The worst part about being a vinyl fanatic is finding somewhere
to store the stuff. Vinyl record collections increase in size in an insidious
but determined manner which is quite beyond the control of the owner. Having
spent quite some time ruminating over what to do with my expanding collection, I have
finally made some firm decisions.
The majority of my collection doesn’t get played; this is
for a number of reasons. Generally I don’t play 7” singles on my turntable as it
takes longer to turn on the amp and queue up the record than it takes to listen
to it. I don’t own many 12” singles, but those that I do own are
generally full of crap remixes and listening to them reminds me how much money
I wasted in HMV stores in the 1990’s. I don’t play my Pet Shop Boys collection
(yes one of those ‘collectors’) and so it seemed sensible to place all these
records into storage. Having made this momentous decision I just had to find a
way of keeping them safe. As it turned out the solution was waiting at the next
record shop I visited as all of the stock was stored in nifty plastic boxes.
I already owned a few products made by The Really Useful Box Company but I had no idea they made products specifically for vinyl. There are various boxes that once they have the standard lid replaced with an XL lid, can accommodate vinyl (the XL lid bit is important). I bought a couple of 9L XL boxes for my 7" singles and seven 19L XL for LP and 12" singles. You can get much larger boxes but by the time you get 50 LPs in a box it is pretty heavy - the idea of lifting a box full of 95 or 140 LPs sounded like a hernia waiting to happen.
Once these records were safely stowed away my attention moved to the LPs I wished to play regularly. Really Useful Box Company boxes are great for long term storage but not too aesthetically pleasing when placed in the living room.
Thus I had to turn to the ubiquitous Ikea Kallax range for a more suitable storage solution. Kallax and its predecessors have long been the audiophiles best friend. An 8 shelf unit seemed to have enough storage space for my vinyl and the turntable/amp. I aspire to a 16 shelf unit full of vinyl, or rather I aspire to a house big enough to accommodate a 16 shelf unit. Maybe if I stop buying as much vinyl I will be able to afford a bigger house.
