How to Design a Wine Cellar

A wine cellar is an incredible addition to any home, providing a place to store your prized wines as well as host wine-tasting events for your friends and family. Creating an elegant wine cellar can be a huge endeavor, but you don't need to have an entire room devoted to wine. Any wine enthusiast with even limited space can design a wine cellar for his home.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Dedicated space in your home
• Lattice or stepped racks
• CAD software
• Contractor

1. Determine how much space you need and want for your wine cellar. If you're only going to house a modest collection (at or around 100 bottles), then you probably won't need more than the space you would find in a walk-in closet. For a larger collection, you'll want a space that is at least 4 feet by 8 feet.

2. Design within your budget. For a few thousand dollars, you can design an appealing wine cellar that is suitable for a pantry or a walk-in closet. If you're a true enthusiast, then plan on spending upwards of 10 to 20 thousand dollars to convert a room into a true wine cellar.

3. Stack your wines according to your space. Most wine racks employ a lattice situated at a 45-degree angle from the floor (to prevent the bottles from jostling). There are also stepped racks which resemble stairs that are great for countertops.

4. Use a CAD (computer assisted design) software suite to design your wine cellar. With an architectural suite, you can enter the dimensions of the room you wish to use for your wine cellar and add elements to the design to see what will fit and how.

5. Have your design confirmed and developed by an experienced contractor. While it's definitely possible to design and construct your own wine cellar, a true professional can help you realize your space's full potential.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't think just because it's called a wine cellar it needs to be down in the basement! There's no reason you couldn't design your pantry as a wine cellar or even separate a section of your living room for displaying your wines.
• When people design wine cellars, no factor is more overlooked than humidity. Low humidity can dry out the corks, which in turn will permit your wine to actually evaporate. Add a humidifier to your wine cellar or, even better, install climate control to the room.

Resources

• Wine cellar information and services from Vigilant, Inc.

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