After you’ve built a beautiful wine cellar for your prized wine collection, you don’t want to have a regular entryway! The cellar door is a very important aspect of a cellar and comes in many styles. It is made to not only set the mood for your interior design, but also to seal in the ideal climatic conditions in a wine cellar, including maintaining the proper balance of light, temperature, and humidity in a wine room necessary for wine to mature properly.
All cellar doors have certain ratings that meet the demands to maintain ideal weather conditions. To increase the aesthetic value of your wine cellar, choose a door that is striking, has great features and benefits, and will make you feel like a celebrity when you walk into your cellar!
Description of the properties of the basement door
Your basement entrance should be an exterior door that is very sturdy, capable of withstanding constant changes in temperature and preventing outside air from entering. It must be durable and insulated to prevent warping. All doors should come with automatic bottoms or a combination door sweep and sill (to prevent cold air from escaping) and perimeter seal. These allow the openings to be sealed, preventing the wines from spoiling due to air leaks. In the case of glass doors, they must be double-leaf, tempered and thermal.
Custom wood cellar doors must go through a special process designed to strengthen their insulating properties. A new technology, which only a few manufacturers offer, makes use of laminated veneer lumber (LVL). LVL is a type of engineered wood (made from small diameter trees) where several layers of thin wood are joined together with the use of adhesives. This technology is better compared to traditional technology due to its essential features such as durability, uniformity, and ability to resist warping and shrinkage due to changing weather conditions.
Another technique called mortise and tenon has been widely used by carpenters for thousands of years due to its simplicity and effectiveness. It is the union of pieces of wood. It consists of two components which are the mortise hole (the cavity) and the tenon (the projection). The joint can be glued, pinned or wedged to lock it in place. Combining this process with LVL will give wood cellar doors maximum strength.
The cellar door helps maintain the balance of temperature and humidity in a cellar by sealing out the air. The regulated temperature slows down the aging process of the wine resulting in great flavors, colors and aromas. The maintained humidity level keeps the cork moist, thus preventing the wine from being damaged due to oxidation. If you don’t have the proper door, your wine will spoil or get damaged, which of course you don’t want to happen.
Materials and Styles for Stunning Cellar Doors
Cellar doors can be made of wood, glass or wrought iron. There are many customization options including:
* standard doors
* carved wooden doors
* combination of carved wood and etched glass
* wrought iron grills attached to a wooden door frame with beveled glass
Wooden cellar doors can be smooth or carved. Hand-carved cellar doors are commonly chosen by wine enthusiasts because they make a lasting first impression and set your door apart from the ordinary. Set your imagination free, have a specific idea or theme in mind and incorporate it into your door carvings. The theme can be vines, leaves, scenes related to the wine industry, or any subject you would like to display on your custom front door.
With skilled craftsmen, wrought iron can have a variety of uses in creating artful pieces. Its strength, resistance to corrosion, and beauty are the reasons why it has been an important part of architecture for centuries. You can go for an old world look with an ornate wrought iron cellar door. Wrought iron grills with realistic hand forged details attached to a wooden door frame are truly decorative and luxurious. It can be designed to best suit your desired setup and can even be painted to match your decor. Like hand-carved wooden doors, you can choose a theme or motif for this type of door. It comes with glass panels that are removable for cleaning purposes.
Another attractive basement door option is the glass door. It can be plain, engraved or stained. Glass etching is the roughening of a piece of glass in selected areas to create a permanent design on it, thus creating a stylish look. Stained glass doors are also attractive and can blend in with any existing decor you have. Insulated glass, compared to regular glass, is ideal for doors due to its improved bonding ability and ability to control the climate in a cellar.
Cellar doors are as important as your wines. Without them properly installed, in the end you will not achieve the satisfaction and enjoyment of your wine collection. Custom door options have endless possibilities with the use of expertly crafted wood, glass or wrought iron. Make sure you choose the right material and incorporate unusual and attractive designs for a perfect entrance to your wine room!