Back in the day when film was developed at the local drugstore, we all had piles of photos laying around in envelopes. They were always waiting to be organized into albums.
In our case, this job's rainy day never came. So we recently dug out our piles of envelopes. We took a deep breath and started opening each one, quickly flipping through to determine the approximate year of the images within. We spent several hours on this, and we managed to organize the envelopes into a rough chronology.
It would have taken even longer had we looked at every photo and undertaken the consequent reminiscencing, and we still intend to do this at some point. Perhaps when we're very old.
In the meantime, we stored the photos in beautiful archival photo boxes from Kolo and stacked them on the shelves above our desk. They're within reach at all times, lest we're tempted to peek sooner.
Since we knew we were leaving the boxes in view, we wanted storage that would be attractive as well as archival. Kolo's "Havana" boxes are constructed like cigar boxes, with hinge and lip. They have linen covers in rich colors, and each box has a little window into which you can slot an identifying image.
Available in SF through PaperSource for $20 - $30/ea.
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Comments (4)
this is perfect. i have just spent the last week going through a lifetime of photos just the way you describe them, in envelopes. these for the most part were extras since each envelope had the corressonding shots kept in albums. soo i am moving to your fair city and downsizing from a small house into a 1 bedroom probably. so exciting. everything must go. and i needed exactly this type of storage for the few hundred or so i will keep. thanks lisa.
I was amazed when the husband voluntarily went through photos, removing duplicates, bad shots, and pictures that just weren't that interesting in the first place. We also agreed that we didn't need to keep *every* photo we'd ever taken of former cats.
We have a different (cheaper, inevitably!) sort of red box because I thought the boxes might need to be "out" if we went the loft route.
Wende: where did you get your red boxes and how much were they? We have about 25-30 mismatched, crumbling photo boxes at home in a closet (they were bought at different points) and we've thought of relacing them with sturdier boxes with a more uniform look. At $30 a box for 30 boxes, though, it gets to be an expensive project.
An alternative would be to get chest of drawers, with a drawer depth that will fit photo envelopes. Any suggestions?
i went to ikea and got a bunch of "video" storage boxes (black, metal) to hold and sort all my photos. the dimensions aren't exact, but if you have atypical photos sizes (panoramic, 5x7, etc.) it works pretty well!