My wonderful, amazing, gorgeous friend Erin (who was a bridesmaid in my wedding), just lost her mom in May after a brave fight against cancer. As Erin is putting together and packing up the pieces of her mom’s amazing life, she has discovered that she has her mom’s entire vinyl collection of classic records from the 60’s and 70’s. It is so meaningful to her but she doesn’t know what to do with it. So, I have figured out a way to commemorate her love of classic bands by creating an art piece that will live on for years.

I looked online for some inspiration and there are definitely many ways people have turned vinyl record collections into art, but many of these ways actually destroyed the records. That’s fine if you never plan on using them again, but since this was so important to Erin, I wanted to give her an art piece that keeps the vinyl safe while displaying it’s beautiful and unique album covers. This will remind her of her mom’s great love for music, and allow her to switch out some album covers if she would like to in the future.  I also found a lot of people used a shadow box to house and showcase their record collection, but the size I needed to simply store 6 records was almost $200. Too expensive!

Plus, since Erin is moving out of her mom’s home and into an apartment, I wanted something that would be beautiful and functional. That’s how I came up with the Vinyl Record Bookcase.

You can take an existing bookcase and add this element to it, or start from scratch like we did. I enlisted the help of my friend, Ameka, and we got to work! We had a successful trip to Ikea and found a great 8-cubby hole bookcase for $64.99 in a dark wood color, espresso.

Sweet words from Erin

Linda Potter was diagnosed in January of 2013 with Stage 3C cancer and battled for 2  1/2 years and passed on May 25, 2015 (it was Memorial Day) at the young age of only 65. She was so brave throughout her entire battle and my sister and I were right by her side when she passed. She left this world so courageously and so peacefully!

I found her old classic vinyl records just sitting collecting dust in a closet in our house. I knew Paige was the perfect person to help create a DIY project with them! I am obsessed with music and have a passion for classic tunes, so I am so excited to use these records as art in my new place! The album covers make for awesome decor and they really mean a lot to me because they were my mothers! This is the music I grew up listening to with my mom so I am thrilled to have them in my new home!!! ❤

DIY Vinyl Storage

You Will Need:

For the bookcase:

Follow any instructions that come from the manufacturer about putting the bookcase together. This will also give you a list of tools.

Materials:

• Electric drill with a ¼” drill bit
• Machine screws with nuts (You can get this in the combo pack of 100 pieces) I used #10-24 x ¾” (That is the width and thread of the screw, plus the length of the screw which is ¾” long) $5.58
• Phillips head screwdriver or Phillips head attachment for your drill
• 12 ½ x 12 ½ “ frame for records (I used Gladsax from Ikea) $4.99
• Vinyl records with or without their Album Covers
• 8 Fabric Boxes 13”x15”x13” (I used Drona from Ikea) $5.99
• 2 Pieces of wood: Poplar ¼” thick by 3” wide by 4’ long $3.88
• Saw to cut the wood (this can be electric saw or hand saw…or better yet, ask your local hardware store to cut them for you. They will need to be 12” long each – 8 pieces total.)
• Pencil

How To:

1. Put together your bookcase. If you are using one you already have, then great! You are done with this step! For the rest of us, put the ol’ bookshelf together.
2. Put together your fabric boxes. These usually come in a collapsible form and are easy to assemble.
3. Take the back panel of the frames off and set aside. Insert the Album Cover.
4. Take the back panel of the frame and drill a hole in the center of the width 1” down from the top and 1” above the bottom of where you will add your hardware.
5. Place one screw in each hole and place the back panel onto the frame with the screws facing towards you (the heads of the screws will be flush between the album cover and the back panel of the frame). Secure back panel into place.
6. Take your piece of 12” wood and place it in the inside center of the front of your fabric box. (This will help add a foundation to hold your frame in place.) You can tape this in place or have a friend hold it for you.
7. Mark with a pencil where the screws will enter the fabric box and wood.
8. Remove the frame and set aside. Drill through the fabric box and through the piece of wood. (Once you get the hang of it and do a few of these, you can pre-drill the holes so that you are not doing it in place and they are already ready to go!)
9. Thread the screws on the back of the frame through your holes in the fabric box and the piece of wood. Secure them by placing a nut around the screw and tightening in place by hand.
10. Place your box into the cubby hole. This looks like an art piece from the front, but the records in their frames will actually serve as drawers (in a sense) that you can fill with additional records, or anything else you might need stored away.

Tuff Tips:

• You can place the entire Album Cover in the frame, or just use the actual records.  You can mix it up!
• From a design standpoint, you don’t need to cover each cubby since it might be cute to fill it with other things.
• The bookcase I got at Ikea was $65.00.  So if you started from scratch and wanted to fill every cubby hole, here is the breakdown:

– Bookshelf     $64.99 x 1 = $64.99

– Frame           $  4.99 x 8 = $39.92

– Fabric Box   $  5.99 x 8 = $47.92

– Wood           $ 3.88 x 2 = $ 7.76

– Screws         $ 5.58 x 1 = $ 5.58

Total: $166.17

The best part about this is that you can take a current bookshelf and transform it, or not fill as many cubby holes and you will save the cash. If you had your own bookcase, and wanted to fill every cubby, it would cost you about $100. To make it easy, if you were just doing one cubby hole with one album, it would cost you about $12.50. Making memories like these, however, is PRICELESS!

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If you missed this segment head on over to Home & Family and watch it now!

XOXO,

Paige