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Around 30 years now, on and off. I live on a houseboat, space is pretty limited, so I made the decision to sleep in the small bedroom and turn the main bedroom into my workshop. I like to call it a workshop so I can pretend I'm doing manly man things in there, not painting toy soldiers

Most of the stuff is in various boxes, the old GW mail order large boxes are great for holding army-relevant stuff in, but a lot of the boxes tend to hold project-specific stuff in, so organisation is not too hot. I should point out that by far the majority of my stuff is 'in progress'. Huwever, now I've started on orks I've realised that all I've been doing these past 30 years is getting my bits-box ready

I've been collecting just short of 20 years, I think. Maybe more?

Anyway, yeah, I've got a lot of crap built up. I've just moved into my girlfriend's place and I've been slowly taking stuff over. She says she'll make space for all my stuff, and has even made a spot for my models specifically, except it's only a space for my bookcase of display models. Bless her, she thinks that is it all there is. Interesting to see what'll happen when she realises that's about a fifth of all my stuff

I have. I've only had two 40k armies in that time, but the other lines of figs and games I've collected (em4, 54mm plastics, prepaints, Mechwarror, random fantasy, Warzone, Necromunda, Void, etc, etc) and massive amounts of terrain making supplies took up enough room that almost one whole floor of our porch. (I have a house in the city, that in lieu of a garage or basement has an enclosed porch on 3 floors) was full of stuff.

When I got back into LEGO as well and needed a place to store my layout between shows, the storage space was unmanageable. Since then I've been slowly ridding myself of game stuff I'm never going to use. I still have a pretty big collection of stuff, but it's become more manageable as I've rid myself of Warzone, Void, 54mm plastics, Spacelords and alot of terrain stuff that I'll never use. As to the actual storage, it's in boxes of all sizes, almost all of which is on a 12x2x6 shelving system. When it grows much beyond that, it's kind of my cue to sell some more.

Started painting metal fantasy figures around '77 so that makes it about 34 years worth of accumulation.
Sold a bunch early on to make extra money but still have a few early figures. Best estimate is 1100 painted figures and about that many unpainted. The painted stuff is in display cabinets and the unpainted is in boxes in the basement, still in thier blisters/boxes. My biggest problem is deciding what to paint next.

Show and tell time.

Heres one half of my office.

Mostly current projects (plastic boxes and FOW boxes) and various books plus a few other assorted odds and sods.

Painted minis are in cases under my desk (other sides of the room).

22nd year now and I have lots and lots of clear plastic boxes to put stuff in.

I then stack them in the shed, ready for assembly/sale/to sit for a deecade at a time (Like my BFG fleets)

I have a couple of Ikea 'Detoullf' cabinets and the shelves are too far apart, they should have 5 shelves rather than 4.

on and off for 25 years , i couldnt affoed hardly any minis when i was a kid , and left most when i left home , which were in turn dumped, i then i chucked away the all the new stuff i had created in an argument with the girlfriend ten nine years ago! back to the drawing board for me now , i can only afford perry minis now .lol but play with my kids birthday prezzies as well

I have been collecting for over 20 years too!

How to manage things?

Well I became and eBay power seller for one. I have learned to 'ride the waves' as it were and usually paint multiple armies a year, selling older less desired things for newer cooler ones. Each project usually bringing better paint jobs and cooler new figs!

This does mean I sell off pretty much all my old armies. In fact I don't have any of the armies in my photo galleries anymore, since then I have painted 5 new ones!

Other details: I have about 3 status of minis, projects still in boxes, clipped sorted bits, and finished stuff. The key I find is to clip ALL your sprues and put the pieces in plastic organizers for use later! Then it's so much more space efficient to keep everything rather than having mostly clipped sprues everywhere!

So get some plastic bins and get clipping! Good luck all you salty old dogs!

(Oh, and buying a house really helps! To the young guys, if you think 40k is expensive, wait until you get a mortgage!)

22yrs ish, did drop and sell everything par a few bits of stuff in 1996. Which turned out to be a stupid move as I was back into the hobby less than a year later.

