I’ve been promising more sneaky peeks into our little aPRAGUEment for about a century now and I can very gladly say that the day has come to show you another cosy corner we’ve created here. As you may have already noticed previously I do have a thing for vinyls – you could have gotten the gist for example in this post on my vinyl gallery wall or this post with my favourite indie vinyls. I’ve always dreamed of having a huge old-fashioned turntable cabinet (which are excruciatingly overpriced) but only after moving to Prague realised that this dream could actually come true very easily and it wouldn’t cost more than a pair of decent shoes.
Let me introduce to this baby of a turntable – the 1950’s Halabala design turntable!
This beautiful turntable cabinet was created by a famous Czech designer Jindrich Halabala in the 1950’s. He’s well known for the gorgeous curves on his pieces, and he’s the one who first introduced well-made designer furniture into the households of masses. His furniture was absolutely stunning, very well made, functional but also affordable. Today you can find full museums and art galleries full of his pieces, but – you can also find them in antique and second hand shops, because a lot of people had them in their homes after the WWII and nowadays when people inherit these pieces they often don’t even know how precious they truly are.
This cabinet originally comes with an in-built turntable (you slide the middle section up to open it) but I decided to get rid off it (old turntable means old plug as well as old turntable plate which would take a lot of effort and money to restore) and replaced it with a beautiful Roadstar HIF 1993 turntable. It costs around £150 but it’s everything-in-one – a turntable, cassette player, CD player, it has BT, radio and you can also plug in a flash drive. Chances are you won’t need another player in your life time. And because the turntable cabinet was a bargain at some £30 including delivery off a second hand website, it didn’t pain me much to pay a little more for the player itself.
I already had a decent vinyl collection when I lived in the UK but it truly took an enormous shape when I moved to Prague. As a welcome gift back home my Dad gave me a larger half of his beloved vinyl collection. I can’t even tell you how grateful and happy I am to have been gifted this. I remember as a kid I’d always flip through all the vinyls not even knowing who the obscure bands and singers were. Now I have a whole lot more appreciation for the collection and can definitely say it’s a breath-taking one. The whole lot of 345 beautiful albums!
“But the turntable cabinet surely cannot hold all 300+ vinyls, “ I hear you cry. And you’re absolutely right. It holds around 50 of them. It took me a good while to figure out appropriate storage to house the full collection – one that would be functional yet fit in with the rest of the apartment decor. I came across this rattan shelf for £15 on the very same second hand website I got the turntable from and it was a clear winner. The whole collection fits in perfectly and there’s still room for a few more vinyls to come.
It would have been oh so easy to pop into Urban Outfitters or IKEA and get a ready-made storage and a Cosley turntable, but that wouldn’t be half the fun, don’t you think?