The "Oxford Wine Room"

We started buying wine to cellar in 1994. Our "wine room" began as just a few bottles
 stored on a shelf.  Some years later, see the wine room now.

The room started out as a semi-finished basement with white wallboard, a beige carpet and HEAT (Oh, No!).  One day Chris began pulling up the carpet and tearing out the base-board heaters.  When I saw his handy work, I could only wonder at why anyone (in their right mind) would want to tear up perfectly good carpeting and remove heat??!!.  However I soon began to realize his dream of having an honest to goodness wine cellar.  So we started work in earnest.  

We scoured magazines and books for pictures that looked to us like the perfect wine room.   We put up a new wall to break the basement down into 12 X 12 dimensions. We plastered the walls and brought in my friend (the interior designer) to assist us in creating the color scheme that we saw in our minds eye.  The colors were chosen and the painting began.

For the floor, we chose several tile samples and laid them out in the room. As soon as we put the right one down, we knew it.  So we laid out the pattern, numbered the backs of all the tiles, entered the pattern on a spreadsheet and laid it ourselves.  (For those of you who care about such things, we want you to know, we didn't have to cut one single tile!  :  )

Chris ordered the racks from a magazine, we put them together and carried them down to the room.   He anchored them to the wall, we filled them up (well - almost  filled them) and the hardest parts were done.

A few decorations, a little sound system, an air conditioner (to keep the wine cool, not the people), and Chris' dream is almost complete!