swo17 wrote:Would you guys recommend oil or water based stain and polyurethane?
And what about a combo stain & poly vs. applying them separately?
I use Lundia shelving, plain pine (the cheapest option) and coat them with water- based polyurethane, which is very quick drying. I only do one coat, just to give it bit of protection, and gives a matt finish. Not an interior design classic, but nobody can really see the shelves once they’re full!
Oil-based takes ages to dry and further ages for the smell to dissipate, and usually I’m in a hurry.
I think my family used polyurethane on the staircase in our home - it was carpeted, but there was still exposed wood on the sides/edges than needed to be stained as they were still susceptible to wear, and the handrails needed it too. tbh I don't think it's aesthetically pleasing because it looks like a layer of nail polish or hardened clear plastic (which it basically is) and it didn't "settle" in a way that made it a smooth, water-like finish, if anything it accentuated the texture and irregularities of the wood surface. However, from a utilitarian perspective, it was extremely durable - they've never had to re-apply it after all these years, and it was extremely stable, never getting softer or sticky even in a house that often approached a muggy 90 degrees during the summer because they never wanted to turn on the AC (much to my annoyance). It was also pretty slick - for our stairs it was okay, but if there was no carpeting, it would be extremely hazardous, especially if for whatever reason your feet or the stairs were wet. With that in mind, it's possible it'll reduce friction and shelf wear, which may be desirable.
domino harvey wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 10:42 pm
Got my copy and it’s much slimmer than I expected. It’s exactly the width of the old Criterion double wide DVD cases, if you need a visual to plan for your shelf space
I thought articles were supposed to be disregarded when filing by alphabetical order. Is that only done for certain languages like English?
hearthesilence wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2026 12:30 am
I thought articles were supposed to be disregarded when filing by alphabetical order. Is that only done for certain languages like English?
That reminds me that I still need to research whether "articles" are disregarded when they come at the start of the title, but are not actually an article in this case but instead a pronoun. Ditto with articles in cases other than the nominative.
If I’ve seen it before, I don’t consider it “unwatched” for purposes of organization. My true unwatched titles are separate from my shelving in milk cartons. If I’ve seen a larger set partially that I intend to keep on the shelf, I’ll put it on the shelf sticking out to indicate I haven’t seen it all
domino harvey wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2026 1:58 pm
If I’ve seen it before, I don’t consider it “unwatched” for purposes of organization. My true unwatched titles are separate from my shelving in milk cartons. If I’ve seen a larger set partially that I intend to keep on the shelf, I’ll put it on the shelf sticking out to indicate I haven’t seen it all
This is similar to what I do. I try to catch reissues in theaters because quite a few of them don't get released on Blu-ray anytime soon (for example, the brand-new Ousmane Sembène restorations that opened at Film Forum two years ago) but a lot of them do find a home, and if I've already caught them in theaters, I don't feel the need to open them right away. I will open them if it sounds like a disc's dislodged or if the film was released on different formats, in which case I want to make sure they didn't stick the wrong one in the case (rare but it happened to me once for a title that was going out-of-print).
For titles I've never seen or never seen in decent quality, I keep them in a small stack on my desk, and after I get to them, they go on the shelves.
Last edited by hearthesilence on Wed Sep 09, 2026 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
These apparent minutiae matter a hell of a lot to me. Don’t forget the capitalization rules for German titles: capitalize only the first word and subsequent nouns. Everything else must remain lower case.
I believe articles not in the nominative case would also be ignored by alphabetization. However, you’d need to check the norms of that language first. In German, articles are often included in alphabetization—much to my annoyance. Thus it does matter that the first word of Des Knaben Wunderhorn is in the genitive case because Germans are going to file it under DES.
Last edited by denti alligator on Wed Sep 09, 2026 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I was trying to think of an example of a title that starts with an article in a case other than the nominative. It's the first thing that came to mind. It's not a form you would not see in everyday usage. It's a stylized poetic inversion. Yes, very strange.
To keep it to films, here's another one: Des Teufels General by Helmut Käutner.
domino harvey wrote:If I’ve seen it before, I don’t consider it “unwatched” for purposes of organization. My true unwatched titles are separate from my shelving in milk cartons.
Me too, though I also kevyip extras, so a disc isn’t filed away on the shelves until I’ve seen all of those (or verified that they’re worthless). My kevyip is stored in neat little boxes on a double tiered Edwardian (?) tea trolley.
zedz wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2026 9:18 pm
My kevyip is stored in neat little boxes on a double tiered Edwardian (?) tea trolley.
Pictures, please!
P.S. You guys are amazing. My kevyip is thrown in with everything else. I keep track of what I haven't yet watched by simply looking or by consulting a lettboxd list I made (which includes extras if they're bona fide films or shorts).
Everyone is caught up on the articles, but I'm over here being driven crazy by the thought of filing things alphabetically within director as opposed to chronologically. Alphabetical by director, then chronological by release is the only way that ever made any sense to me, though it does drive others equally crazy when trying to locate something among my collection.
Which is definitely a thing that happens all the time, let me tell you, and not merely a hypothetical scenario I have invented, as I have no one with whom to share my insane movie collecting ways.
(I'm happily married but my wife has no use whatsoever for physical media.)
Oedipax wrote:Everyone is caught up on the articles, but I'm over here being driven crazy by the thought of filing things alphabetically within director as opposed to chronologically. Alphabetical by director, then chronological by release is the only way that ever made any sense to me, though it does drive others equally crazy when trying to locate something among my collection
That's actually how I file my library as well. For a while I used to file everything by title and alphabetically, similar to the way my hometown library organized their movie section. (They also divided it by genre, but I wasn't going to do that, ever.) tbf it made everything easy to find, but it also looked kind of haphazard and not so appealing. I didn't realize specialty film shops often organized by director, so when Glenn Kenny wrote a column talking about his "auteur shelf" (and how Fincher had risen enough in his eyes to qualify for that shelf instead of the alphabetical "miscellaneous" shelf), it all made sense - I was already doing that for my music, so why not movies? And like my music library, the movies are now arranged chronologically after being organized by director too. If you're familiar enough with the titles you own, you probably already know 99% of the chronology without looking it up, which is the case for me. The more interesting part is probably the "miscellaneous" shelf, which is a big back-handed compliment to directors who are clearly third or fourth tier artists IMHO, box office success and name recognition be damned, and they all directed only one film (or in a few cases two films) worth owning. otoh I don't do this for my music, all recording artists are alphabetized - the "miscellaneous" section only involves various artist compilations.
