When we retired and returned to San Diego, I had a dream. The house we moved to has an area under the main living space that isn’t quite a basement. It had only been used to store old tools and leftover tile and linoleum from various home-improvement projects. My dream was to turn that dark, unused space “below” the house into a tunnel room.

Some of you know my husband, and that he always supports my sometimes crazy dreams. He had listened to me talk of this idea as a concept for years, but I am not handy and had no clear vision of how to transform the space. It took him a couple of years, but he found a way to do it for me. Here’s the floor mat at the entrance:

I believe in the idea that when you’re on the right path, the Universe helps you. As he worked on the project, I found things. A store was revamping, selling its old bookcases for a few dollars apiece. Another store was getting rid of stand-alone wood shelving the owner had built himself. I even scored a large map case with multiple shallow drawers from a travel store that no longer had need of it.

We borrowed my brother-in-law’s truck time and again to cart our finds home. Those items – bookcases, map case, shelving – became the primary storage for my tunnel room. The bookcases now hold hundreds of fanzines, the map drawers are perfect for unframed fan art, and the wood shelving was put to use to showcase fan-run convention centerpieces. Later, I added several pieces of old furniture my parents had once used that had been stored – a round curio table, a china cabinet, a couple of chests of drawers, one with mismatched drawer pulls – and they found new life as “tunnelish” furnishings.

I had transported many, many, many (did I mention many?!) boxes of B&B collectibles, gathered over decades, when we moved, not just zines. After Larry finished preparing the tunnel room for me, I began unpacking them. The zines went into the bookcases, along with collections of scripts, ephemera, and VHS tapes and DVDs.

In a two-shelf bookcase are binders filled with flyers variously promoting upcoming zine publications or art prints and stationery by fandom artists, and other announcements (commonly used as advertising at fan-run conventions) – again, a mixture of my own and another fan’s collection. In that bookcase are also convention photos I’ve gotten from a number of fans – both from conventions they attended before I began going to cons and after, as well as my own photos. There are also binders of the various fan-made stationery I’ve found at fan-run convention sales tables.

You can see that bookcase in the lower right-hand portion of the next photo. The map case is in the upper middle of the photo below. In fact, here are several photos of various shelves put to good use!

I had to put a photo of my husband in the china cabinet. I couldn’t have had all this without him! Many of the art pieces you see here are by the amazing fandom artist Sandy Tew. On the next page is a photo of how the map drawers look when pulled out, with unframed art kept flat.

I still had lots of things in boxes and no place to display them. Then another amazing storage system came into my hands. For a short time, I was the custodian of the contents of the Crystal Rose Lending Library, literally shipped to me in file cabinets by the Librarian, who unfortunately had developed a terminal illness and wanted them in another fan’s hands quickly. [When I say she shipped the file cabinets, I mean that literally – a truck pulled up and deliverymen used carts to haul the cabinets down a hill and into my tunnel room! The expense of that on her part was…well…you can imagine. I offered to help with the cost but she refused. She said it put her mind at ease to move the Library lock, stock, and…file cabinet.]

The zines in the file cabinets were arranged according to that librarian’s self-developed numbering system that worked for her, allowing her to add newly acquired zines to the next available drawer. This, however, made for a somewhat chaotic system for me. The zines were randomly filed – the first zine of a series might be in the top drawer of the second file cabinet while the second in that series might be in the third drawer of the first file cabinet. It was not a sustainable model for someone not used to her process. So, I organized the hundreds of zines alphabetically and by number in series. That made it a lot easier to see what was missing and fill the holes. But the prospect of running the Library was overwhelming for me, as someone with minimal computer technical skills. A much more tech savvy (and much younger!) fan – Carole W. – offered to become the new librarian, and I gratefully shipped the zines (in boxes, not in the filing cabinets, which I could not have afforded to ship, nor had she the space to store!). Then I was left with a wall’s length of empty file cabinets.

But they were not empty for long!

Several of my still-boxed collections went into the emptied drawers. For instance, I had been gathering a variety of B&B tee shirts and sleep shirts; they alone filled more than one file cabinet. Ditto a collection of regional B&B fan club newsletters from around the U.S. and Canada – they now occupy most of one cabinet. Stored in these cabinets are also materials from the many fan-run conventions I have attended or run, magazines which have articles about B&B in them, fan-made calendars, B&B press kits and tote bags, rubber stamps featuring B&B characters, Halloween masks of Vincent… With so many boxes emptied, the file cabinets became full again!

Here are random open cabinet drawers showing some of these items:

I am in the process of re-homing much of my collection – some to the Crystal Rose Lending Library, and most through donations to fan-run convention charity auctions and Winterfest Online charity auctions. In fact, the bankers’ boxes you see stacked here and there in the tunnel room photos contain items for donation to future charity auctions. These items are a combination of things I own and items given to me by the families of various fans who have passed away.

And then there are the costumes from the series. Many I purchased via auctions in the early 90s, and some are from the families of fans who have passed on…and these, as with the other collectibles, are gradually making their way into the hands of other fans through various charity auctions.

Usually, the B&B costumes are in tubs, but I have pulled out a variety – from named character pieces to generic “tunnelfolk” items – for a WFOL 2026 costume presentation. Here are a few of those pieces, hung awaiting that presentation:

And here’s a photo of how the costumes are usually stored, in tubs stacked three to four high across one wall of the tunnel room.

As you can see from the next photo, there is a sitting area in my tunnel room where I have been able to hang some of the fan art I’ve collected over my 30+ years in fandom. There is so much talent in our fandom! It’s been a joy to finally put some framed pieces up!

In this area there is the wall of shelving holding centerpieces from various fan-run conventions. Another shelf holds painted pewter pieces and gorgeous ceramics by LauraG. And there’s a bookcase that contains a number of binders filled with photos of the stars of the show (also going into charity auctions a bit at a time). Also, there are hard-to-find posters (framed) and an original B&B comic page.

I’m including a few photos of items that are usually located in the tunnel room but temporarily are in various rooms in the house. All of the paintings are originals.

As you can see, Larry created quite a wonderful space for my tunnel room. It’s been fun setting it up, organizing it (if you can call it organized!), and especially retreating into it to sit and read fanfic or look through the binders of collected items. I owe him so much for making my tunnel dream come true!

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NOTE:  *It’s sad that I have to say this, but there are unfortunately bad actors out there who might post this essay or portions of it or pictures from it on their own website or Facebook page. Please know that I have not given permission to anyone besides WFOL and CABB: New Chambers to post all or any portion of my essay or the photos contained herein.