Dispatches, methodology, and field observations on cataloging the home. Entered, edited, and filed by the Vorby desk.
You’re probably here because your house has that one mystery zone. It might be a drawer full of cables, batteries, manuals, and keys nobody can identify. It might be the holiday bin with missing lights. It might be the garage shelf where th…
If you’ve ever stood in a wine shop and wondered, “Wait, isn’t Chablis just Chardonnay?”, you’ve found the gap that confuses more people than almost any other white wine question. The short answer is yes, and also not really. Chablis is alw…
You’re standing in the Chardonnay aisle, staring at labels that all seem to promise the same thing. Crisp. Creamy. Elegant. Balanced. Some are heavily oaked, some are lean, some are trying to be both, and most don’t make the decision any ea…
A big box of Hot Wheels looks like easy fun until it lands on your floor. At first you see possibility. Maybe there’s an old Redline mixed in with grocery store mainlines. Maybe a childhood collection sat untouched for years. Maybe you grab…
A lot of magazine collections start the same way. One stack by the chair, another near the desk, a short pile in the closet that turned into a wall, then a banker’s box full of issues you meant to sort last winter. At first, that mess feels…
You go to the shelf for one game and end up pulling out six boxes, checking two closets, and texting a friend to ask whether they still have your expansion. That’s the moment a board game collection stops feeling fun and starts feeling like…
A lot of collectors learn about record weight the hard way. You pull a “not too full” box off the floor and your wrists tell you otherwise. Or you notice a shelf starting to bow, even though each album feels light in your hand. A single LP …
You set the record on the platter, lower the stylus, and watch the edge rise and fall like a slow wave. The tonearm bobs. Piano notes wobble. A favorite album suddenly feels fragile in a way that scratches never quite capture. That moment g…
You pull a record from a dusty box, wipe the cover with your sleeve, and there they are, four faces you recognize instantly. Maybe it came from a parent’s shelf, maybe from an estate cleanout, maybe it has been sitting in a basement for dec…
You are probably sitting in the middle of the problem right now. There are half-filled boxes on the floor, a tape roll that has already disappeared once, drawers that somehow look fuller after you tried to organize them, and a growing fear …
Vorby is a careful record of what you own. The journal is the slow-print companion — the catalog itself is faster.