I love to display them as well, but even with a computer room downstairs and some cabinets out in the main basement, the majority is in tubs waiting for its' turn in the rotation. I may have to add some shelves up high to get some of the action fleet ships out, I really like those ships.
Right now I have
a 48" by 36" hanging cabinet for the kubricks
a 48" by 72" cabinet with a Hoth diorama, cantina space, jabba's palace space, dagobah space, and falcon/hangar bay space.
a 36" by 72" cabinet that was exclusively Death star/imperials (currently in transition, but I'm not sure to just what yet)
a space for the gentle giant yoda monument
a shelf with some darth statues and figures
a 36" by 36" cabinet for gentle giant busts and the dewback statue
a 36" by 36" cabinet with my trading card collections and misc items
That leaves me with two small closets and the space under the stairs for the figures that don't fit into the diormas, nearly all of the ships, the action fleet collection, the galactic heroes, my vintage stuff, 12 inch figures, the 200+ carded figures, and I can't even remember what else off the top of my head.
I'll tell you another reason this is on my mind- I'm working on my father's estate since he passed away earlier this summer. He was a cowboy/western fan, and an avid reader with a job that gave him access to almost unlimited books. The library in his town was overwhelmed by the donation of more than 2,000 books, and thankfully they were there to take them or we would have had to get a storage unit just for them. That leaves 60 plus years of general living and accumulating, which tranlates into a tremendous amount of stuff. He was alone, so everything needs to be dealt with as part of the estate.
Some of the items he saved I am sure had a story of their significance to him, but he passed away just before we were to get together to do his estate planning (he was ill, but no one expected it to impact him so quickly). So the stories are lost, and it makes it very hard to feel like you are doing what he would want when you choose what gets donated to the salavation army, what gets passed on as a memento/heirloom, etc etc. I take comfort in the fact that I am simply doing the best I can, and he would appreciate all of it, no questions asked. But I wish I knew some of the significance behind some of the seemingly bizarre items he saved (old lighters with logos on them, coins from foreign countries, file cabients full of jokes, etc).
So as I work on his items (distributing them, packing them away, checking with relatives about what they know) I find myself thinking about this pile of stuff I have been hoarding over the years. Where will it end, how much do I need to feel like I have what I want, how do I best help those I leave behind deal with it if I go suddenly? Will my spreadsheets make any sense to anyone but me? What if they throw away the yakface kubrick? AAAAAGGG!
I'm kidding about the kubrick, but serious about the bigger question- I like the idea of only having what you can display for myself, but I'm sure it won't work for everyone, especially if you collect boxed/carded. Even getting myself down to that point would require ditching virtually every carded item, and losing the 12 " figures, sub lines, and scrambling to find a way to display the ships. I guess I will always have items in storage and hopefully will rotate them in the cabinets so I can enjoy them, otherwise, what is the point?