Thank you for visiting Coastal Custom Wine Cellars.
We’ll take you on a short video tour on a project that we recently completed in Beverly Hills.
Now, you might be wondering how in the world we created a wine cellar from this very, very broad canvas, and unfinished area of the home.
This is a photograph that I took the very first day I visited with Catherine Lampson.
Catherine is the interior designer who I worked with and partnered with to complete this project for the home wine cellar design Los Angeles.
We discussed many things such as bottle capacity, some wine cellar design features, some colors, glass walls versus fixed walls.
We had come up with a good plan and eventually get to these 3D visuals; but I want to take you through some of the photographs.
So, once we decided on a few of these key features, we got to working. We completed the walls so that indeed we had a little bit more of a framework to work within and to install in.
As you can see the back walls are now completed. It’s been sealed, insulated, and a moisture-proof drywall has been applied and as you can see the line set and electrical has been installed.
The line set is the wine cellar refrigeration lines and condensate drain lines that are needed for the split refrigeration system.
There’s also an opening for electrical so we dedicated 20m circuit to run through your compressors and your condensers and such.
We made quite a bit of progress over the weeks and as you can see, the finished product is quite a beautiful work.
Catherine and her team took care of the flooring, Coastal Wine Cellars provide the wine rack design for the custom wine racks, the refrigeration by Arctic Metalworks and we have a seamless glass wall and entry, which was provided by our friends at Glass and Door Design of Los Angeles.
We’re really happy with the result of this wine cellar design Los Angeles project and here’s a little bit more completed or finished room appearance with some furniture in it.
We created a complimentary three-dimensional design package for Catherine and her home owners to take a look at. This gives you a great visual of how the completed project is going to appear.
The total bottle capacities of the wine rack design are posted on the top right of this page which is referred to as the plan view because it’s an overhead view of the wine room.
The entries there at the bottom of the page just below the letter A. The letter A indicates elevation A, and of course, dimensions are posted around the perimeter as well.
So, let’s take a look at some of these wine cellar design features that were included in it that you saw in the photographs.
We’ll start from the bottom.
Here on the far left and at the far right you will see some icons that represent wood cases.
Those were the openings that we took a look at earlier for bulk storage.
But indeed you can put wood cases in there or simply just about anything you like actually.
All these custom wine racks by the way rest on a 4-inch toe kick.
You can see that from that side elevation on the right. It’s referred to as “rack left elevation” and you can see that’s toe kick’s four inches.
All the custom wine racks in between the wood cases are 750-milliliter opening, single-bottle storage openings measuring approximately three and three quarter by three and three quarter that translates to “you’ll be enabled to store standard champagne bottles, Oregon pinots, Ross, California Bluechips.”
Very few bottles will not fit into these openings.
Above the wood cases on the very far left and very far right, you’ll notice those little openings are a bit larger.
These are to accommodate 1.5-liter or magnum bottles above the tabletop area in the center, which is an open area with the solid side panels; above that is the louvered grill cover.
This is on a hinge and indeed conceals the mechanical appearance of the fan coil and the evaporator.
The thermostat is located on the left side of the room as you enter.
The label-forward horizontal displays add a nice touch, I think, and it got a lot of character.
These bottles are labeled forward for horizontal displays and enable you to store one bottle and, although, not visible, up to two bottles behind the visible bottle.
So, we were very happy with this wine cellar design project; the clients were thrilled.
We hope you visit us if you have a wine cellar design Los Angeles project at www.winecellarsbycoastal.com.
The proper wine cellar cooling systems will help maintain the ideal temperature level and provide the right amount of humidity in a custom wine room for wines to reach their aging potential.
To help determine the type ofwine cellar cooling systemsthat is most compatible with a particular wine cellar space, there are several factors that need to be considered. These key factors are: location of the wine room, room size, ambient conditions, the size of the wine collection, and the client’s budget.
Addressing these elements, along with other constraints, will determine the proper wine cellar refrigeration that will help create an efficient and consistent wine storage environment.
Arctic Metalworks specializes in wine cellar construction and wine cellar refrigeration equipment. Their products and services utilize the latest technological advances in the industry, which are proven to be effective and of high quality.
Arctic Metalworks Wine Cellar Cooling Systems Provider
The company was established in 1962 and has a group of well-trained designers, technicians and craftsmen who deliver quality and trusted services. They have already completed several wine cellar construction and wine cellar refrigeration installation projects for clients in Southern California.
Bode Project –The Original Set-Up of theClient’sWine CellarinAlisoViejo California
Inefficient Wine Cellar Refrigeration is Harmful to Wines
This project involves the replacement of an existing wine cellar cooling system.
The wine cellar cooling equipment and the modular racking systems were originally installed by another team of wine cellar builders.
