Fancy new cabinets!

The humidity is too low nine months out of the year in our house to leave nice instruments out. We also have a very climby 18-mo old. So my poor ukes spent a lot of time upstairs "safe" in their cases.

My wife bought these cabinets for me for Christmas and we finally got around to getting them installed! They took a little more work than we planned (the mounting hardware they came with didn't feel strong enough) but with a little modification we got them where we wanted them.



Already they're getting more play time. So much easier to just "pick-up and play" knowing that I don't have to haul them up and down the stairs.

Very nice and sleek with it wall mounted. Where did your wife buy them from?

great, now I'm going to contract CAS too.

We got them from etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/538397427/guitar-display-case-solid-hardwwod

Good things: Made in USA, solid wood, felt backing on the inside. Comes already assembled in a giant, well padded box. Fits guitar or, if you're creative, multiple ukes (mine has a bari and a concert). So far the humidiity has been pretty stable. Comes with one standard guitar hook (not installed) so you get to decide where to put it.

Bad things: It came with those metal teeth style hooks you use to hang up mirrors, so in theory you can move it around, though I wasn't too keen on that. The back is just thin cabinet backing, so the screws that held the guitar hook would stick clear out the back of the cabinet anyways. Which makes me think you'd want that to go into the wall, into a stud, which of course means you can't move it around.

Our solution was to glue a small blocks of wood on the backs directly behind the guitar/uke hooks so those screws would have something to bite into. That meant also adding the strips of the same thickness to the backs at the top and bottom of the cabinets so it would be flush against the wall. We tossed the metal teeth hooks and instead just screwed (from the inside) directly through those added strips into studs. Things are solid as a rock.

For the ukes I just used regular uke string swing hooks you can get at Amazon and many music shops. My big-bottomed bari hangs outward more than most ukes and was hitting the glass, so I added a little bit of padding to the top of the string swing to push the back of the head forward and tilt the body back straight. I also added some strips of adhesive padding to the inside walls to reduce dings while taking the instruments in/out.

Right now just a single herco guitar humidifier in each is keeping it at a stable 32% (where the house goes as low as 10%). I might try adding more once I think the insides have absorbed enough moisture to balance things out.

The only other thing that was a little annoying were the latches - they weren't in 100% (screws still sticking out a little) which may have been in case you wanted to remove them cleanly, but it just made the latches look a little rushed. Also they're lockable and include keys if you need that.

But for $110 each with real solid wood, the little bit of elbow grease to make it "perfect" was totally worth it.