Also I want to be in that chair listening to music and having a nice glass with great company. Doesn’t get much better than that!
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We closed on our new house yesterday. It has two laundry rooms, so one is probably going to get converted to a cellar. I will have to rip the sheet rock out, install vapor barrier and insulation, re sheet rock, finish, and paint. I will probably leave the extra W/D hookups for a future owner. There is a sink connection too, not sure if I will leave that.
Picture of how the sellers had it:
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Definitely leave the sink connection. Nice to have to rinse glasses, clean bottles during decant, etc.
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I thought about that, but the kitchen is only 20ft away. If I leave it, I might have a flip table over the sink for storage.
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Building a custom home in central NC. We included in the design a dedicated home cellar with active cooling. Below are pictures from it’s current status. The cellar is next to the living room, accessible through a pantry.
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Awesome Jared! Congrats! That is going to be so much fun. Lots of headaches I’m sure, but enjoy the process. I am in the real estate business (appraisal/investing) and have done several construction jobs. They can be a headache, but try to enjoy the fun parts!
Thanks - it has certainly come with its headaches and has been a multi-year process up to this point, but it has also been very rewarding and I think we are going to be very proud of the end result.
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Hey Jared, is this the ‘for show and rarely used’ living room? Or the family room that is the hang out? Because you might consider noise levels from the cooling unit, when I did mine I assumed the layer of closed cell foam would sound damped but many think it actually magnifies it somewhat.
Mine is in a part of the house that doesn’t see much action, but I was surprised by how much you can hear the cooler.
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We did a split system in our cellar which is directly off our Tv room. We never hear the unit run and would highly recommend not doing a pass through system as the heat and sound will make the room it’s venting into not that comfortable.
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Noise is one of the big reasons a mini split setup is pretty sweet. The fans in regular split systems are pretty much those used in commercial refrigeration i,e. noisy.
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It’s actually right next to the dining room, which is open-concept together with the kitchen and living room. We are doing a ductless split system with the main unit sitting outside where the garage and wine cellar meet, so hopefully it won’t be audible. That’s good thought though. What sort of system do you use that is audible? Thanks!
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CellarPro rear ducted, it was my best solution. It’s not horrible but I probably wouldn’t want it next to the room with couch & tv, but then again that ambient noise might cancel it out.
Best of luck on your project.
We’ve finally reached the part of this wine cellar build that I’ve been dreading: the door. I’m building a custom door so I can have it insulated to R-21. But I’ve never even hung a door, much less built a door. So this is all extremely new to me.
To get the door to R-21 will take 3-1/2 inches of polyiso foam board insulation. That plus a plywood skin and some trim (so it blends in with the other doors in the house) will bring the total door thickness to 5 inches. This means the latch side needs to be sharply beveled in order to clear the jamb. So the outside will be about a half inch wider than the inside.
The bevel was an “interesting” cut to figure out on the table saw. If anyone here ever tries it, I strongly recommend that you invest in a double (stacked) featherboard. I wouldn’t have felt safe attempting to cut a 2x4 on edge without it.
I also had to taper a 2x4 on edge to match the slope of my wonky concrete floor. My table saw couldn’t make the cut in one pass, so I had to cut most of the way through on the first pass, then flipped the board to complete the cut.
So today I cut, beveled, and tapered all the framing lumber for the door. Then I screwed together the rough frame, and glued and nailed the outside skin. Tomorrow I’ll fill the cavity with bracing and insulation.
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That’s…a lot of Bourbon!..
Speaking of Bourbon, anybody know someone who likes Four Gate?
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More progress made on the cellar door. I installed a diagonal brace, securing it to the frame with steel brackets and gluing it to the face.
I also installed blocking for the doorknob and hasp. You’ll notice I have blocking on both the hinge and latch side of the door because I screwed up and installed it on the wrong side first. By the time I noticed, the glue had dried. Doh!
Finally, I got the first layer of insulation board installed and sealed with a can of spray foam to form a vapor barrier. For the benefit of those who try this in the future, a flush-cutting saw (aka dovetail saw) was great for trimming the spray foam after it had cured.
I’ve run out of time on this trip, so the rest of the insulation will have to wait until next time.
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Getting mine a bit “organized” and overflow upstairs, mostly de Negoce and some other ready to drink wines.
Down to 2 cases on the floor due to converting plastic crates from picking crates to bottle storage. Now almost have room for the Full Pull, Cairdeas, and Rotie cases I will pick up over next few weeks.
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Interested in opinions- I am drawing up plans for a pretty basic island/table racking addition to my current cellar- Planning a pretty basic design (similar to the attached pic)- which from a wood working perspective becomes all about jigs and repetition in terms of the actual execution. One big wrinkle- I will reinforce the bottom to be able to go on heavy duty casters- being able to move it around in the center space of the racking, and even out of the cellar into the adjoining space will greatly aid in accessing the existing racking.
Questions:
- Does this make sense? in terms of slot sizing- I am thinking to go with 3 3/4 inch square for all the slots- This should allow me to fit in all but a few of the largest champagne bottles- Definitely overkill for bdx- but most of my current overflow is burg bottle/champagne.
- Am I completely underthinking the issues of putting this on wheels? Weight? If all were heavier champagne bottles I think I am looking at around 500 pounds- still seems doable?
My locker facility has carts that routinely carry 20-30 cases. They are fairly heavy duty steel, with significant casters, but it can be done. Your illustration shows about 10 cases, plus the structure, plus whatever you might put on top, you just need a reasonably substantial bottom panel, and good casters.
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