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What a great idea !!!!! ...
This is the first "portable" closet cellar that we have seen !! - Art & Betsy

Donald writes ....

Art & Betsy--Love your site! After enjoying the pictures of cellars sent in by your visitors, I thought I'd send in pictures of my cellar. Maybe it should be called a baby cellar (cellette?) since it only holds 150 bottles, but it keeps them safe. It's in the closet of a rental house, and it's completely removable.

Photo 1 shows the cellar from the outside. The closet had two sliding doors, I removed one and left the one you see on the right. The remaining sliding door can be slid to the left to provide access to shelves behind it.

In place of the door I removed, I installed a new doorframe held in place with three screws. Those three screws are the only attachments to the house--everything else can be removed without leaving any holes. That's a standard window air conditioning unit on top. I realize air conditioning units aren't recommended because they lower the humidity, but that is not a problem here in Mississippi.

Photo 2 shows the air conditioner sitting on a shelf from the new doorframe to the clothes hanging bar. Air circulates in from the sides of the air conditioner and out the back, which explains the cutouts around the unit. The front of the air conditioner is completely sealed off so the cold air remains in the cellar.

The cellar is lined with a double layer of styrofoam insulation covered with aluminum foil available at any building supply outlet. The sheets of insulation were cut to fit and taped in place with wide strips of packing tape to provide an airtight seal without any attachments to the walls. The floor is a sheet of plywood sitting on 2x2's with sheets of insulation between the 2x2's, and the door is plywood framed in 2x2's and filled with sheets of insulation.

Photo 3 shows the racks I made. The top rack holds the individual bottles of "drinking" wine, the bottom rack holds wines I want to keep for awhile in half-case bins. Across the top is room for bottles of Champagne and sparkling wine that are too large to fit in the top rack. The sparkling wine standing at the bottom is left over from a graduation party I had where my guests brought more wine than we drank, so I ended up with more than I started with and ran out of space!

A note on the thermostat: The AC unit would only drop the temperature to 63F, and I wanted it colder. Also, the fan ran all the time (which was noisy) and the AC's thermostat only cycled the cooling unit. Instead, I bought a 120v thermostat from an electrical supply outlet, wired it into a heavy duty extension cord, wired a standard wall receptacle onto the end of the extension cord, and plugged the air conditioner into the wall receptacle. I by-passed the thermostat inside the AC unit (just by moving one wire) so the air conditioner would be on all the time, but power is now controlled by the external thermostat. The wall receptacle can be seen in Photo 3, beneath it is an insulated box holding the thermostat (box is open at the bottom but keeps the thermostat out of the breeze from the AC unit). Temperature stays within a few tenths of 57F.

It's not much, but it works! Questions or comments--feel free to contact me at wardd@wes.army.mil.

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