The wine racks turned out okay for what the client paid, but theresidential wine cellar refrigeration unit created problems and entailed additional costs for the client.
The client was not at all happy with the outcome.
Getting Rid of Breezeaire Cooling Unit
The original wine cellar refrigeration specialist installed a Breezaire cooling system that was not effective and efficient in maintaining the ideal climate conditions for proper wine storage.
The diagnosis of the Arctic team was that the residentialwine cellarrefrigeration equipment did not have enough power to reach the temperature of 55°F, which eventually led to the equipment icing up and leaking water.
This posed significant risks to the condition of the client’s wine collection, especially with regards to the wine aging process.
What ArcticMetalworksDid to Revive the Wine Cellarand Preserve the Client’s Wines
Arctic Metalworks tore out the brand new Breezaire wine cellar cooling systems and replaced it with an Arctic 0025 split refrigeration system.
A split wine cellar refrigeration system divides the evaporator and condenser into two separate units. This set up allows the noisiest part of the refrigeration equipment, the condensing unit, to be remotely located.
In this particular wine cellar cooling systems project, the condenser was placed outdoors. This not only keeps the unit perpetually cool, but also eliminates noise and heat in the wine storage area.
Residential Wine Cellar Refrigeration Unit with the Evaporator and Condenser
Arctic Metalworks always emphasizes that noise is a factor that must be avoided inside the wine cellar, as it can cause significant disturbance in the natural aging process of wine.
Since the Arctic 0025 is a ductless splitwine cellar coolingsystem, it does not require an adjacent room to exhaust heat. It is also not necessary to install a ducting system to supply cool air into and exhaust warm air away from the wine cellar.
The evaporator unit of this residentialwine cellarrefrigeration equipment was installed inside the wine room and is connected to the condenser by a line set. This line set is composed of a copper tubing and electrical wiring.
Products and Services ofArcticMetalworks
Arctic Metalworks Products and Services
The Arctic team provides warranty on parts and labor. In addition, they have a full team of qualified technicians that will conduct on-site repair and maintenance service when needed.
Arctic Metalworks has a 1% call back rate on all of their refrigeration equipment, thus making their products the most dependable on the market.
Arctic Metalworks is a family owned and operated business that specializes in wine cellar coolingsystems and maintenance services in both commercial and residential applications.
As a wine cellar refrigeration expert in Southern California, Arctic Metalworks provides wine cellar cooling systems, commercial refrigeration equipment, custom wine racks, heating and cooling air conditioning units, and wine cellar construction and renovation services.
Tim: People produce a lot of pictures where there’s nobody in it and it’s always good to give it scale and perspective if there’s somebody in the picture.
Leslie: We’re talking about my liquid children and they’re in the photo.
Tim: Indeed. So we’ve got some great pictures from start to finish. We could just take a quick tour of the wine cellar construction process. These are all to do with the cellar, right?
Wine Cellar Construction Orange County California
Leslie: Yes. Basically what I did was took some pre-photos. These were the kind of things that I was sharing with Jerry. I think I remember sharing this exact album with Jerry that basically said ‘here is what my house looks like; here’s the wall, here’s this situation, here’s that situation,’ just to give him an idea of what I was thinking about doing and where. So that was the wall, the one that you’re really on and it even says in the comments that I really wanted to ditch that wall. My goal was to ditch that entire wall which didn’t happen and honestly saved me probably $30,000.
Tim: That’s a reasonable amount.
Leslie: The AC amount would have been huge because it would have been this nice, clear open and then the wine cellar construction amount on top of it.
Tim: I’m guessing that it’s useful to see the house as the wine cellar design is done. It helps to make sure that the style of the cellar is in keeping with the style of the house.
Pre Wine Cellar Construction Photos
Jerry: Certainly with color schemes and the species of the wood. If the home is more contemporary styling then typically there’s a stain or a topcoat or a clear coat finish put over them. Some homes are a bit more rustic and have distressed areas like distressed flooring, beams in the ceiling, so we would use something like we used at Sea Smoke.
Tim: In these pictures, does it give us an indication as to where the cellar is in relation to the rest of the house?
Leslie: Yes and no. The very first photo you see is my front door. You’re looking at my two front doors while one front door is missing, my living room, and then the wine cellar which has obviously now been replaced with a wine cellar door.
Tim: Is that here?
Before Photo – Wine Cellar Construction in Orange County CA
Leslie: Yes. That’s my custom wine cellars Orange County now. I did the same thing when I renovated my house because I do so much work in social media and everyone loved the experience so much that I thought I had to do this. On my one bulletin board, it’s actually the most viewed thread this year that people have been watching. I mean, who doesn’t love watching change happen, fun change like this?
