# My New DIY Wine Cellar



## skiboarder72

So I've always had this dream of converting one of my spare bedrooms into a wine cellar guest bedroom. Well this past weekend I decided to cram the week long project of converting it into just three days (not recommended). I used a modified IKEA setup to build the racks. Went to lowes to get additional wood and screws.






Started the new year staining wine racks from 9am-4am










After staining for 20 hours straight I was finally done, not sure if I've ever been that tired in my life!





The room before... a sorry guest bedroom





All cleaned out





Finally sanded, stained, and ready to put together!





Starting off





Getting there





Finished up at about 2am





All put together!





The triple rack





The double rack





The single rack















All filled... at least as much as I can for now (about 180 bottles)





All the white wines/meads/roses I've made





Red wine rack... yea I need to get going on it
















All in all it can hold roughly *1500 bottles*. 

It will take me many years to totally fill it, but until then I'll have an awesome place to visit to keep me motivated. For heating/cooling/humidity I've totally shut to the room off from the central HVAC and have a radiator heater and humidifier in the room. In the summer I'll put in an A/C unit as well. My goal is to keep it around 62° +/-2° and the humidity around 40-50%. I need to put some insulation up over the one window in the room. I have blinds over it now to keep the light out for the time being. 

I eventually want to put a guest bed in the middle of the room. I think this would make a cool/unique guest bedroom. Surrounded by floor to ceiling wine racks. The project in all ended up costing only about $800 and about 40 hours of time.


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## Tom

Looking GOOD !


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## Goodfella

Very nice!!!

Well done.... Keep up the good work


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## Runningwolf

Looking pretty cool. I would be more concerned at keeping the temperature constant rather than spending the money to keep it cool.


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## ibglowin

Very nice!


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## buffaloricky

Looks awesome. Nice job.


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## AlFulchino

i have seen a lot of home made racks...yours are TOP notch...good job

i see one issue...you say you plan on putting a bed back in there for a guest....now you have a new problem....inventory control


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## sly22guy

Looks nice! Do you have some more info on what you got from ikea? Or a link would be cool.


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## wvbrewer

Awsome. It would be cool to sleep in there.


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## skiboarder72

Thanks for the comments everyone!



AlFulchino said:


> i have seen a lot of home made racks...yours are TOP notch...good job
> 
> i see one issue...you say you plan on putting a bed back in there for a guest....now you have a new problem....inventory control



Haha very true... I'm not sure if I'll notice if a few bottles are missing though 



sly22guy said:


> Looks nice! Do you have some more info on what you got from ikea? Or a link would be cool.



I bought these shelves from Ikea: http://goo.gl/Nt1eJ and then made the uprights for them to mount into, also got some torsion bars for extra rigidity


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## ibglowin

Those are nice racks for the price. Too bad the closest IKEA is like 500 miles away from me..........


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## mxsteve625

They are nice racks. 

Like you said, You need to get busy.


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## skiboarder72

quick : the room is stay pretty constant, I've check it during several times of the day and its always been 63° ± 1° 

Have to switchout the water on the humidifier almost daily though, keeping the room at 50% or so takes a bit of water!


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## Runningwolf

skiboarder72 said:


> quick : the room is stay pretty constant, I've check it during several times of the day and its always been 63° ± 1°
> 
> Have to switchout the water on the humidifier almost daily though, keeping the room at 50% or so takes a bit of water!



Check your windows. Are the sweating? It's possible to add too much moisture and do damage to the wood in the room. I think @ 50% you're ok though.


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## JordanPond

I'll need to show this to my wife. She's worried that I'm going to take over our son's room when he moves out in April and we won't have a guest room, only wine storage. Your project (most excellent) should provide a vision.


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## skiboarder72

Runningwolf said:


> Check your windows. Are the sweating? It's possible to add too much moisture and do damage to the wood in the room. I think @ 50% you're ok though.



There is some condensation on the inside of the windows in the morning when its really cold out. I have it turned down to about 40% now. I think this is normal.


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## Lurker

I WOULD LIKE TO BE A GUEST IN THERE. VERY, VERY NEAT.


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## grapeman

The occupant of that room would be sure to sleep well at night though, but might be grumpy in the morning........

Great racks!


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## Wade E

Great job!!!!!! Looks like you better start doing some serious fermenting!


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## woodsxdragon

you sir... are my hero. that is beautiful.


