More Storage

Storage is always an issue for me. Between the multitude of projects, tools, paints, pigments and what not I just never seem to have enough room. We were at American Furniture Warehouse when I spotted a set of drawers made of wood instead of plastic on casters. At $30 it was cheaper than most of the plastic options out there so I decided to give it a try.

Of course it sat in the basement for months before I finally got around to actually putting it together. Construction was not complex but it was a bit more difficult than I anticipated. While there were spots where you would start the wood screws there lacked any pilot holes on the corresponding piece of wood so I was constantly struggling to make sure everything was straight. While the carcass itself was pretty simple the drawers gave me the most difficulty especially getting the back piece of the drawer in nice and straight. 

In the end I am happy with the result and I have a sturdy piece of furniture to store some stuff in. Mostly this will be holding tools, extra paints pigments and maybe some of the smaller in progress projects. The drawers are tall enough to handle all of the drop bottle paints without a problem, but my Liquitex inks are to tall.

Here are some pictures of the finished product:

Trying to free up space in these three locations into the smaller rolling storage drawers.

Plastic storage bins hold unpainted miniatures, paints, inks, bases and basing materials. I'm hoping to free up one or two of these for more miniatures.

The mess at the desk. The little paint rack on the right needs to go as does the huge paint rack in the center. The center rack is just to deep to be truly usable. Maybe just a stand up rack against the back would be the best bet.

Six drawers on casters.

All my pigments and pigment tools in one spot

My enamels fit quite nicely 

Spare paint in dropper bottles, typically extras (how does that happen?) and colors that are used in frequently

For the moment my HO Freight cars in the bottom drawer. Still looking for the rest of the parts for these.

On the Go Paint Storage

I travel quite a bit in the local area with my paints. I'm always on the look out for an easier way to both transport and keep it organized. I have four paint cases from Reaper that have a foam interior that is cut out for paint bottles. These are apparently small pistol cases and I find them very handy, I use four of them. Three are used to carry the standard Reaper MSPs that I like to have with me when I go painting and the other is for the paints that I'm using on my current project. That way I'm not digging for or trying to remember what paint I was using from one session to the next. Each of these cases will hold 36 bottles. I like them but I need to figure out a way to label them since I'm constantly opening the wrong case looking for the color I want.  These cases will hold Vallejo and Scale Color (from Scale 75) bottles as well but those bottles are little taller and you have to force the cases shut when they are in there.

I was on TMP today and some one had find some cases at Joanne's for "Glitter Glue" that are just about perfect for my purposes. Each case comes with two trays to hold the bottles by their caps (in other words upside down). They are just the right height for Vallejo and Scale Color and each case will hold 64 paints. And since they are clear cases I can see what colors are inside them at a glance. It has a nice latch system and a handle so they will be easy to carry as well. These are a tad on the expensive side but they were 50% off today at Joanne's so I picked up two. I had first heard of these over on the Reaper Forums but had completely forgot about them till I saw the post on TMP today.

When I head over to the conventions I usually put everything in my roller bag. Since these look like they are re-purposed scrapbooking paper cases they should fit inside that quite nicely. I have heard some concerns that paint would leak when its stored like this. As long as your lids are on tight that shouldn't be an issue. I used to store my enamel and lacquer paints upside down so they wouldn't evaporate out of the jar. If you have some kind of shaker inside your bottles that's like to be up in the tip though so keep a sharp pointy object nearby to clear the tip.

The specifics in case you decide to give them a look: ArtBin, Glitter Glue Storage, 6959AB

And of course pictures are better than anything I can describe:

Here is the case, not quite empty. I started to fill it before I thought that maybe some pictures were in order. Clear case, with two trays inside each holding 21 bottles of paint, caps down.

Here is the first one that I filled with my Scale Color paints (which also took up a portion of the second case). I will at least fill the second tray in the second case with Vallejos. While I still own a lot of Vallejo paint I find I don't use it as much as I used to.

Here is the lid open. I actually wish the lid just came completely off, so I could leave the lid off while I'm painting.

Each of the trays also has a little "kickstand" as well. The trays are completely removable, so now that I think about it I can just take them out of the case completely while I paint.

Here is the case standing upright on the table. Two latches to hold the lid shut and a nice handle to carry it with.