Custom Wine Cellars – Useful Tips for a Perfect Wine Cellar Design

Building your custom wine cellar should be accomplished in as smooth a way as possible, from concept to design to the complete installation, may it be in residential or business locations. The design process (the phase where you get involved the most) should be an experience worth having rather than a troublesome and unpleasant one for you. Know more about the effective key points and guidelines to follow so you can get started with your design.

Define Your Elements
Custom wine cellars should be as unique as every individual is, so you can take the liberty of designing what suits you. For a wine storage solution that efficiently functions at its best, it is essential that you gather all your long-kept dreams and ideas and begin the process of realizing them. Here are some of the essential elements you need to consider in obtaining a custom wine cellar design:

• Wine cellar (size, style, space)
• The style and size of your wine room will depend on the number of bottles you need to store and also the location. It is very important to determine whether you want to focus on functional benefits, or beauty of presentation, or both. Decide on a space that is not directly exposed to sunlight. You definitely do not want to damage your wines due to temperature changes caused by improper wine storage. This is one of the reasons why wine bottles are colored and ideally stored in dark places.
• Wine racks (size, style, wood specie and wood finish)
• Different wine cellar manufacturers offer different wine racking solutions. Wine racks come in many different sizes – six feet, seven feet, and eight feet heights. These are usually modular in nature to allow more customization options such as adding a top shelf, bin extender, cubicle extender, curved corner wine rack, display wine rack, and other interesting options. Pick a style that suits your taste, greatly enhances the appearance of your wine collection, and compliments the interior of your home, commercial venues, or even luxury yachts.
• The type of wood species also defines the quality of your wine rack so carefully pick wood types that promise durability, usability, and exotic beauty. Wood stains also play a vital role in boosting the glamour of your wine display so know the staining products that match the properties of your chosen wood specie.
• Wine cellar door (design, size, and other specifications)
• Captivating wine cellar doors give elegance to a wine room and sizes come in custom and standard dimensions. The doors can be customized in terms of width, jamb size, door swing, casement moldings, hinges, automatic door bottom, threshold, stain, and other features you want to include. You can even get them hand carved or with the glass etched with your design, the possibilities are endless. Review these options with your wine cellar specialist and always perform a quality check to ascertain longevity and maximum performance.
• Wine cellar flooring (use of wood, old oak barrels, and other flooring materials)
• Highly recommended is the mainstay flooring material wood as it can tolerate humidity levels typical of a wine storage room. One good tip, don’t use carpets since they tend to develop mustiness and molds due to the humidity. Surprisingly, some wine cellar experts recommend recycling of old oak barrels to use as wood flooring material as they represent originality and natural beauty as well as making sure they are kept out of landfills making your cellar truly ‘green’.
• Wine cellar cooling system (types and factors to consider)
• First of all, you need to know that home air conditioning units are totally different from the wine cooling equipment which are specially engineered to control the temperature and humidity levels inside the cellar. It is important that a controlled environment condition is maintained to promote proper wine cooling and wine aging, and prevent undesirable changes to the taste, smell, and general characteristic of your wines.
• One of the popular types is the wall-mounted cooling unit which is usually designed to vent to an adjacent air-conditioned space or other units can have both interior and exterior vents. Another type is the self-contained cooling unit which can be placed free-standing inside the wine storage room or in an adjacent room and vented to the wine room through insulated ducts.
• Split systems, on the other hand, can handle more extreme temperature levels and are less noisy, and its evaporator is installed inside the wine cellar while the condenser is placed outside or on an adjacent room.
• Some of the important aspects to consider when choosing a wine cooling unit are the size of the wine cellar, noise levels of the unit, installation and the need for a licensed technician, price, and length of the warranty.
• Other factors to be considered
• You may also specify the lighting effects and ambiance you want to achieve. Do you want lights that dim, a fancy chandelier or is your wine cellar contemporary in style? Are your wine racks going to have a display rack and do you want to highlight the wines being shown there? There are many options to consider and if you have a good custom wine cellar designer they should be able to guide you in picking the right fixtures to complement your wine cellar.
• And Finally:
• Before you call a custom wine cellar specialist, make sure you have a good idea of the budget you have to work with and don’t forget to get a clear idea of the timelines involved so there are no surprises.

Let your Unique Ideas be Heard

After making a list of your ideas, wants and needs get in touch with a design consultant and discuss every single detail involved and be very careful not to miss out on any aspect as this is supposed to be your dream! Choose a wine cellar builder that has well-trained, knowledgeable, and customer-oriented consultants who can guide you as you work together in forming and visualizing your ideas and concepts.

Ask for a 3D Design

An initial sketch made by the consultant can be converted to a 3D design, done by a CAD (computer aided design) team. The 3D presentation enhances your understanding of the concept and lets you know what to expect, so a wine cellar builder that offers this package is worth the choice.

Give your Approval

A cellar designer should contact you to find out if you’ve gone through the design presentation and to answer any questions you may have. If you are happy with the design, you can readily approve the proposal and let them begin the process of realizing your dream.