The wine rack project...

John Pollman

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Rochester Hills, MI
I got a call from some friends who are really into wine. They've found that the space beneath the stairs going up to the second floor that has an access door on it is the perfect place for them to store their wine. They are on a crawl space and she said that they've found that it's the perfect temp in there to store their wine, so they want to turn it into a "wine cellar". All they need is a rack. The area is roughly three feet wide x four feet deep. The right side is 49" high and the left side is 83" high due to the stairs. Well I got busy with Sketchup last night and digitized my vision. ;)

It should be a fairly easy build/install. I'm going to use 1x3 Poplar. Here's the design as it stands now. I just sent it off for approval. If it looks good, I'll price it out and get started.

Wine Rack6.jpg
 
Looks good, that should be a dandy place to put a wine rack.

The last (and only..) wine rack I built kinda like this I just drilled holes in the middle of the boards and then ripped them in half. A circle cutter is useful for the larger holes.. The few wine racks I've done I've left unfinished for fear of voc.

I think (although I'd have to measure it.. and I can't cause it was left at an old house..) I didn't use as thick (tall) of pieces so I managed to squeeze one more row of bottles in - the downside to that was that we couldn't read the labels very well which was a real pain cause you'd have to take each bottle out to see what it was :rolleyes: I suspect that your spacing is good in that regard but if you thinned out the front piece a little you'd make the labels more visually accessible which might be nice (although they might still not be accessible so play with it to see if its worth it).
 
Yep Ryan,
that's pretty much what I planned on doing. Actually the racks will each be 3" tall (not 2-1/2 like if I used a 1x3 as I stated above). I think I'm gonna rip a 1x8 to 6" wide. Then drill the holes right down the center, and then rip it in half. It'll be much more efficient that way. As far as finish goes, I think we'll just leave it raw. I don't think it will need any finish at all. This is a closed in compartment under the stairs. She even said that she doesn't really care for it to be fancy, just functional. Will I'm going to use poplar so it should look pretty good when it's done.
 
John, that should work real well. It's about what I did in our kitchen under our plate rack, just a larger scale.

IMG_20101208_210051.jpg

I think I did the same on the front rail with drilling a hole and cutting way the center between both pieces. The back arcs I just cut out on the bandsaw.
 
Oh well!

That was a waste of time. Sent them a price and it's a lot more than they wanted to spend. She talked about some cheap mass produced units that end up costing about the same as just the material for this piece. I don't know what people expect when they ask for a quote on a piece of furniture custom designed and built to fit a specific space!
 
john, as untalented as I am, people still aske me now and then if I could build them something, and they will pay for it no problem.

as much as I don't want to get involved, I go along for 10 minutes while they ask me questions.

someone recently asked me about the deacons bench(hall bench) I built. Wanted to know if I could build them one, they had a slightly different design idea, wanted a lift up seat, no doors.

They loved the walnut, so when they were done, I simply said, well, I can do it, you have to let me finish the project Im working on. They said great.

I said just for your info, the lumber for that bench will run around 300, add on hinges, and finish products, your talking 400 and I haven't added on my labor fees. Just so you understand, I want you to be clear this is not a 259 dollar bench like the one you saw at (wont mention store name as I wont give them any advertising) discount furniture.

Ok they said, let them keep looking around, maybe they could find it cheaper.

worked for me.

I wouldn't be discouraged, people who don't think you deserve the same hourly pay rate as them aren't worth building anything for.
 
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