Jerry: That’s a great picture of the custom wine cellars Orange County there. That’s the closet that we’re utilizing.
Tim: Oh, okay. Now I can relate it to those wine cellar design drawings. We’re looking sort of this way and that’s where it’s built into the closet. Very good!
Leslie: I don’t miss that ugly fan one bit. I was so happy with the day I asked to be able to throw it out and they actually let me. So that was great.
Jerry: You retained that beautiful flooring, though, did you not?
Leslie: Yes, the flooring is still in there. My concern is that I tried my best to see if it had plastic underneath it because it is an on concrete slab, so I just have to hope that whoever installed the item before me did indeed put it on plastic below it. So far it’s been fine. So we’ll see.
Tim: This is the April 1st picture. This is a picture of your completed custom wine cellars Orange County on April 1st?
Leslie: Yes, absolutely done! Absolutely! I keep the wines in the trash bags that you see in the corner.
Wine Cellar Insulation – Installation of Vapor Barriers
Tim: What are they doing here? Ripping out all the insulation in there?
Leslie: All of the drywall had to come down and all the insulation. Obviously I didn’t think it through but it had to come out of the ceiling as well. So this was day one and all they did on day one was rip it down and take out all the insulation, and then of course we had closing the window, taking the AC out. We had to cap the AC and move it. All that fun stuff.
During Wine Cellar Construction
Actually my power went off that day. It was pretty funny. This is the wall where the AC sits now. You’ll see that you can see half and then not. The top actually goes to my bedroom because I’m in a tri-level house. So that leads to my closet and that leads to my bedroom and below is walk-in storage that goes the entire width of my house. It’s kind of funny when this photo was taken. I had no idea just how much my bedroom fed into that level, but that’s how much it feeds into it.
Tim: You’re so good, so many pictures.
Leslie: Oh, I tried. So April 4th was a fun photo. I came home and I’m like, “Wow, that’s interesting.” Obviously the day that the window came down, it actually had termite damage on the window and they were going to enclose the entire window again and I said to them no because if I do sell the house in the future and if they don’t like wine, I want to try to be able to put this room back. So they actually just reframed it and I think two or three photos in from here, you’ll see that they actually reframed it to still be a window. My hope is that it never happens or happens many, many, many, many years down the line, but it is actually framed within the dry wall to be a window again if needed.
Jerry: That show’s it all boarded up and framed up.
Tim: Clearly thinking ahead there.
Framed Up Window to Ensure Airtight Seal
Leslie: Well, you know, the thing is that I either depreciated this house by quite a bit or I appreciate it for someone who buys this house in the future. My hope is that I live here many, many, many years from now very happy and all that good stuff. If I was looking for a house and I saw a custom wine cellars Orange County like this, I would probably think about changing cities to head to a house and I realized that those people might be out there, but not everyone’s like that.
Tim: April 4th, April 6th
Leslie: A little bit more progress with the wine cellar construction. They closed up the window which for the longest time they forgot to paint which was pretty entertaining. This was interesting; they started to put up the insulation and forgot to put up the vapor barrier. I remember calling Jerry and saying, “Jerry!” He was like, “Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, no! The vapor barrier needs to go up.” So they started putting the vapor barrier up and then they realized that the paper had to come down because you can’t have the vapor barrier and then paper because it creates a double vapor barrier. I learned quite a bit during this wine cellar design and wine cellar construction process.
Jerry: The vapor barrier needs to be behind the insulation in this process.
Leslie: And it wasn’t happening. So you’ll see in this photo they just started putting up the vapor barrier and then they had to rip down all the paper. Thank goodness I was posting this. In all honesty, I love my contractor but he wasn’t aware of a couple of things that he should’ve been aware of and a lot of my friends on a wine bulletin board are actually wonderful in helping out.
Tim: So now we’re on April 7th.
Leslie: It’s scary that I remember these days. You’re not going to see too much changes here, just the paper being removed in some places, more insulation being added, and then after this the lights were put in and were actually working.
Tim: April 9th through 14th
Vapor Barriers for Wine Cellar Insulation
Leslie: This is a cute story. This is when the process was going so weird that I didn’t know what to do and I was going out of town. I was going to be in Arizona for the weekend. As you know I love taking photos of everything, so I got a little concerned because I was going to be out of town. So I left my little Sony portable camera in the room and all the contractors when they came in to work actually took photos when they were done for the day. This was all of my contractors and workers taking photos, which I thought was very sweet.
Tim: I noticed they’re studiously not in the photos.
Leslie: There it is. There’s a shoulder shot of one of them.
Tim: I noticed here there are some instances where there’s paper and there’s instances where there isn’t paper. What’s that about?
