Wine Cabinet

This cabinet will hold 12 bottles of wine on the slideouts at the left end. Behind the double doors there is room to hang about 24 wine glasses. Notice how the wine glasses hang on two levels so they follow the arch in the doorway. I like the bell-like look. The top is inlaid with marble tiles. The marble pattern worked out nicely – kind of like a stroke of lightning or a tree branch.

It is made of knotty alder and is finished with two coats of 1# shellac and topped with three coats of a very smooth semi-gloss wipe-on poly-oil finish. Notice the beaded column effect between the panels on the front and back surfaces. Also I placed a small moulding to define the top of each of the faux columns.

The door handles and hinges are oil-rubbed bronze and the color goes nicely with the natural coloring of the knotty alder.

I made this cabinet to be a challenge to myself since it is made of 8 identical arched panels mounted all the way around. The back is finished like the front so this could be a free-standing cabinet in the middle of a room. Three of the eight arches are doors—- two in the front and one on the left end. All others are glued shut. All panels and doors are flush and rabbeted into the openings with standard reveal all the way around. Designing and making the wineglass rack to be on two levels also was a challenge. The arched panels are raised panels cut with a simple cove cut front and back to fit the grooves in the door stiles and rails.

The interior of the cabinet is fully lined with 1/4” plywood which is finished like the exterior, so no construction elements are visible.

The drawers are dove-tailed and lined with felt on the bottoms. Again there are identical drawer fronts all the way around the cabinet with only the front 3 to be opened. The rest of the false drawer fronts are hard mounted.

The wine slide-outs are sloped and the bottles are separated by a mouldings dividing the slide-outs into thirds.

This was a fun and satisfying project. It started with a target size and my hand-drawn sketch. Then I improvised all the way to the end.

-- joejt