[aholter]

Has anyone in the Villages worked with a General Contractor who has experience in building wine rooms in homes? Our needs exceed a storage unit, and we had a wine room in our previous home and would like to undertake the same project here.

[asianthree]

We have one up north but its not going to happen in tv...I would only use a contracter that has experience in a cellar

[l2ridehd]

We have a 1200 bottle cellar in our VA home, but still working through what we will do in TV. I have built three wine cellars myself, they are actually pretty easy to do. Be happy to help you plan it as it will probably give me ideas for what I might do. Where do you have the extra space is the big question.

[aholter]

I built one wine room before in my Palm Springs home. About 300 bottles in that one. The room was a stand alone room with a split handler temperature control unit.

Here in the Villages, we are in a Seabrook model home. Instead of having the Butler's pantry area finished, we had the area drywalled and carpeted (I tried to get the Villages to do a some of the stuff that would make it easier during construction, but no luck). So we have an area of about 8' by 10.5 feet that should nicely let us double to triple capacity - noinside the room activities - just storage and a little presentation area. At the moment, our wine is in a wine storage facility in the desert.

I think I have a pretty good idea about what needs to be done because of our past efforts: remove the drywall, redo inside walls with green board, insulate with materials to create the vapor barrier and then do the finishing and racking. But I am looking for a local contractor who has done it. Working now on expandinmg the search to Orlando. Would really like to get my wine before the summer!

[dzine]

I do know that someone who had an extensive wine room built in Palm Beach County, south Florida, had to have a major duty generator installed to protect his wine. In the event of power outages with the heat in summer, in the event of a major storm. That would not be so much an issue in the Villages, but something to think about.

[aholter]

It took a long time, but we finally found a general contractor who had done a wine room before, Jim Bader of Bader Construction, Inc. We signed our agreement on February 24, 2014. I ordered the racking about three days later, but it had a four to six week lead time. All work was completed on Monday, May 5th, 2014.

First a few overview comments on wine rooms. For our wine bottle storage requirements, we could easily have gone to one or two refrigeration units and stored that many bottles. We had a unit in the past, but opted not to do it in the last house and this house for two reasons – one functional and one aesthetic. We really like the impact that a separate room adds to our house. We’re into wine and having a wine room that you can really see makes sure folks know this is a pretty big deal to us. It is a much more attractive presentation than some of the units – and we picked our Seabrook floor plan in part because we could tell that the Butler’s Pantry could easily be turned into a wine room. From a functional standpoint, one of the hard things when your wine collection gets above 1-200 bottles is keeping track of what you have and picking the right bottle for your guests. In the storage units, to match this capacity you either have to stack bottles or reverse store them on pull out shelves. The wine room (I can’t adopt calling it a cellar if it isn’t in the basement) makes it much easier to organize your wine so that you can find the “right” bottle for a friend more quickly and easily. Both can work – but we do prefer the wine room.

Jim got started right away on demolishing the walls of the butler’s pantry so that they could be better insulated. He managed insulation installation and vapor barrier creation, cooling system installation, and exterior grade door purchase and installation.

Once the room was set, Bader installed a brick floor, and Venetian plaster on the walls and ceiling. Finally, when the racks were delivered, Jim subbed the electrical/lighting in the room to Lenhart Electric and the rack installation and finishing to STTAF Installations. All told, it took about eight weeks to complete the project and our wine room now holds 6-700 bottles. We’re working on filling it up.

I mentioned in a previous post that we did have a wine room in our Palm Springs home, our residence before moving to the Villages. So I wanted to comment on a few things we did this time, did the last time, and did differently between them.

• Walls and Insulation - This was done pretty much the same as in our desert house. We had existing walls removed and replaced with blue board – then filled with spray foam insulation to create a vapor barrier and R-16 insulation. There was extra insulation added in the ceiling above to increase the R-factor to R-30. The walls and ceiling were covered with Venetian plaster – painted and tinted. Didn’t end up doing the barrel ceiling that I would like – maybe next time.

• Floors – We used a thin brick on the floor. We’d used a similar product in the desert, but this one, provided by Harwood Brick was maybe even more attractive. We over ordered the brick and will need to find some other decorative use for it.

• Doors – Our wine room was positioned in the house at a corner between the living room and the kitchen. We could have eliminated an entranceway and had more storage, but opted for two doors to make the room stand out more in the house. Jim supplied two exterior grade doors finished to match our kitchen wood work. Anchor Coatings did the door finishing from a kitchen cabinet sample we provided and it was spot on. Of course this is now one more glass door area for our golden retrievers to apply nose prints. We bought the same door handles we used in the desert from Agave Ironworks. The doors stay closed with roller balls – we did not do any sort of lock on the doors. In the desert, we bought a one-sided dead bolt and sent it to Agave. They put the same coating on it that was applied to our handle so it matched perfectly. We may yet end up doing that here.

• Air Conditioning Unit – Jim provided a Whisperkool unit which was mounted in the ceiling and vents outside. The unit keeps the room temperature at 55 degrees and humidity manageable. Sunshine A/C installed it. It did stop working shortly after installation – turns out a lizard met an untimely demise in the fan unit outside and jammed the unit.

• Racking – Bill Parks of Best Cellar Designs (on the web) did the racking design and did a really nice job. To get your racking done for a custom area, you provide a designer with room dimensions and a description of what you want and the designer can do the rest, and arrange a racking supplier to build the units. Our past told us that we needed some extra wide shelves in the unit for magnums and champagne bottles (also the Turley Zinfandel bottles). The design was great. We wish we had spec’d some backing for the corner areas and a top for the unit to hide lighting wires – but we’ll be adding that.

• Decorative Arch – This came out smaller than the desert in an effort to store more bottles. It will result in a change to our decorating plans. Also, the drawer was smaller and with a pull it makes us change from what we had done in the desert. There we had the artwork from our favorite Australian winery etched into the drawer.

• Racking Installation – Artie from STAFF did the racking installations. He was wonderful and a real perfectionist. When lighting was not going to end up “hidden” well enough in our display arch, he fabricated an extension from available scrap and made the problem go away. If you need any sort of custom finish carpentry or cabinetry, I would look to Artie.

• Lighting – Kevin from Lenhart electric did the lighting work. We had LED tape lighting installed as indirect lighting above the racks, at the retail display area in the middle of the racks, and around the presentation arch. We also had a small chandelier installed for overall lighting – less dramatic but more effective for tired old eyes.

Overall, we’re really happy with how it all turned out. Jim Bader did an excellent job and is a good hire if you are looking for perfectionist work and someone to help suggest architectural details to give a more finished look.

Palm Springs Cellar

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/1brwzjd71...pUF_smkiB3InKa

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1374fonvis...Exterior01.JPG
The Villages Cellar

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jl575x29pm...%20Area-01.JPG

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ikgajgqe2...%20Door-01.JPG