Leslie: It’s just simply because they hadn’t gotten around to it yet. If you go down a few photos more, you’ll see all of the paper being removed which is how it should be done.
Tim: So this is the sheetrock ready to go in?
Leslie: Yes, that’s the drywall ready to go.
Tim: April 15th and it looks like it starting to take shape now.
Leslie: This is the weirdest thing because this is when the temperature level of this room completely changed. This was just because of the tape and the mud and everything, but this was exciting to start to see happen.
Tim: I don’t understand what you mean by the temperature of the room changed.
Leslie: Someone said that when you start getting into tape and mud and all that, it creates its own kind of moisture level and this room was considerably warm than the rest of my house. I mean, it was almost stiflingly warm to be in there. This was just standard. Once this whole room was taped, it was crazy hot. I would walk in there and I almost couldn’t breathe and other people felt the same way.
Jerry: Which is a sign that it’s a good airtight room.
Leslie: Yes, someone said to me that it is such a good sign, you don’t even know. So I was happy to hear that.
Tim: What are we looking at here?
Attic Space – Custom Wine Cellars Orange County
Leslie: I had to move my attic space because my attic space was currently in the closet. So I had to move it to this area and if you look there is a crack riding across. That’s from additional termite damage. We just decided to tackle all of this at once and reput the attic access there, reframed a couple of things that had some termite damage, and took care of that.
Tim: So what is that?
Leslie: It’s just the controller screen and for the longest time it had tape all around it. Everyday I’d show up and it would be in a different position. I just loved the fact that if this thing makes it through this construction process, I’d be so proud of it.
Custom Wine Cellar Refrigeration
Jerry: We used ductless split wine cellar refrigeration system, Tim.
Tim: We’re getting there now. It’s starting to look really interesting. What have we got here?
Leslie: April 18th was when this room was just crazy. You’ll see there’s a fan smack down in the middle. It was so damp and warm in there. This was when I was getting fed up with all the dust, but it’s so fun looking back to this. Watching the progress is fun.
Tim: What’s this?
Side Storage at Leslie’s Residence in Orange County CA
Leslie: Remember what I told you about the side storage that I have? That’s my side storage and they were using that area as a pass through. I just noticed I was actually back there on that day because ATT was here because I was going to wire the house for ATT pulse and I was happy they got to pass through backup. But that’s the side storage and that is the half wall you saw on the very first photo that was completely open to my storage. You’ll see the wine cellar refrigeration lines heading down and you’ll get a good chuckle if you look all the way to the left, you’re going to see what looks like wine racking wrapped up in plastic. That would be my very first wine storage system, probably five years ago. It held 50 bottles and I thought I would never need more.
Tim: It looks like they taped off the area they’re working because you definitely don’t want dust on the nice, wide screen TV there.
Remote Temperature Gauge with Bottle Probe
Leslie: I don’t know if you guys know about this device. This is from a company called Weather Direct and this thing rocks. It is a remote temperature gauge that also has a bottle probe, so I can have it give me air temperature as well as bottle temperature. And I can set the ping amount, so I can ping it every day, ping it every hour, ping it every 5 minutes, and then I can say to it when you ping it and the parameter is not met (e.g. it’s too warm, too humid, not humid enough) send me a text message and send me an email.
Tim: This screen that we’re seeing is presented on…
Temperature Control Alarm System – Wine Cellar Refrigeration
Leslie: You’re looking at the web screen. So it’s telling you at the top it says wine cellar, it’s saying when it was last seen, and then the last measured values. Of course, the AC wasn’t on and running at this time, but I’ve got the device and it was just sitting around my house and so I had it for fun toggling at 73 degrees and you’ll see that in red it saying that the notified parameter was met on both temperature and humidity.
Jerry: So it’s an alarm system for you?
Leslie: Absolutely. And it’s also one way of testing the AC because I’m getting different temperatures obviously near the AC system to the floor to the ceiling to the wall that feeds in to my backyard. They all are varying by a tiny bit. This has been really neat to be able to take this device and move it and just get a feel for the different temperatures that are happening around the room which is great and a lot of my wine buddies who have custom wine cellars Orange County use this. It has two pieces. The part itself that goes into the cellar and there’s another piece that needs an Ethernet connection. Up in my office, I have the other part that is hooked up into my wireless router and it has reception from I believe 200 feet away. It works great and it has a mobile website. I actually have on my phone a mobile website and it will tell me what temperature my wine cellar is any time I want to know.
Tim: We are definitely dealing with a geek here.
Leslie: The AC guy told me these things are fantastic. I have to agree and it’s a whopping $60.
Tim: You could be somewhere in a different state or you’re in a meeting somewhere and you could just say, “Excuse me a moment my wine cellar is calling me.”
