Basement wine cellars are valuable features of a home you may want to consider investing in, especially if you’re not utilizing the basement as much. It may seem challenging to do a renovation project like this, but it’s not as impossible as it sounds as long as you work with wine cellar specialists who have had experience building residential basement wine cellars like us at Custom Wine Cellars San Antonio!
This is the finished custom wine rack in our basement wine cellar.
If you’re interested in adding a wine cellar in your home or restaurant’s basement, here’s a project we’d like you to share to you. Learn more about the space below, and let us know if you ever need help bringing your wine cellar vision to life!
INTRODUCING A BEAUTIFUL BRICK-WALLED BASEMENT
Before building a wine cellar, there are SOPs we need to follow to create a sound wine cellar design and construction plan. And this applies to all wine cellars, whether it’s in the basement, a kitchen pantry, an alcove in the living room, or a hidden walk-in closet. Our SOP includes conducting a comprehensive assessment of the space, including its structural, electrical, and insulation, apart from size dimensions.
As you know, wine cellars need to exist like a refrigerator — perpetually maintained at a cool temperature and humidity — and installing a powerful air conditioning system will not suffice. So, a thorough inspection of the area will help us identify how much insulation we need to add, what kind of wine cellar door to use, and what type of wine cooling system to put in. After the foundations have been laid out, the wine racking comes next, and the rest of the design elements.
For this basement wine cellar, the original basement already had amazing, rigid brick walls, which were very aesthetic for the theme the owner wanted to go for — a rustic basement wine cellar. So, we preserved the brick walls, covered the existing cement beams with hardwood, and planned the other design features around them.
THE INITIAL WORKS FOR THIS BASEMENT WINE CELLAR
The first step for this basement wine cellar was to seal and secure the walls and ceiling. Bricks only occupied a specific part of the basement, so we installed additional insulation on the rest of the walls. We mainly use closed-cell foam insulation for wine cellars because they creep into tiny holes and cracks very well. After adding the insulation in between the joists, we installed the drywall and painted it with a muted yellow color to brighten the space a little.
Once the walls were in place, we then worked on the ceiling. The original ceiling was made of cement, including the beams, so we had everything covered in wood so it embodies the rustic theme.
This was after we installed the dry wall in our basement wine cellar
The basement also had 2-3 small glass windows, which we lined with wood.
CUSTOM 1950s-VIBE WOODEN WINE RACKING
For the wine racking, we went for dark-stained hardwood and customized the entire rack, so it fits into the wall’s edges perfectly. Some over-the-counter racks are modular, meaning you can buy ready-made racks and stack them to create a large wine rack. But if you look closely at the photos, you can see that the entire rack was built on-site.
We designed the wooden wine racks from floor to ceiling and combined a variety of racking configurations to create a unique wine cellar rack. You have slots for standard 750s, horizontal racks, decanting spaces, one row of high-reveal display racks, and a drawer under one of the decanting tabletops.
You can choose from dozens of wine-racking configurations, and if you’ll be customizing your rack, the sky is the limit for your design options!
We installed simple puck lights on the arched decanting area and ribbon LED lights within the high-reveal display rows. Once you turn off the room lights and leave the rack lights open, you get a dramatic and mysterious ambiance inside.
GET PROFESSIONAL WINE CELLAR SERVICES FOR YOUR HOME
Climate-control systems in wine cellars vary depending on your home’s location as well. Homes that receive the warm sun most times of the year will need more insulation and more frequent periodic inspections. But if you work with professionals like Custom Wine Cellars San Antonio, you don’t have to worry about this because we’ll ensure your wine cellar is built the right way.
Look through our gallery for more basement wine cellar photos, and contact us if you’re ready to brainstorm design ideas!
You can reach our team at +1 (210) 591 – 1595.
