If you are into “do it yourself” home improvement projects and looking for something rather small to complete within one weekend, try installing an under-counter wine cellar
The first thing I had to do was determine the size of wine cellar I wanted. Now this isn’t a wine “chiller”, but rather a wine cellar. A wine cellar will not chill wine very quickly. A good wine cellar will keep wine in a cool state for storage and will protect the wine from vibration allowing it to age. A chiller vibrates because of the compressor it uses to refridgerate. A chiller is meant to chill a bottle of wine quickly so it can be consumed within 20 minutes after storage.
The one I chose was a thermo-electric wine cellar pictured above. It is a rather small one that will hold up to 6 bottles of wine. I installed it within an unused cabinet area under my kitchen counter. It was put into an area where I could gain access to an electrical outlet already being used by the dishwasher from inside the cabinet.
Here is the finished result before painting the cabinetry:
It was rather simple to do. My cabinetry has been painted cottage white since this post. All I did was remove a door from an existing cabinet space and simply nail a frame over it. The frame pictured above just consisted of a square piece of plywood with thin tongue-in-grove paneling nailed on top. It had a rough square cut into the middle so the wine cellar would fit into it. Then I added the trim pieces around the cellar to make it look flush.
And that’s it. Now I have my own little under- counter wine cellar to store wine. This one has no compressor. It is run using thermo-electric technology to reduce vibration and keep the air cool and dry within. Now, off to the store to buy some wine…..