How to Make Your Treasures Collect Attention, Not Dust

Just about everyone collects something: framed photos, stuffed animals, salt and pepper shakers, you name it. And most collections are kept under control.

But for some, collecting is a consuming passion. Serious collectors devote many hours to gathering specific items--traveling thousands of miles for one piece or spending weekends scouring shops or estate sales. There’s also time spent maintaining and organizing collections.

But that’s not the Big Problem. The big problem with collections is that they tend to collect dust rather than an approving glance.

Why? Because they end up on a closet shelf or scattered about the house. But books, sports memorabilia, miniature trains--whatever your fancy--can become a focal point of a room or a theme for the entire home or yard.

How do you tastefully show off a cherished collection? Here are the stories of a few collectors who have found ways to enjoy their treasures while keeping their homes from looking like either a museum or the set from “Sanford and Son.”

On Track With Trains

From the street, Kathleen and Jay Kaplans’ Irvine house looks like any other, but if you go around to the backyard and listen carefully, you may hear the sound of trains.

Eighteen train engines and 45 train cars traverse 400 feet of G-gauge train track over bridges and through tunnels in the Kaplans’ yard. The track weaves through the “city” of Santa Mira (from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”), which boasts a Doggie Diner (from the movie “Rocketeer”), a Danceteria (complete with flashing lights), a movie theater, drive-in theater, Hula-Hoop factory and an amusement park with a Ferris wheels and rides that light up.

At the 6-foot-long train station, you’ll hear the sounds of trains arriving, people talking and a voice over a loudspeaker announcing lost children and dogs. Near the pond are sound effects of sea gulls squawking and water slapping the shore. Further on, there’s a soundtrack of people talking and arguing.

The Kaplans didn’t begin their collecting with trains, though. Jay, a mortgage broker and president of First Suburban Corp. of Tustin, and Kathleen, a photographer and artist, started collecting art 17 years ago, which segued into collecting movies on video--sci-fi, adventure and drama classics--then laser discs. That collection now numbers 600.

Jay also has a large record collection, started 40 years ago, the weight of which warped the floorboards.

But collecting trains outweighs any of their other passions.

“We began with a small circle around the Christmas tree, which graduated onto the back patio,” Kathleen says. “Then we started attending meetings of the L.A. Garden Railway Society, which we found out about through Morgan’s Big Train Emporium in Huntington Beach, where we get most of our trains.”

They started going to train shows, and a full-blown collecting craze began. Now they devote an average of one hour a day during the week and most of every weekend to buying supplies, trimming surrounding foliage and building and maintaining the track and trains.

“We consider a lot of the cars artwork,” Kathleen says. “We display the really good cars inside the house in glass cabinets, on pedestals or on shelves. The rest we keep in large plastic cabinets outside.”

There’s a boxcar with a huge dinosaur busting though, a Cleopatra car and one full of robots. They make some of the cars.

To maintain the track, Jay runs a cleaning car around the track before running the trains. Every couple of weeks he cleans the wheels of the engines with an erasing tool, replacing wheels when necessary. The station is covered with canvas when not in use.

But despite the care, accidents do happen. Sometimes their Basset hound, Louie-Louie, walks down Route 66, and his tail hits a building, which then has to be repaired.

“Ivy is also a problem,” Kathleen says. “We have to trim around the city, pick up branches. When we run out of lawn, we may just have to go up and begin a double-decker train track and city.”

The Goal Is Hockey

Step into Michael Warstadt’s Hockey Room in his south Orange County home, and you can’t help but notice a large glass tank containing two hefty live tortoises: Luc for Luc Robitaille of the New York Rangers and Manon, for Manon Rheaume, a female hockey player.

And that’s just the beginning.

There’s a hockey-themed clock and bank, two oak file cabinets and an oak desk full of hockey magazines. Hockey sticks stand in corners. Autographed jerseys hang on walls (Warstadt plans trips around the country and to Canada to coincide with hockey games to get autographs).

A three-shelf cabinet contains 300 pucks, most signed by hockey players. “[World Hockey League] is on the bottom shelf,” he says. “Canadian junior hockey and minor league hockey are on top. I don’t mix them,” he says.

Plaques, pennants and framed, autographed photographs of players line the walls, leaving no white space.

“I’m out of room,” says Warstadt, who began collecting five years ago.

He keeps his collection tidy and organized.

“All the cards are cataloged in folders,” he says. “I label autographed clothing so I know whose signature it is. I keep unsigned photos in a binder. My file cabinets, desk and storage lockers in the closets prevent [the collection] from getting out of control. Nothing [signed] leaves the house.”

The easiest way to maintain control of his room, he says, is to keep the doors closed.

“Few friends even know about this room because I won’t open the doors,” he says. “People can come in [to the room] but not without supervision. This is for me. It’s my room to be alone.”

House of Books

One couple, who wish to remain anonymous to ensure their privacy, collect furniture from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, pewter, antique Oriental rugs, scrimshaw, netsuke, antique Bible boxes, wood models and pig figurines.

Their three-story, bay-front home is also brimming with 50,000 books--on tables, in the kitchen, in the living room, in her study, along the upstairs hallway and in his home office.

The collection was once larger, but the couple sold 35,000 books to a rare book dealer just for space reasons.

The remaining books are organized by subject or alphabetized by author: cookbooks in the kitchen, literary fiction in the library, leather-bound classics in the living room, poetry in an antique cupboard in the hallway.

First editions, signed and rare books are protected from dust in glass cabinets.

“The most damaging things to antiques, art and most collectibles are dryness, heat, sun and air pollution,” says the female collector.

Treasure Savers

Experts suggest the following tips to help protect treasures:

* Use curtain- or fish-line to secure books on shelves in an earthquake. Secure cupboards and cabinets to the wall with bolts.

* Wax leather books once a year with a combination of Neat’s Foot oil and lanolin or beeswax.

* Don’t remove books from a shelf by inserting an index finger at the top of the spine and pulling; you’ll crack the spine.

* Rugs should be sprayed periodically with moth spray and vacuumed with a smooth nozzle. They should be laid with the nap facing away from the light.

* Wax antique furniture with paste wax, such as Antiquax, when needed. Don’t use aerosol polish or any polish that contains silicone. Check regularly for wormholes, and consult a professional restorer if you spot any holes.

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Putting Your Collection in the Right Light

Hints for visually effective displays:

* Have confidence in your creativity. If you like looking at it, that’s reason enough to keep it in view.

* See empty surfaces and blank walls as spaces to fill. Any surface can be a shelf for display, but resist making it a dumping ground. Interesting items make a grouping; uninteresting items--or too many interesting ones--make clutter.

* Find an organizing principle when grouping your collectibles. The most effective categories are similar color, shape, pattern or material. If the only thing they have in common is their small size, a curio cabinet, wall-hung shelf, etagere or other display piece can become the unifier.

* A skirted table, inexpensive and easy to pull together, is ideal for a collection of paperweights, photos in antique frames or miniature boxes.

* Successful arrangements usually require trial and error. Work toward a pleasing combination of line and form, usually achieved with variations in height and texture.

* An arranged collection needs to be spotlighted. The simplest way is to install track lighting. Halogen provides a bright white light. Or allow daylight to filter through window treatments (such as lace, Venetian blinds or slatted bamboo). At night, use candles.

* Change your display from time to time. When an arrangement becomes too familiar, people stop noticing it.