# DIY Album Storage Shelves



## gravylookout (Jun 22, 2018)

Here in North Dakota there's this thing called "Winter" that keeps me out of the yard for most of the year. Aside from dreaming about the sun and stripes in my lawn I like to do other things like work on my vinyl collection and general DIY projects. In January of last year I decided to combine those two things and build some storage shelves for my collection.

Up until then my collection of about 900 records (mostly classic rock with some modern music and oddball things) was kept in wooden crates that made it difficult to display and search through. I didn't take any pictures while I was building the thing but I did make some crude plans and finished project pictures. I thought some of you might enjoy this and get some inspiration to get your collection out of boxes and on display. This is just my plans, you could change out any of the materials and adjust sizes of things to fit your space and collection.

The shelves are made out of Melamine board and galvanized structural piping with some 1/4" steel rod. They hold about 1k records and there is plenty of space on top to put your turntable and audio equipment. You could even fit some shelf speakers on the ends. It's super sturdy, loaded up I don't think I could push it over without bracing myself against a wall.

The only thing I would do different would be to use finished hardwood for the shelves as the melamine board has started to sag under the weight of the records. Maybe that'll happen this winter. Anyways, enough rambling, here's the plans and pictures!

I'm not good at any of that fancy design software so I make all my plans the old fashioned way, pencil and graph paper.

































The finished product. I used the stock rod to create breaks in the shelf opening so there wouldn't be too many records leaning against each other. There is also a long piece to act as a backstop behind each shelf. The middle rods are just captured between the top and bottom shelves and the backstops pass through holes drilled in the piping.

It may be hard to see but I did put little 1" x 1" x 6" melamine blocks on the underside of the top and middle shelves so that the records on the ends wouldn't be resting on the support pipes with the corners of the album covers.










































The last one is a current day picture with my setup. I don't remember the total cost but it was probably under $250 for materials, way cheaper than buying anything pre-made for vinyl storage. Feel free to ask me any questions, thanks for reading!


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

Very cool.


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## pennstater2005 (Jul 17, 2017)

Nice work!


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## gene_stl (Oct 29, 2017)

In 1977 I built a shelving unit with a friend using left over one inch think mdf. We had been building speakers. Big ones. We painted it white and put it on casters. My wife always detested it(It looked like something in a college kids apt.) so it got left in the old house. Now I have to come up with something for my similar quantity of records. I think I will try something like this. Very nice work. Hows come its in the basement?(rhetorical question I know the answer :lol: )


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## TN Hawkeye (May 7, 2018)

That's a hell of a vinyl collections. I bet they sound great.


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## gravylookout (Jun 22, 2018)

gene_stl said:


> In 1977 I built a shelving unit with a friend using left over one inch think mdf. We had been building speakers. Big ones. We painted it white and put it on casters. My wife always detested it(It looked like something in a college kids apt.) so it got left in the old house. Now I have to come up with something for my similar quantity of records. I think I will try something like this. Very nice work. Hows come its in the basement?(rhetorical question I know the answer :lol: )


Yeah, It's in my "man cave" corner of our unfinished basement.


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