MIKE'S FORMER MOVIE ROOM THAT NO LONGER EXISTS

 

While this humble blog bearing the title of Mike's Movie Room does indeed continue to exist, the actual space that was its inspiration has been vacated. After more than thirty-six years of living in a rather spacious one-and-one-half story, three-bedroom house, I have relocated to a smaller space. The spare bedroom that gradually evolved into my movie collection room, as seen in the photos on the left, is now empty of my DVDs, Blu-rays and posters, lobby cards and photographs.

There were a lot of factors that brought me to this decision to move after so many years. 

The house had many structural issues that, to my regret, were never properly addressed. And then there were the health issues, primarily having to climb stairs with two arthritic knees. The situation was getting to be a little too much for me to handle. So, I looked around for something a little more practical that was all on one level. I found a nice little two-bedroom house in a decent area and made the big move a few weeks ago. All of the "stuff" from the old movie room is safely packed away in boxes until I get the spare bedroom painted and recarpeted. After that's done, I'll start setting up Mike's Movie Room 2: The Saga Continues. It may take a while!

In the meantime, the photo at the top of the blog will stay where it is, as a way to remember the old room and all the good times I had over the years discovering films and reliving my lost youth with old TV shows. I have to admit that it was a cool space, albeit somewhat crowded as the collection kept growing. The new room might turn out to be even more crowded, but it's hard to say until I start setting up shelves and seeing just how much room there is. As I prepared to move, I began downsizing a lot of my collections. I gave away a lot of books and sold off quite a few records, CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays. My guiding principle was that if I knew I would never watch a movie again, there was no reason to keep it on the shelf. As a result, I made quite a nice chunk of change. What didn't sell went to Goodwill. I ended up giving away the bulk of a vinyl LP collection that had been growing since I was in high school. I have no regrets about it. I was determined not to haul those records to another house. Once I started letting go of items I thought I could never live without, it got easier. I still love records and still have an old-school stereo system with a turntable, but I plan to focus more on CDs for the storage factor and the general practicality.

I look at the empty rooms, and it seems like a scene from BACKROOMS, although not quite as weird and scary. What I'm left with now, I guess, is the Movie Room of the mind. Here's hoping I don't get lazy and complacent and put off the renovations for too long, with all the movies boxed and stored quietly away. The new room will be a lot different. Maybe not as interesting, but then, maybe more. This hobby has been such a big, important part of my life and I can't imagine not doing this anymore. Let's see how things progress.

Stay tuned...