To not want DHs toys all over the fkn living room?

[BeepBeepYh]

DH is a geek. He collects figures, lego, character statues etc.

When we had a smaller house his stuff was all over the living room. Shelves of them, cabinets, on the mantle piece etc... It caused a fair few arguments.

We've moved to a new house and there's a small room upstairs that's currently got boxes in that haven't been unpacked /sorted that we agreed would be his room for his collection.

He can put shelves up, lights, a cabinet. Anything he wants as long as the door shuts.

It's been close to a year and he's not sorted the room out.

His collection is all still in boxes in that room and the loft.

Only since we moved he started a new collection. A certain series of figures and he's been buying them.

He must have bought 30 of them.

My livingroom sideboard has been filled with the empty boxes (he won't bin them) and the shelves I put up in an alcove has been taken over by the figures.

My kids are all teens now and I was really looking forwards to having a 'grown up' living room.

I said to him yesterday that he needs to move all the toys and set up his room.

He says that I have things on the shelves so why can't he? My things are picture frames, dried flowers, ornaments and candles.

It's hardly the same is it?

It's not like I'm saying he can't collect them. I don't give a shit. I'm just asking that he sorts the room upstairs out so he can put them all on display there!

He said that it's not fair that I've got the living room and bedroom for my stuff (I've got absolutely nothing on display, I just want a NORMAL living room and bedroom that doesn't look like ToysRUs. It's not like I collect things and have all my stuff everywhere. I just want a minimal bedroom after decades of toy clutter) and he has to just have the office room.

I said most blokes would love have a whole mini room to have their own space and the living room or bedroom isn't the place for his collection.

AIBU?

Imagibe 30 x 6" marvel figurines stood on your living room shelf??

If you have a garden tell him to build a shed of a restricted size to house his collection and he needs to sell/get rid of excess. He's hoarding these things. If you can afford it then fine but if it's diverting funds away from family life then no. The loft needs emptied and living room too. Not one piece anywhere except his room. Has he ever had a childhood loss/trauma where he had some type of arrested development and trying to replace the loss with a collection. Get the fire service out to do a safety assessment on your house when he's there, they will identify loft as a problem and all the boxes.

He sounds like a hoarder if he has a loft and room upstairs full of boxes which he has not yet sorted out and is still buying more. No way would I put up with that. My DH has a hobby room upstairs which is choc a bloc with stuff and he is also a geek but more with tools, modelling rather than buying ornaments etc. In your position I would be removing all that stuff from the living room and dumping it upstairs and tell him the house is shared so he has to sort out his existing collection before buying more. My DH knows that his hobby room and the garage are essentially his space. The rest of the house is shared so he does not get to clutter it up with his hobbies. Every day anything left in the kitchen, hall, bedrooms, or lounge or conservatory gets put away.

What does he say when you remind him that he agreed to use the spare room for these?

Didn’t some men used to have model trains and ships in bottles? This is the modern version.

Question about the room that’s been designated for his stuff. Is there room for furniture in there, or is it basically a big walk-in closet/storage facility?

I collect dolls (American Girl, Barbie, and Rainbow High), and while his collection shouldn’t be taking over your house, part of the fun of collecting is displaying it. People want to be able to see at least part of their collections around them, not just walk into a storage room in order to stare at it.

What are your thoughts about a few small displays in some of the less formal parts of the house? A row of figures on the kitchen windowsill, or a bookshelf, or next to a closet?

Everybody blathering on about how they just can’t understand how any real adult could like figurines reminds me of the C. S. Lewis quote:

”To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Yeah, but unless you were very wealthy, I can’t imagine that your average Joe Blow would have been able to afford loads of model trains and loads of ships in bottles, taking up loads of space. OP’s DH seems to have his figures in every nook and cranny of the house.