I'm looking to replace the pair of DVD storage racks now in the corner of the King's room with a single tall DVD storage cabinet only on the side wall, leaving the back wall free for a second night stand (already ordered) beside the bed for my friend to put her drink or other paraphernalia. I only have 36" of wall space along the side wall, so that's as large as the cabinet could be, but it could be as tall as 84 inches.
You see many cabinets sold at different online stores under different names. The downside of this is that the variety of products actually available is thereby limited.
Many of the stands available have a peculiar misfeature that I remember when I was looking for bookcases in the 1980's to accommodate my growing collection of books. On these units, the side pillars wrap around each shelf on the far left and right, making the books (or dvd's) in those locations impossible to remove without removing other books, and often hiding the books so you can't even see what they are. This is a totally unacceptable design solution, yet it is very common, and in fact it seems more common in pricier units that use real wood as compared with melamine (or cheaper) coated particle board.
So how do you search online for stands that aren't built this way? Stands found in brick and mortar stores typically aren't very tall, and the ones in actual furniture stores tend to have the inaccessibility misfeature. Sometimes this is (inaccurately) called "Barrister." A true Barrister bookcase is sectioned and permits each shelf to be moved as a box (which it is). The blocked sides of a Barrister bookcase shelf would be part of the glass door, when you open the door you should see all the books. behind it.
Just another example of things that seemed designed by people who never actually use such things.
Update: After looking at the (limited) options available online (not as much variety as first appears), I decided to go for the Atlantic Oskar 1080 CD media storage unit. This was one of the very few units I could find that would maximize the width I have available (40 inches...if I move the dresser and other CD rack over as far as they can go), and maximize the height as well (very very few go as high as 71 inches). The majority of storage cabinets are either narrower, like 24 inches (a very common width) or much wider. The one other unit that might have worked...was the pseudo Barrister style I describe above. It might have been better in some ways, such as being sturdier, but I can't deal with a storage unit that hides 5% of the contents. I've read the reviews, and unfortunately it seems the Atlantic Oskar has been cheapened in the last few years, made with narrower shelves and so on. OK, I would have bought the earlier and more expensive unit if I could find it, but I couldn't. This does also have the virtue of being quite inexpensive (but as I said, I would pay more if I could find something better that had even close to as much storage). The real wood units online were far more expensive, as you might imagine--and I couldn't find a single one that was a good fit, and the Boltz all steel units weren't in compatible sizes either (unless I were to string together a whole bunch of the very tall ones--at great expense--and I still wonder if all that steel would introduce steel resonances into my listening room).
I would think somebody would have a way of making these things so it could be sized exactly to the wallspace you have available, or make better size options. Atlantic offers a good array of different sizes so perhaps it is not surprising I ended up buying an Atlantic storage unit.
You see many cabinets sold at different online stores under different names. The downside of this is that the variety of products actually available is thereby limited.
Many of the stands available have a peculiar misfeature that I remember when I was looking for bookcases in the 1980's to accommodate my growing collection of books. On these units, the side pillars wrap around each shelf on the far left and right, making the books (or dvd's) in those locations impossible to remove without removing other books, and often hiding the books so you can't even see what they are. This is a totally unacceptable design solution, yet it is very common, and in fact it seems more common in pricier units that use real wood as compared with melamine (or cheaper) coated particle board.
So how do you search online for stands that aren't built this way? Stands found in brick and mortar stores typically aren't very tall, and the ones in actual furniture stores tend to have the inaccessibility misfeature. Sometimes this is (inaccurately) called "Barrister." A true Barrister bookcase is sectioned and permits each shelf to be moved as a box (which it is). The blocked sides of a Barrister bookcase shelf would be part of the glass door, when you open the door you should see all the books. behind it.
Just another example of things that seemed designed by people who never actually use such things.
Update: After looking at the (limited) options available online (not as much variety as first appears), I decided to go for the Atlantic Oskar 1080 CD media storage unit. This was one of the very few units I could find that would maximize the width I have available (40 inches...if I move the dresser and other CD rack over as far as they can go), and maximize the height as well (very very few go as high as 71 inches). The majority of storage cabinets are either narrower, like 24 inches (a very common width) or much wider. The one other unit that might have worked...was the pseudo Barrister style I describe above. It might have been better in some ways, such as being sturdier, but I can't deal with a storage unit that hides 5% of the contents. I've read the reviews, and unfortunately it seems the Atlantic Oskar has been cheapened in the last few years, made with narrower shelves and so on. OK, I would have bought the earlier and more expensive unit if I could find it, but I couldn't. This does also have the virtue of being quite inexpensive (but as I said, I would pay more if I could find something better that had even close to as much storage). The real wood units online were far more expensive, as you might imagine--and I couldn't find a single one that was a good fit, and the Boltz all steel units weren't in compatible sizes either (unless I were to string together a whole bunch of the very tall ones--at great expense--and I still wonder if all that steel would introduce steel resonances into my listening room).
I would think somebody would have a way of making these things so it could be sized exactly to the wallspace you have available, or make better size options. Atlantic offers a good array of different sizes so perhaps it is not surprising I ended up buying an Atlantic storage unit.
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