Design Plans or Kits for LP storage Rack

Ramond,

How many albums do you plan to have? If it's 1000 or less I can send you a photo of how I modified a standard "Oak Express" bookcase. I like this because I can look at the album cover rather than the edge. The bookcases I speak of are the type that you finish yourself.

If you plan on having thousands of LP's you will either need a gymnasium for bookcases like I use or be content with looking at the album edge.

Patrick

Patrick, thanks for the quick response. At this time I have about 200 LP's. I know that this number will increase but probably will never get into the thousands.
I'm picky with Lp's and tend to choose the quality recorded or mint used ones.
Yes I would like a picture of the unit that you made because I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this time.
My listening room is 11'X13' and my speakers are set up in a near field listening position so far. I'm still in the set up stages.
I'm exploring all avenues for the LP storage and your design sounds very nice.
How do you intend to send the picture? If it's email, my address is: rickraymond@hotmail.com
Please use the subject heading because I get plenty of mail from unknown sources that I tend to send them directly to the trash for safety reasons.
Thanks again, Rick.

Ikea has an affordable solution of having exactly 12"x12" shelves with height of approximately 7' and stackable width(i.e you could bring them as many as you need).

The second comes to minde the kits from www.bagsunlimited.com that offer also a solution for the storage of your records.

www.rackittm.com

I built all my own storage shelving for the 2500+ LP's I have collected over the years because I have had experience in furniture building and have the tools to do the job correctly.

I experimented with a few designs and finally chucked the idea of "front-facing" shelving that Lugnut mentions for my own usage, but I might seriously consider it for a 200 LP collection. My decision was based on the number of records I have, to be sure. But also because I could never find a way that satisfied me of being able to keep the records from "slumping" (like they do in many records stores) while, at the same time, allowing me enough space to actually view the album covers easily. Spacers will work, but are too much of a hassle to move around, at least for me. I'd be interested to see Lugnut's application, though.

If you go with a tall vertical stack of shelves or modulars, make sure they have either a solid, well attached backing or some sort of rigid diagonal bracing. The tremendous weight of even a couple hundred LP's can cause severe lateral stability problems and cause your LP's to come crashing down. Too, make sure that if you buy something ready-made that there is no molding or trim around the front perimeter of the shelving or racks that will not allow for the first and last LP in the shelf to run flush against the inner sides. It is fine if the shelving is deep enough to accommodate the entire LP, but you are asking for “warpage” otherwise.

One of the best "systems" I ever used was one where I didn't care too much what it looked like. In an old apartment, eons ago, I stacked cinder blocks spaced closely enough to support plywood shelving and ran the shelving that was L-braced to the wall studs along one entire wall. Placed the height just below chest-high for easy selection and put my components and various decorative bric-a-brac beneath. It looked cool and can also be done using materials as fine as one’s budget will allow. My current storage is a pleasantly refined, albeit quite expensive, double-tiered variant on this general design. But, you have to have plenty-o-wall-space to do it with a large LP collection.