Have sold a lot of my armies over the years, if they have been sitting in a cabinet for more than two years an not been touched once, my selling finger gets itchy.

Most of it is in one of four cabinets, however I also have extra storage space for bits in the modelling corner in the living room.

Bout 20 years this, everything that wasn't marine was packed up and banished to the loft... Poor grots it must be cold up there.

malfred wrote:How the heck do you manage all the models?!

I don't. I've got 'out' of the hobby several times since 1993 and sold/given away all my stuff on multiple occasions. I really wish I hadn't, as my Undead/Tomb Kings army would be massive (always seems to be taht one that gets me back into WFB) and I'd have several painted 40K armies (Big Salamanders, Eldar, Tyranids with the goofy 2nd Edition models for all the MCs and of course, Tau) rather than the barely any complete I have now.

Augustus wrote:(Oh, and buying a house really helps! To the young guys, if you think 40k is expensive, wait until you get a mortgage!)

Or get married. You think your girlfriend is "high maintenance"? Wait until she has a ring. That "starter wife" isn't cheap.

And god forbid you have kids. You pay money for roughly 20 years so they can convert food into poop.
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Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:22yrs ish, did drop and sell everything par a few bits of stuff in 1996. Which turned out to be a stupid move as I was back into the hobby less than a year later.

Have sold a lot of my armies over the years, if they have been sitting in a cabinet for more than two years an not been touched once, my selling finger gets itchy.

This selling and rebuying stuff is silly. The entire point of having storage is so that you can put something away and pick it up again later.
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chaplaingrabthar wrote:I've got 'out' of the hobby several times since 1993 and sold/given away all my stuff on multiple occasions. I really wish I hadn't, as my Undead/Tomb Kings army would be massive (always seems to be taht one that gets me back into WFB) and I'd have several painted 40K armies (Big Salamanders, Eldar, Tyranids with the goofy 2nd Edition models for all the MCs and of course, Tau) rather than the barely any complete I have now.

Bought, built and painted in a box beats the hell out of rebuying, rebuilding, and repainting.

I can't imagine where you guys have the time to redo armies.

13 years this may or there abouts. More than half of my stuff is in Ireland.

malfred wrote:How the heck do you manage all the models?!

I sell what I dont need anymore =X

I'm on or around 15 years now. I have a big cupboard in my flat that has all my stuff in it. (2 Fantasy armies, my Hordes Trolls, my WOTR stuff, and some random bits and bobs, as well as all my D'n'D stuff, space hulk.)

I used to have 4 Fantasy armies, a BFG fleet, a few skirmish warbands and a 40K Chaos Army. They all got sold or given away before I left for the UK. I still have 40K Orks, but they haven't travelled across the irish sea with me- they and my massive 40K bitz box are in my parents house in Wexford, gathering dust. I have around 1500 points of Crimson Fists that I was working on. Seems like I might finish them and bring them across in case I get the "40K itch". I'm also trying to limit my purchases this year and work through my O&G backlog.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Augustus wrote:(Oh, and buying a house really helps! To the young guys, if you think 40k is expensive, wait until you get a mortgage!)

Or get married. You think your girlfriend is "high maintenance"? Wait until she has a ring. That "starter wife" isn't cheap.

And god forbid you have kids. You pay money for roughly 20 years so they can convert food into poop.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I've got 'out' of the hobby several times since 1993 and sold/given away all my stuff on multiple occasions. I really wish I hadn't, as my Undead/Tomb Kings army would be massive (always seems to be taht one that gets me back into WFB) and I'd have several painted 40K armies (Big Salamanders, Eldar, Tyranids with the goofy 2nd Edition models for all the MCs and of course, Tau) rather than the barely any complete I have now.

Bought, built and painted in a box beats the hell out of rebuying, rebuilding, and repainting.

I can't imagine where you guys have the time to redo armies.

I don't have time. I'm both married, have a mortgage and have kids (though, state of Virgniia willing, that first condition will change by the end of the year)

I've just reached 11 years i'll come back to this post in four more years