Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler My latest house project (wine cellar)

I've been asking so many stupid computer questions lately, I figured I'd show you all what I usually do to ocupy my time off....

My wine addiction gave me a convenient excuse to finish the last room in the house that I have been procrastinating finishing it out the past three years. I was going to build some cabinets and make this little room into a small kitchenette. My wine collection continued to outgrow my acquisition of coolers (six 50 bottle units). I figured I might as well just bight the bullet and convert this little room into a cellar. One of my buddies has been bugging me to do that for a couple years now.



I had to build a sub floor and insulate it, fur out the walls for insulation and then put up a vapor barrier. It was either that or rip out the sheet rock, and I wasn’t about to deal with all the dust.





I really hated to cut out the arch as it was a PITA to rock. I tried to keep it, but the cooling unit had to go above the door, as it was the only place I could put one.



I put tight knot cedar on the walls and ceiling, natural slate on the floor and entrance.



The racks I built out of Alder. I had figured I’d buy them pre built, but after getting some quotes, I decided to build them myself. The quotes I got ranged from a low of $5000 to a high of $11,000. The alder cost me $800. I chose Alder because it’s a straight grained soft hard wood that is resistant to moisture. It’s a little more expensive than Oak, but Oak tend to twist when milling small boards. Making the racks myself also allowed me to build them the exact sizes that I wanted. It took 1100 ¾ X ¾ X 23” slats, plus about 200 13” slats. That was a pain…







The counter top and cabinet doors are African Mahogany.



I finished the wine glass racks and cabinet door today. Now I just need to find some low voltage lights and I can call it done. Well besides filling it up anyway. It’ll hold just under 800 bottles with about 60 slots for magnums and large format bottles.

Whoa, that is magnificent work Mike, absolutely gorgeous! My wife loves the slate tile and gave the room her seal of approval ... dang it, I wish I had your skill and ambition to do things around the house like.

I know something better you could put in your wine cellar...

Beer.

But wow, that looks amazing! Truly fine work you have done. The sink and glass hanging area is a very nice touch as well.

WHOA, thank you for posting Mike. That's awesome!

Jason

Wow. amazing work.

PHENOMENAL JOB!

I love the room. A perfect size. Probably about similar in space to ours, though yours holds about 80 bottles more.
That is a good thing since you apparently order alot more than we do.

We bought 7 bottles last week and then proceeded to go through 6 on Saturday when company came over. Our progress for filling the cellar is being severely stunted with this behaviour.

Hey, why isn't this in the wine thread? I might have missed the post!!

(The following is self-censored)

Holy [expletive], man! People pay [expletive]-loads of money to get something like that and you knocked it out with pro results yourself. That's it! I'm selling my [expletive] tools so I stop pretending I'm handy.

when did you start?

I think when I was three. I used a screwdriver to remove the doors of all the cabinets I could reach in the kitchen.

What can I say that hasn't been said. Truly extraordinary work Mike, are you sure you are employed in the right field, because you could make a fortune doing jobs like that.

You, my good man, have some serious woodworking skills.

You need some cedar in there to store stogies too.

What everyone else said. You are insane.

That is awesome! And here I was merely considering buying a wine fridge...

By the way, can I hire you to turn my dorm room into a live-in beer cellar?

Excellent work! Looks as nice as it is practically designed.

Excellent job, you have a great looking wine cellar.

Wow…. Thanks fellas. I was expecting all this. I’m feeling overwhelmed.

So how much money are we talking here when you say I could make a killing at this? I have absolutely no idea what this type of work would cost in the real world. Where I’m at, money is in the oil business. I do all of my own work, and quite a bit for friends using the barter system (the work I do is in direct relation to what they do for me). I’d much rather be working with my hands than managing work and personnel for a living.

+1 but it took me a long time to figure that one out.

That really is a nice room.

That's one one nice looking wine cellar dude!!

Everyone has just about covered it. Sure looks nice. My wife saw the pics and asked why I don't do things like that. I replied that I'm a lover not a carpenter. She laughed and exited to room.

