Remember how I was all like, “Oh yeah, I’m totally going to do a project on MLK day when I have all this time on my hands!” It was between a wine rack, floor pillows and a green house. Then I told you the winner was the wine rack. Well, I have a confession. I didn’t actually build this wine rack myself. My dad did. My dad surprised me with a DIY wine rack that he made. And I love it. The DIY part is that it still needed some work done to get it to fit above our refrigerator.
My dad used pine, a ton of screws and some wood glue to build this bad boy. However, there were some little finishing touches (including paint) to make it look a little nicer.
There’s not much I could do about some of the spacing of the rows, but that makes it rustic, right?
I did, however, want to make sure that there weren’t gaps between the small boards and this bottom edge. So what did I do?
Spackle. Gotta love my spackle. Just smeared some of that in there and when it dried used my little fine grit block sander to smooth things out.
In order to get all the way down into the wine rack without dismantling it (it’s partly glued together, remember) I decided to use Rust-Oleum’s primer and semi-gloss in white. After priming from the top, I flipped the whole thing over and got the back making sure to do thin and even coats to prevent drips and leaving about 20 minutes between each coat. I used the entire can of primer and the entire first can of the semi-gloss (I bought two of the paint).
At this point, I realized the ends of each of the small boards were soaking up the paint despite being primed. Yup. Awesome. I went back to my trusty spackle and put a thin coat on the end of each of those small boards. Not necessarily what it’s made for, but it got the job done. I sanded each end a little and gave it another coat before I ran out of sunlight.
To be continued… (update: Read Part 2 here!)
Aw gee, I thought I was going to I was going to see the final image of the wine rack above the refrigerator. Atta way to keep us hanging!
That’s why it’s to be continued!
Hey Alanna,
I don’t know how the spackle went with you, but when I have a case like that I use MDF liar to cover the edges of the woods because it’s soft, don’t need any varnish, and can stock on the wood using an iron .
also for painting I strongly recommend u not to use a brush for this work because the paint will flood on the rack but u can use a sprayer it’s a bit more expensive but totally worth it .. u don’t ruin all that job after all with painting !
9B
Thanks for the advice! Luckily this project turned out great and works just right despite not being perfect.
I would love a wine rack similar to this in my kitchen – anxious to see how it finally turns out!
This is definitely the best wine rack I’ve ever had. And the biggest. Those Ikea ones never had a chance in comparison.
Pingback: DIY Wine Rack Above the Refrigerator: Part 2 « thismodernwife
The kitchen is not a good place to keep wines (temperature is not steady)
Thanks for the comment, however, we’ve never had a problem with keeping wines in our kitchen as we drink them usually within a year of buying them. If folks are buying wine to age/store for much longer, of course you don’t want it in an environment with low light, high humidity and relatively not-warm constant temperature.
Hi Alanna,
Any pictures of the final product yet? I am going to be building a wine rack for above my fridge as well and think i will use a similar concept. One ideal i’m contemplating is using chamfer strips (triangles) as the rails.
Also if you could give some dimensions as well that would be great
Hi, Felix thanks for the comment! You can see Part 2 by clicking here. As for dimensions, I recommend measuring where you are going to put your wine rack for your max size and then checking the size of a few different types of wine bottles to see what size of space you need for each bottle. Good luck with building!