Wine Closet

[Green Mojo]

I recently converted a closet which housed my hot water heater into a wine closet and wanted to share some photos. Used a few Festy products in there - Domino, Csx, Vecturo. Happy with how it all came out.

 

[dltflt]

Looks very nice.  What type of wood?

 

[Green Mojo]

It is honduran mahogany.  Great wood to work with, but hard to find. Finish is Tung oil.

 

[NL-mikkla]

Looks nice nice indeed, you could be priud of that piece of work.
It's better looking than a hot water heater!

 

[Green Mojo]

Thanks and yes, you are right about that!

 

[tiralie]

Looks great. Is this your own design.
Do you keep it cool somehow.
Tim

 

[rvieceli]

tim - Pic number 2 shows what looks like it might be a CellarPro 1800 at the top of the closet.

http://www.cellarprocoolingsystems.com/1800-wine-cooling-unit

 

[Green Mojo]

Yes, I did the design myself using Sketchup and did a few prototypes on the drawers. The design was influence by Revel Cellars - they make high end custom cellars. Getting the spacing of the dowels right was the challenge so that the drawers hold the max quantity of bottles/sizes for the space. I also made all the dowels (23 per drawer) using the Lee Valley jig. That was tedious! Dowels are set at 15 degree angle.  Rvieceli - you know your chillers as it is indeed a Cellar Pro 1800. 

 

[tiralie]

tim - Pic number 2 shows what looks like it might be a CellarPro 1800 at the top of the closet.

Thanks.

Yes, I did the design myself using Sketchup and did a few prototypes on the drawers.

Nice. Got any pictures of the prototypes and of your Sketchup drawing? I like to see the progression from drawing to final.

The design was influence by Revel Cellars - they make high end custom cellars. Getting the spacing of the dowels right was the challenge so that the drawers hold the max quantity of bottles/sizes for the space.

I checked out Revel Cellars, amazing stuff. Those lazy Susan wine bottle holders look really good.

I also made all the dowels (23 per drawer) using the Lee Valley jig. That was tedious! Dowels are set at 15 degree angle. 

That's dedication. What kind of door did you put on the closet? It  looks like you have a seal around the door stop...
Tim

 

[wkearney99]

Nice job.  But is that the most effective way (space-wise) to store bottles?  I'm guessing since it was two bottles deep, from the look of your shelves, that's why you went with drawers?

Was there another forum online you used to research the idea?  I've got a space that's on my 'to do' list that I'd like to eventually use for wine storage.  There's so many variables it's hard to know where to start.

 

[Green Mojo]

Thanks all for the good words!
@Tim - It is a standard 6 panel exterior door which is insulated and has weather stripping all around.  I thought about doing one of those lazy susan's which would be great, but finally decided my space was too small for it. There is a good book that helped me with rack sizing and many other general considerations - How and Why to Build a Wine Cellar by Richard M. Gold. Below are images of a few of the earlier designs.

@wkearney99 - Bins would actually store more, but the bottles would be double stacked and hard to get to unless you knew exactly what you wanted.  I put the varietals together in the drawers and can peruse them which I like.  It will hold around 500 bottles which is pretty good for my needs. Also SWMBO did have some aesthetic input and liked the drawers better.  I use the forums.winelibrary.com as a resource - this project is posted over there and there are many good suggestions.