do is go through all your CDs, DVDs, tapes and cassettes and separate and count them. There are many inexpensive organizing products available, but the most important thing when organizing your audio and video clutter is to know what you have so that you can best accommodate your collection. If you are an avid collector of music or movies, make sure you take that into consideration when buying a unit because you will need extra storage space because you will constantly be adding to your collection. Also, make sure you are buying a unit that goes with the décor of your family of TV room. If your entertainment center is a certain color wood, look for a similar entertainment organizer.

CD Clutter

• Two-drawer wooden storage boxes are a great way to store your CDs (figure A). You can alphabetize the CDs, and as your CD collection grows you can buy more storage boxes and stack them on top of each other.

• You can buy CD binders that have large pockets so that you can place liner notes and the CD in the same pocket (figure B). The liner notes will serve as your label so you always know where to put the CD back.

• Have some much smaller travel-sized CD binders on hand. They are great to fill up for road trips, vacations and workouts. You can also keep a small CD binder right by the stereo to keep your most frequently listened to CDs so that you don't have to search for them.

• Smaller boxes with lids are great for storing your CDs with photos on them, or your software CDs. The box can be kept right by your desk for easy access.

• Whenever you loan out a CD, put a small note where the CD was to remind you of who borrowed it and when.

• Create a database of all your CDs. You can easily do this on the computer where you create a simple spreadsheet. Knowing what you have in your collection is a great way to start to weed out what you don't really listen to. Every few months print out the database, and taking a red pen, check off next to each album if you have listened to it recently. You will start to see that you never list to certain CDs anymore, and that is when it is time to give them away or swap them with friends.

DVDs

• DVDs can be stored perfectly in bookcases if you have the room. Just make sure that the spines are facing out.

• Always be conscious that you put the correct DVD back in the appropriate case after you have finished watching it.

• If you have little to no space and you don't want to display your DVDs you could store them in large decorative photo boxes (figure C). You can stack them on top of each other or next to the sofa. To make it easier to find what you are looking for make sure to either alphabetize or group the movies by genre. Label the outside of the boxes to correspond with the contents inside. Leave room in the boxes for your expanding movie collection — you don't want to jam pack the boxes only to have to re-organize them when you buy a new video.

• Another great device for those who have no room to store your video library is the door rack organizer. It is ideal for dorms or apartments where units cannot be mounted on walls. They hang over most doors and hold videotapes, DVDs, paperbacks, VHS tapes, etc.

How to Stop Misplacing CDs

• Create a CD checkout system similar to a library checkout system. Keep a notebook or a printed spreadsheet from your computer with your CD collection. If you are going to store your CDs in a CD binder put the sheet with a pen in the very front of the binder. Whenever someone borrows a CD, they have to fill out which CD they borrowed, what day they checked it out, and then write down the date they returned it (figure D).

• This is also a great technique for teaching kids to share CDs. You can give each child a time limit for how long they can keep the CD before the other child has their chance.

GUESTS :

Jessica Sabat
Professional Organizer
Website: www.optimumorganizing.com