Mike, I can't meaningfully add to the superlatives already voiced. To say "you do nice work" is quite an understatement. I would imagine that you find it satisfying, or you wouldn't do it, or do it so well. I hope that your loved ones appreciate the beauty that you bring into their lives.

Great project, beautiful room, astonishing craftsmanship. It should be in a magazine.

I think it is safe to say that your skills and aesthetic are the envy of many of us. Thank you for again sharing an inspiring glimpse into your lovely home.

Again, absolutely beautiful Mike!!

Well, you did say that when you were looking at non-DIY options the lows were $5000 and highs $11,000. For $800 of material, even the low price seems like it'd work out pretty well for ya.

Awesome work!

Bren R.

Awesome work, Mike! As a fellow woodworker, I can appreciate the effort that goes into something like that. If you rounded over all 4 edges of all 1300 of those slats, that works out to about 1 3/4 miles of routing. I can't even imagine how much time you spent sanding and finishing all of them.
Before you go quitting your day job, think about how many hours you invested in this project. When I make anything elaborate, it usually works out to about $5/hr. I'd have to work 40 hours a day to make any money at it! A wise friend once told me that if I made my living at woodworking, it would become a job. I'd hate to have the joy taken out of making things out of wood.

WOW! I just caught with this post.
Very good work! No wonder you needed to pack all your CDs on a computer to make room!

He is a very wise friend indeed! That is the exact reason I never pursued cooking as a profession, even though a number of people encouraged me.

OK, another me too post. But I can't not post. That is unbelievable. Congrats.

Want to see those old 50 bottle fridges cheap?!?! Though I suspect the shipping to TX would cost then just breaking down and buying one.

Congrats again!
Rich

Considering we had a company (Genuwine Cellars) who just happened to be locally based in Winnipeg, come to setup our cellar, i can relate some idea of costs.
Our ~720 bottle cellar racking took them a solid 10h day to setup and cost in the range of $2700.
Add the cooling unit, which is almost identical to mdrew's (another $800) plus a custom made, solid walnut door (~$2k) that i finished myself (company wanted $500 to stain and urethane the door and i said, "uh, no thanks, i can manage").

The door before they built our racking, they came back from an install in northern New York. Racking for 10,000 bottles and the guy wanted them back to do more.

I apologize for not posting on this...between the frozen pipes yesterday and being gone all day today.....

I'm no vinophile, but your craftsmanship makes me want to be! Beautiful work!

Any chance of posting photos of your workshop? You know, woodworking porn and all that.....

Oh, just what we need: two guys sporting wood at each other.

Mike, I'm late to this thread, but I do want to add my voice with everyone else's praise. Absolutely stunning work! I really like the look to the wine cellar. I'd kill to have skills like that.

But do you have skills to kill?

No, I'm only a ninja in training.

I'm taking knight classes.

I'll take rally bad jokes for 1000, Alex.

Hey, don't jeopardize my chances by suggesting I'm not in earnest.

Ok, you're in Earnest. How does he feel about it?

Probably a little like J.P. in Danger Park USA.

Well again guys, I’m flabbergasted at all the kind words. I’ve been pretty busy the past few days on another project, plus fighting with my new toy (squeezebox), so I haven’t had time to respond to individual comments.



I don’t think it’s skill per say, but just knowing what tool to use and in what order. With woodworking, you can really screw yourself if you don’t follow a regimented process. I think I’ve ruined more boards learning how to set up tools than I’ve managed to use successfully in a project.

Cigars? I never did get into them. I tried a few when I was in Gitmo, but I didn't like any of them.



LOL… I didn’t round all four sides. Just two. Plus the miter on the end that took a lot of extra time. I didn’t want to get splinters or tear the labels, so I figured I'd just round them over. I'm glad I did....

I’m in full agreement with you. I really enjoy working with wood. I find it relaxing. I doubt I’d like it very much if I was doing if for a living.



10,000 bottle cellar???!!!! Good grief, I can’t imagine how much money it would take to fill up one that big. When I build my next house, I plan to build a 2000 bottle cellar, but it’ll be quite different. I won’t have any double deep racks. They’re great for small rooms like mine, as you double the capacity, but they suck for finding bottles.



