Swedish Style Wine Rack - On The "Cheap"

A quick note to start off... I have never taken a shop class and do not have any real carpentry skills to speak of, so don't take my instructable as the only/best way to build something like this!  Also, since I do not frequently engage in woodworking, I don't have many tools... my point being that if I can do this, so can you!

This instructable will show you how to make a Swedish style wine rack out of garden stakes and a few 2x4's.  I've always been fond of this style of wine rack, but they can be expensive.  A wine rack similar to the one presented here can easily cost $300 or more; plus you will likely still have to put it together yourself, pay for shipping, and if you're going to stain it, you'll have to pay for that and do that yourself too.  I spent a lot of time looking online and in stores at various types of wine racks and found that the per bottle cost was around $2.50-$3.00.

My goal was to build the largest capacity possible that would fit in the space I had for it and pay less than $100.  My result was a 96 bottle wine rack that cost $96.48 (before taxes)... just over $1 per bottle!  And if I didn't stain it, it would have been $75.93 before taxes ($0.79 per bottle).  The final dimensions of my wine rack are: 36.5"x72"x10.5" (WxHxD)

Tools:
Saw - Circular, Table, Mitre, Hand... take your pick, I used a circular saw
Sander - Palm, Hand ... I mostly used my electric palm sander
Tape Measure
Level
Electric Drill
3/32" Drill Bit
Phillips Head Screwdriver Drill Bit

Materials :
3@$3.97 - #6x1 Phillips Head Wood Screw (100 pc)
3@$4.97 - #8x2 Phillips Head Wood Screw (50 pc)
4@$2.89 - 2”x4”x96” Stud
3@$6.22 - 1”x2”x24” Garden Stakes (25 pc)
1@$8.37 - 1”x2”x36” Garden Stakes (25 pc)
1@$5.96 - Sandpaper – ¼ Electric Palm Sander sheets (5 sheets)
1@$4.56 - Stainable Wood Glue

Stain Supplies (if applicable):
1@$12.99 - Stain (1 qt)
1@$2.99   - Latex Gloves (2 pair)
2@$0.79   - 2” Paintbrush
1@$2.99   - Plastic Dropcloth (9'x12', 0.5mil)

Step 1: Starting Small - My Methodology

Before I go much further I'd like to point out a couple of things... First, I am placing this wine rack with one side against a wall.  Second, I don't have the patience, time, tools, or skill to make this thing exact in every dimension.  Third, I'm going to use the side of the wine rack that is against the wall to hide imperfections; I will refer to this side as the "ugly" side.  Finally, I'm going for a handcrafted look, so it is OK to have some slop!

My method for building this wine rack is to keep all the "ugly" pieces of wood on the back side of the rack and also use the back side to hide any dimensional mismatches.  You'll want to pay extra attention to the orientation of all the pieces as you attach them to one another in order to preserve the ugly/good sides.  The front side of my wine rack turned out beautifully!

Below is a picture of the basic building blocks for this project.  There is a bundle of 25, 1x2x36" garden stakes and a bundle of 25, 1x2x24" garden stakes.  The 36" kind are used to make the long pieces of the shelves while the 24" kind are used for all the little pieces of the shelves.  Lowes has a really good deal on these things... just pay attention and avoid bundles with a lot of warped, splintered, or ugly pieces.

My wine rack requires 2, 33.5" pieces and 11, 10.5" pieces per shelf.  This works out nicely because that leaves just enough room before the stakes start getting pointed.

Comments

[swade5]

Just a suggestion... rather than eyeballing the placing of the short pieces, you could take a scrap piece of wood (or two), at 2.5" in length, and use them as spacers. Since you use 4" per bottle, with each short piece being 1.5" (actual), that means the "empty" space between each short piece is 2.5".

Taking two spacers, butt the end of each against the short piece on the end (one spacer along each long rail). Snug the next short piece up against the spacers, and glue/screw it down. Take the spacers out and ladder your way down the rails. Probably would be much faster than eyeballing it.

Now for the question... do you find you needed the full 6" between each shelf, or could you have done less? We have a very tiny spot we're trying to build a shelf in to, so I want to maximize the space as much as possible.

[xenthuin]

Thanks for checking out my instructable, and thanks for the great suggestion!! Unfortunately, this is the only wine rack I'm planning to make in my life, but who knows :)

As for the vertical spacing... You could obviously get a way with a 4" spacing since that works for the lateral spacing (even for wide-bottom bottles for sparkling wines). There are a few things to consider, though:

1) If you reduce the vertical spacing, it won't be as easy to see which wine is which without pulling the bottle out. Probably a small price to pay for improved density.
2) If you are mounting the shelves the way I did, it could be difficult to get the drill in the gaps. You could overcome this by working from top to bottom, or by using an approach that goes completely through the 2x4 supports (like I suggested in hindsight)

Best of luck!!

[ljordan1]

Just built a similar wine rack, built using 1x3x96 and 1x2x96 premium grade boards and used sheetrock screws because they are WAY cheaper, holds the weight very well and my rack is wider, each shelf on mine is 46'' and holds 12 bottles

[xenthuin]

Cool... I just loaded up my rack with everything that I have in the house, which is about 50 bottles, and mine seems to be holding strong. How much total capacity did you end up with?

[iPodGuy]

Have you tried this with 96 bottles?

[xenthuin]

Not yet, as I don't own that many bottles... I have, however, put 8 bottles on each shelf (i.e. loaded one shelf at a time) and everything seems solid. Currently there are 14 bottles sitting on it. I'll let you know when (if) it gets full if it stays together :)