A riddling rack is something that was used for making champagne for hundreds of years. The purpose was to store the bottles at a slight angle or upside down to allow unwanted sediment to settle into the neck of the bottle before corking. I had never heard of a riddling rack before but I happened upon this one on Etsy that is being sold for $200 which I thought was pretty pricey. However, after researching them a bit, I discovered that $200 was a bargain compared to others who were asking between $400 and $750 dollars for them...........CRAZY! So I showed my handy dandy hubby the picture and asked if he would make me one. Here are the inspiration pictures that we used.
Daniel agreed to make it and we headed to Lowe's to buy our supplies. We spent $62 on wood and some other tools that Daniel needed to complete the project. Without counting the tools, the materials alone would have only cost around $35. The most time consuming part of the project was cutting out the 36 holes for the wine bottles.
Daniel's drill mounted hole saw was taking entirely too long so he took the wood on post and paid $2 to use the drill press at the wood shop. He was finished with cutting the holes in less than an hour.
We purposely picked 2x4's that were beat up and had lots of knots so that the wood looked old and weathered. We were going for the rustic look. After Daniel finished cutting the holes it was time to sand and stain. We didn't sand too much in order to keep the weathered look of the wood. After sanding we stained and let it dry for a couple of days. We opted not to put a polyurethane coat on top of the stain in order to stick with the rustic look.
After staining, sanding, and assembling, it was time to mount it on the wall. It's very heavy and will obviously be even heavier with all of the wine bottles so we made sure to anchor the wood into studs in four different places. Here is the finished product. Now we just need some wine to fill it up.
2 comments:
Too Cute! I love it...I'm thinking Eric might need to spend the rest of his Christmas money on some tools :)! The background/header is adorable too!
So funny, in my blogroll a favorite organization blog also discusses riddling whatevers - http://jdorganizer.blogspot.com/2010/01/storing-your-wine-in-traditional.html. I've never heard of them either. Looks great, as always. I'll continue to just admire your work and find discounts on cheaply made stuff. L)
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