Woodshop?? I wish! My “woodshop” is my garage. I had planned on building a shop, but I’m not real sure how long I will be living where I am. I’m ready to move somewhere that I can enjoy four seasons.

I was actually going to ask how you keep track of which wine is where. Maybe an excel spreadsheet with cells corresponding to rack location?

Or you could always just load up on a bunch of wine tags:


and list the front and back wine on each one.

Virginia has great seasons, and at least one person who enjoys great wine and speakers.

Adam,

I usually buy three bottles of whatever I want to try. I drink one right away (after it rests for two weeks), then I keep the other two for.... however long that is. I've found that sometimes I'll try a bottle and not like it, to only like it later. So, each bin will have two of the same bottles in it. I do not stack double deep if I only have one of that particular bottle. I've got around 450 bottles so far, so I have plenty of room to not need to hide them. But as my collection grows, I'll have to come up with a numbering system for the bins. I use Personal Wine Curator V3 for my inventory software. It has provisions for locations. I've found this software to be very handy. I thought about using tags, but they come with their own aggravations.

Peter,

Virginia?? I thought you lived in California? When did you move?? I was stationed outside Virginia Beach for a while, but never ventured inland.

I'm the reverse.

I use the bottle tags and have yet to commit to the software. The bottle tags make it uber easy to locate what you want by eye. I just did a typical sorting by continent or country first (i have the cellar sections labeled at the top with concrete/stone headers hanging from the ceiling) and then i sort alphabetically by the brand name.
If one section gets too full i have to pull and resort some bottles now and again, but that is when having enough capacity makes the shuffling easy.

I moved in December '05. Maybe you lost track of me during our mutual cooling off period in the aftermath of the infamous politics thread?

If you come up to the Peterborough area I'm going to get you to make me the sweetest wheelchair ramp ever!

Having a few drinks with the Parents and got onto the subject of wine cellars. I remembered this thread and told them about it.... Had to pull up the thread to show the pictures to the parents... Truly amazing pics!

Thanks David! My cellar and HT are my favorite rooms in my house. I’d hate to loose either…… The downside to having a cellar is this strange need to fill all the bins. It gets quite expensive.

And then once the bins are full, one is hesitant about taking a good wine out of the bin like it was a gem that you know you will never see again.
Kinda like watching a woman eating her favorite box of chocolates knowing they leave their favorite one until the end and that box with one piece left in it stays on the counter in the kitchen for about two months as they look at it everyday knowing if they eat that last piece, then there's no more.

Hah! I guess I'll never make a good oenopile. If it suites my taste, I drink it and hope I can pick up more.

You crack me up Chess... So are you going to make it to Cali this year?

Most definitely not.
I had an unexpected trip to...the Olympics which of course included the Fraser AND Okanagan Valley wine tour.

My wine touring for the year has met its financial limit. In fact, i won't be attending the Winnipeg Wine Festival in April as usual because of the trip.
I have to bite the bullet at some point, take a breather, and then re-focus my next splurge onto one of three areas:
1) US wines, specifically California for now because there are SO many i could potentially collect. I haven't even scratched the proverbial surface of Cali whereas i'm very versed in Cdn names.
2) Australian wines- i have way too few in the cellar and i'm not sure why, maybe because i drink them alot?
or
3) New Zealand reds. I have had lots of their whites, but have not really ventured anything red and my cellar is devoid of both.

Time to seriously start expanding the horizons beyond Canada.

Aren't you doing Washington state this year?

I can't help but notice that Virginia didn't make the list.

I moved away.

Yes, the world's axis goes in my mouth and out my butt.

Ah, so you're being roasting on a spit by the sun, then? Here, let me marinate you.

Ewww.

If he likes red wines, there's a reason Virginia didn't make the list.

Oh... Too bad, but I can relate.

No, we went to Wa last fall. I'm planning a trip to Sonoma right now. Probably mid to late May.

They have wine in Virginia?

Indeed. I wouldn't go out of your way to try it. More the opposite.

The whites are pretty good, as I recall.

It's more difficult to eff them up, I hear.

Are we talking about Virginia wines or Virginia beers?