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## Brian

Very Very nice but I am not sure of all how much sleep I would get in there if I was to stay iw would be more like passed out.. Awesome racks..


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## jtstar

so where do we sign up for our reservation nice job on the racks


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## Daisy317

Those racks turned out really well! Can't wait until I can actually have a wine stash without everyone drinking me out of it!


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## Redtrk

That looks really nice skiboarder72. You did a great job on it.


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## djrockinsteve

Best thing of all....He thinks this is all he needs. Just wait. The addiction really kicks in and you'll have carboys all over the house

That is really nice. Nicer than mine, I have concrete for a floor.

Good Job.


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## Wade E

1500 is a good amount for most of us but some of us (Not naming names uh huh Tom) thats just not nearly enough!! hehehe I have rrom for around 1200 and have always exceeded that amount and have a few cases on the floor and just dont bottle the rest until there is room. Right now my rakcs have some room due to holiday giveaways so i need to do some bottling and in trun get start some more fermenting. I have carboys to start more but restrict myself from doing so just because of room.


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## Lurker

Before getting layed up in November, I was working on a ladder rack. Now I think when I start working on it again, I'll flatten it out and make it horizontal. I don't think there will be a problem with changing it, except that I already have rungs on two sides of the first vertical.


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## JohnT

*my recomendation*

I strongly urge you to do the following.... 

Scrap the idea of a bed!

Instead, get a flatscreen tv, a couple of cumfy leather chairs, and a barrel to serve as a table. 

A wine cooler and a small fridge to hold hard meats and cheeses would also be cool. 

In other words... say NO! to the wine cellar bedroom. say YES! to the wine cellar mancave!

Note: if you do go with my idea, might I also recomend a thumb print door lock?


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## Brian

I'm with JohnT then you can invite us all over to watch some football...


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## Runningwolf

I'm in on this one also!


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## mxsteve625

Super Bowl coming up...Let's Rock!!!


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## GrandpasFootsteps

On a more serious note, do you (or anyone) have an estimate what the energy costs are for maintaining the environment? In Texas, cooling to <65F in the summer is many $100s.


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## skiboarder72

GrandpasFootsteps said:


> On a more serious note, do you (or anyone) have an estimate what the energy costs are for maintaining the environment? In Texas, cooling to <65F in the summer is many $100s.



Sorry for the delay, wanted to wait until I got next months bill.

Doesn't look like it was a big extra cost at all. Actually it saved me a bit of money by taking the wine out of my main living areas I'm able to turn down everything during the day without risk to the wine!


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## lindberg

ibglowin said:


> Those are nice racks for the price. Too bad the closest IKEA is like 500 miles away from me..........



There is one in Tempe Arizona. I 10 and Warner Road.


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## Minnesotamaker

JohnT said:


> I strongly urge you to do the following....
> 
> Scrap the idea of a bed!
> 
> Instead, get a flatscreen tv, a couple of cumfy leather chairs, and a barrel to serve as a table.
> 
> A wine cooler and a small fridge to hold hard meats and cheeses would also be cool.
> 
> In other words... say NO! to the wine cellar bedroom. say YES! to the wine cellar mancave!
> 
> Note: if you do go with my idea, might I also recomend a thumb print door lock?


Put in a Wall Bed/Murphy Bed and you can have both a guest room and a man cave. It looks like you're pretty hand with the woodworking tools, so let me suggest you check out Lori Wall Beds. You can purchase the plans for $27 and build a bed to match your racks. I've got one in my house and I think it'd be a good fit for your room. Lori Wall Beds


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## skiboarder72

Update:

Got an A/C unit installed. It's a standard 6500btu window unit. The cellar was getting up above 70 on some of these warmer days we have been having. I installed the A/C unit and set an upper boundary of 68°F and I have the heater that kicks on when it drops below 65°F. The temperature and humidity are staying extremely constant now. Best of all, both units have systems where if the power kicks off, they will return to their original settings. No leaving for vacation and coming home to a 90°F wine cellar! 

Now its time to really fill this thing! Planning to add another 65 bottles to it this weekend


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## TxBrew

Any new updates?

How much are you spending a year on electricity for HVAC?


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## Flem

Pretty old post, TxBrew. I hope you get a response!


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## bpowell88

I know I'm resurrecting this post from the dead but was wondering if anyone had an idea of what the builder used from IKEA?

Thanks


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