No Need For An Expensive Setup: 5 Clever Ways To Store Your Vinyl Record Player

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So you're cheap and want to make your home less cluttered? Excellent, us too. Unfortunately, record players can take up quite a bit of space, especially if you go with one of those giant, heavy, wooden stands that could keep you in firewood for several winters. Thankfully, solutions exist for music lovers who are frugal on space-related and financial fronts. 

We should cover some provisos first, however. If you're an audiophilic music nerd who wants to emulate a vintage setup of the past, right down to the shag carpet and aforementioned colossal piece of furniture, you're going to run into space problems. If you want to amass a record collection of thousands, you're going to run into space problems. If the turntable and speakers that you want are big, you're going to run into space problems. And in all of those cases, you're probably going to run into money problems and not be able to store your record player because your setup won't allow for it.

It might sound like an odd premise — to treat a record player like an object to store rather than a set piece for a room — but it's feasible. You might have to resort to a high-quality portable record player, such as a single, simple Bluetooth speaker with no wires or an all-in-one record player like those from Victrola. Your storage options also have to be stable, well-ventilated, shielded from dust, light, humidity, etc., but allow for easy access. Stick with us, because we've thought through it all.

Hey, you see that bookshelf? The one in your house. It's a shelf or stack of shelves that is (hopefully) sturdy because books are heavy. Oh, you don't have a bookshelf? Go get one. And get a record player while you're at it if you don't have one, because the way of the past is the way of the future — the way of tactile things that people can touch, like grass.

Really, it's kind of a no-brainer to store your record player and records on a bookshelf, provided your bookshelf is deep enough to accommodate a record player. It's okay if your record player sticks out a tiny bit from the shelf, much like the record might stick out from a Victrola Eastwood II all-in-one player, but it's not okay if your player is teetering on the precipice of freefall. An all-in-one player is perfect for this setup, as you can just put it on the bookshelf when you're not using it, or even play it while it's still on the bookshelf. You can put a speak or two on the bookshelf, too. Beware of dust, however. As often as you've got to dust books to prevent them from corroding and smelling like vinegar before you even remember that you didn't crack them open after buying them, you've got to dust your exposed record player, sitting there on your shelf and suffocating under a dusting of particulates.  

The cool thing about this setup is that you can include your vinyls in the mix, arranging books, records, and record player to make it look impressive to easily-impressed guests, right down to the tiny plant from Ikea that you'll forget to water.

Sadly, a floating shelf is not some Hogwarts magical doodad that hovers in midair and also does your dishes. It's one of those shelves that plugs directly into the wall and looks odd just sticking out, except when it's got braces on the bottom angled down toward the wall. This is a great way to get your record player out of the way when it's not in use. 

There's a couple surmountable problems with this setup, the first being that you should not attempt to install a floating shelf if you don't know what you're doing. It'll fall, and your record player will fall and break, possibly on your head, leaving you with an ambulance bill — just don't do it. At least make sure your shelf is as sturdy as possible, taking wall material, screws or brackets, weight of your record player, etc., into account. If you rent or can't modify your living space in this way, we've got four other options for you, so have at them.

Much like the bookshelf option, the floating shelf works best with compact, all-in-one players. You can take the player off the shelf if you want, move it around, and return it to its home when you're done. If you've got a Bluetooth speaker, even just a simple monophonic Anker speaker that can connect to any device, and your record player is Bluetooth compatible, then you can keep the speakers in one location and move your player around, on and off the shelf. Nifty, huh? Get creative within budget and you can make it work.

You already put everything else on it, right? Keys, wallet, watch, glasses, book(s), coins, random schmutz, old-school alarm clock, lamp, etc. Why not add a record player to the mix? Like the bookshelf option, this is a no-brainer way to store your record player out of sight, or even permanently. You've already got a nightstand by your bed or side table by the couch or elsewhere, so just use it for your record player instead of whatever currently clutters it. Think of it as an opportunity to get organized.

The nightstand-side table option is potentially the most standard kind of record player setup in this article, one that allows you to store the player as you like and display it as though the setup is permanent. Imagine, if you will, your couch with its back against a wall and a side table on one or both sides. You can run honest-to-goodness wires behind the couch to passive or active speakers that you connect to the record player when it's in position. Even if you don't have a side table for whatever reason, Ikea and other cheaper, minimalist options are here for you. You don't need a couch against the wall for this to work, though, or wired speakers. You can still do the Bluetooth thing and just move the record player around as you like.

If you want maximum storability, you can even move the whole side table, record player included, when you're not actively using it. Yes, this kind of setup might make elders from the '60s who grew up on hi-fi stereo systems wince in pain. But times are different, and you can be as weird as you like with your own stuff.

Since we already said the reader can be as weird as they like, here we go: Pretend you're wheeling a cart loaded with alcohol to some resort-dwelling, poolside vacationers dying of a lack of Mai Tais. Now remove the pool from the equation, plus the luxury and the Mai Tais, and the vacation, and replace them all with your Ikea-bought "rolling utility and storage cart," as it's called, and voila: You've got a record player solution on wheels that you can roll around the house for kicks when you're bored. 

Indeed, bar carts are the way of the mobile future. Plastic version go for $40 or less at Ikea, but of course metal and wood models extend into the boutique, strangely expensive price range of $800 or more if you're inclined to waste your money. Just make sure the surface area of your bar cart's shelf can accommodate your record player, and you're good to go. You can be extra cool about this and use one of the cart's shelves for critical records (or your whole collection if it's small) and the other for your player. If your cart has three shelves, one of them can be used for your speaker(s), so you've got your entire setup ready to go if you like. Wheel it out from the closet, corner, or wherever it's stored, plug in and turn on whatever needs to be plugged in and turned on, place your vinyl in position, and you're good to go.

Finally, we get to some hardcore DIY shenanigans. You can go full cinder block if you want, but we'd recommend using wooden crates instead. Heck, you can use plastic crates. Picture a boheme-chic living arrangement where you've got a mystery box covered in a tasseled purple fabric of some sort. Guests go, "Ooooh, I love your tasseled purple fabric on that box thing with the record player on top," and you go, "Oh yeah? Wait till you see this," and poke your fingers into the fabric to grab the wooden crate slats beneath, hoist the whole thing up, and carry it elsewhere — maybe the closet or bathroom, we don't know. Just watch for splinters.

The wooden crate-plus-cloth option is a legit way to move and store your record player, provided, once again, you've got a portable-enough record player setup. If this setup makes you feel self-conscious, you can buy some fancy pants-looking, varnished wooden crates on Etsy to pretend you have less money than you do. Or, you can go the Ikea or hobby store route, or maybe strike up a conversation with your local supermarket, just like you'd do if you wanted free cardboard boxes for moving day. See? We've been there. The cloth you use to cover the crates is up to you.

No matter the specifics, this setup begs for care regarding stability. If you want to go max DIY, you can buy some plastic ties to fasten your upturned crates together so they don't topple over as easily. And as before, you can keep your speakers elsewhere and move them as you like.