Twenty years ago we moved into our house. From a tiny two bedroom apartment in Altrincham to a proper big house with loads of space. I built sheds, I bought furniture, we ate off cardboard boxes for a while….and I bought a wine rack. I’ve always enjoyed wine. Everything about it. Choosing it in the shop, deciding which one to drink, opening it, decanting it, tasting it and then falling over drunk. Love it!
So I found a cupboard just off the, well, it’s the kitchen now, back then it was the conservatory, and it seemed a perfect place to keep wine. For some bizarre reason I put the wine rack on the side wall.
The cupboard itself was a proper shit tip – as you can see above. Crisps, cordials and bizarrely a discarded receipt just lying around on the floor. Bare plaster walls. Unpainted shelves.
This absolutely would not do.
I measured up the wine rack and it appeared it would fit perfectly on the back wall. I took down the shelves that were in there and decided to rearrange them somewhat and changed the shelf holders and painted them white. Also the bare bulb [ hanging out of the ceiling ] and the pull chord [ also hanging out of the ceiling ] would have to go.
I bought a 5m Philips Hue lightstrip and a Hue PIR so that when I open the wine cupboard doors it notices the movement and lights the room up. There’s even a second or so delay that just adds to the theatre of the whole thing. Beautiful.
I painted the walls with some matt paint I bought from B&M – never ever again. It took about 5 coats and if you so much as look at the wall it will leave scuff marks. One of these days I’ll buy some proper paint and do it again….but for now….check this shit out….
My daughter tells me the photo doesn’t do it justice. She says it looks better in real life. The floor needs a steam clean, the wire to the light strip needs clipping to the skirting board, and as I said – the walls need painting again. But it now gives me joy every god damned time I open the doors. Sometimes I just open the doors to have a look – don’t even bother getting wine out.