Los Angeles Home Wine Cellars – Playa Vista Project The Mullers of Playa Vista considered themselves lucky to obtain a house that is spacious enough for their growing family. They were also grateful that they had relocated to a neighborhood that is considered relatively safe, compared to many places in the state. There was one problem though: it seemed like they could not find any use for that odd area under the stairway. Thankfully, the patriarch of the family had a bright idea: he has a sizable wine collection, so why not use that place for displaying his wine collection? After all, it should only take him several purchases of California wine cellar racks to carry out, right?

Of course, the project ends up being more complicated than what he bargained for. That is why he asked for help from Iron Wine Cellars to assist him in remodeling the space into a wine cellar that he could be proud of. So, how did they go about it, then? Well, you can read more about it below.

Cooling The Area

One of the first issues that are usually addressed prior to making a wine cellar is the cooling. Specifically, the whole cellar should be installed with a dedicated cooling system which should service the entire area.

However, there was a slight problem in this case: the architectural contours caused by the stairway and the depth of the niche made the entire proposal problematic to begin with.

Luckily, the client already had the whole situation scouted out: before his entire wine collection ballooned to 384 bottles, he already possessed a self-contained, refrigerated wine cabinet in the form of a Le Cache brand, which is one of the sturdiest products out there. However, it could only hold just over 200 wine bottles, at most.

We then arrived at this “compromise”: with the help of Beym Home Improvements, we would fashion California wine cellar racks that would prove to be the perfect storage place for their “everyday” wines, while the refrigerated wine cabinet would store the additional fine wine bottles in a 57 degree-Fahrenheit environment to allow it time to properly mature.

In effect, the Mullers were able to save money on contractor work that would otherwise have been needed for the installation of a large refrigeration system!

Installing the Wine Racks

Now, the time came for us to install the wine racks inside the cellar area. There is no getting around this: it really was tricky work. It was mainly because of the fact that the staircase set the “limits” on how we should go about installing the racks.

Thankfully, we were able to bypass the obstacles set by the area through sheer ingenuity alone. We installed several diamond bin wine racks and a high-reveal display row adjacent to it. Just to make sure that we were taking advantage of the space in its fullest functions, we also installed several wood case storage bins underneath the standing wine racks. All in all, these racks were to hold a total capacity of just over 200 wine bottles.

Lastly, we have decided to furnish the wine racks using Alder wood and painted them with rustic stain. We encouraged the client to forego having it lacquered, so that the color schemes of the wine racks and the floor would complement each other.

California Wine Cellar Racks That Any Family Would Be Proud Of

At the end of the project, the Mullers were very pleased with what we did with their staircase-slash-wine cellar area! If you are also aiming to complete a similar project like theirs, you can also visit this page here!