Accept your fate, my man! There is no escaping the lure of the lead. Once it's got its claws in you, it will never let you go...
Here, witness my very own decline into madness:
First, a picture of my workbench, when I was just starting out here on LAF, and still had to be weened off a diet of straight GW (of over 20 years):
That was taken somewhere in 2009. My collection of (exclusively GW at the time) bits is stored in those nifty drawers. Note that there are plenty of empty ones...
Most spare models are also in those drawers, and vehicles, if any, are stored in those boxes on the shelves on the left.
At this time, I was able to remember each and every bit (even if it were but a sword pommel or a spare head) and pinpoint its location (and its history!). All painted miniatures are in a display cabinet to the left, not visible in this picture.
Move forward 5 years...
Yes; somewhere under there is the very same desk... As you can see, the opened up world of other manufacturers (combined with my increasing disposable income, it must be said) has vastly expanded my collection.
Truth be told though, many of the boxes you see piled on and under the desk here were already in my collection at the time of the first picture, but were stored in a cupboard. However, before the arrival of the larva last year, we had to clear out a room for the nursery, and the contents of the cupboard there had to be moved to the one in my sanctuary, which in turn meant I had to relocate its contents to my desk.
It's temporary, trust me; there's another room being prepared and sanctified as my new geek temple (but then, I've been saying that ever since I bought this house...
).
Still; there's a method to the above mess. Most of the GW stuff is still in those drawers, but has been condensed, to make room for bits and minis of other systems. The green boxes on the shelves have replaced the many different gaming boxes, and store much more on the same shelf space (obviously).
As it is, I have no idea how many miniatures I have collected over the years, but I'd be surprised if the number ran over a thousand. See; many of those green boxes up there contain scenery, as I have no place to store them otherwise, and no fixed table either.
There's one box in particular though, labeled 'New Minis', which forms the core of my Lead Mountain (and Lake Plastic). It's filled to capacity. So much so even, that the lid will not fit properly anymore. In it, are purchases, all made with specific projects in mind, in ziplock bags. Those are the minis that were bought on a whim, were a good deal, or cannot (for the time being) be assigned to running projects.
When I feel the urge for (revisiting) a certain project, I tend to gather everything I have accumulated for said project into one dedicated box, which will then sit on my desk. Until I'm lured away by the next shiny thing that is.
What usually happens then, is that the two (or three, or four
) projects mingle on my desk for a while, till I run out of space, and I then store the stalled project away till I hear its siren call again... Despite the desk that looks like the aftermath of a reasonably sized earthquake right now, I like to stay organised.
Heck; I even make spreadsheets, detailing all the elements of a project, in order to make it to its deadline (usually RPG campaign related)! Come to think of it, cataloging all my accumulated stuff is not such a bad idea at all! But I'd certainly want such a file to also contain the storage location of each mini, as right now, even though I know I have it, I usually have to sort through each and every box (regularly twice) to locate what I am after. Soddin' Murphy...
Still, even with these (apparently) limited numbers of minis, I am now sometimes coming across minis I had forgotten about. But I refuse to see that as a bad sign!