barrettchase.com

barrettchase.com
obey the rules. often enter. organize your material.

Wed, 13 Jul 2011

I can't remember why it was exactly that I came up with our new household rule, but it happened about two weeks ago and so far it has turned out to be both brilliant and financially draining. The rule is this: whenever Christa buys a book, I have to buy a record.

There are no rules regarding cost equality. It's strictly a 1:1 deal. If she buys a hardcover novel that costs $37.99 and I buy a used record at a garage sale for a quarter, that counts. Likewise if she picks up a mass-market paperback and I splurge on a new 180-gram double album, that's the way the chips fall as well. The thing is, Christa reads a lot. A lot.

I have trouble buying crap, and it would be pointless to cheat the system by doing so. I don't want scratchy records in poor condition. Also I don't want Frampton Comes Alive. So saving money by hunting down cheap used records requires quite a bit of effort if you want to get something decent. And in order to get something truly good at a low price, you have to find a seller who doesn't understand the value of what they have, or someone who just wants to get rid of stuff they'll never use.

We used to only listen to records in the basement, or "rumpus room" as we call it. That was really fun. We have an old Sony turntable down there that I bought circa 2004 for about $20 on eBay, and a sofa that's just made for lounging. Recently, however, we upgraded to a brand-new turntable to use upstairs while we make dinner. The sound quality was so much better that it just made sense to move all the good records upstairs.

Another breakthrough: a few days ago while sitting at the dining room table I was staring off into space as I am wont to do, when my eyes landed on the built-in cabinets lining our walls (which I always considered to be a good-looking but kind of useless addition to the room). I realized that if I took off the doors, these cabinets would be perfect for holding records.

So now the records are tucked away neatly into built-in cabinets that look custom-made for that purpose. There's a new turntable that sounds great. I brought the good speakers upstairs as well to replace the Target shelf-unit specials that we originally were using. The setup is pretty sweet.

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