LOL , Eden . I was thinking the bra discussion may have scared our male posters away . Of course it shouldn't bother David , since he is a physician . Thanks on your good wishes , but at this point my Dr. isn't very much involved . Wow ...I got up with a doosey of a headache ! Am waiting for pain pills to ease it . Our phone company is installing a new underground cable . According to DH , the phone guy told him that it would improve our internet service ... we'll see. The line has arrived at our mailbox area , and is proceeding down the hill today ( if nothing bends or breaks ) . Marie , I hope I didn't sound insensitive to your loss . As I said , I have no problem accepting the death of elderly folk , no matter how close . I am more apt to rejoice if I know they have 'lived a good life ' ( sort of like what EP said ) . I hope my survivers don't grieve too deeply when I pass on . ( BTW , I like the name 'Vashti' . I know from whence it comes . ) RE : Merlot , we believe the 'fruit of the vine ' was unfermented . Now the wine that Paul told Timothy to take ," for his stomach's sake , and his many infirmities " , was surely fermented . Sorry about your DS concerns . It sounds as though he has a very busy , and interesting , life . Good to hear that your DH is on his way home . Thanks for the St. John's Wort link , EP . It is a good one . I have bookmarked it . Mmmmm , I'd like to sample your cotlets ! If you have noticed that I am jumping around with my follow-ups , it's because I am just scrolling back and forth , and not taking notes . I'm afraid I keep missing things I want to respond to . Brrrrr , Cynthia . I hope you donned plenty of warm clothing after your shower , with the indoor temp only mid 50s ! Does the sun help warm your house ? It does ours . We have lots of windows on the sunny sides . LOL , shouldn't that be 'Westing wabbit near the gwapes " ? Chelone , if your bean recipe is anything like the famous green beans and onion rings recipe , I'll pass . YUK ! MY sis loves it . She can have my part ... lol . Deanne , I'm happy you have found a nice dress . I hope I didn't offend you with my post . I just don't have that much interest in clothing . I guess I'm fortunate that I live in a country atmosphere . I don't want you all thinking everyone around here are 'country bumpkins ' . There are lots of 'high-toned ' ladies . I'm just not one of them , and I am never involved in activities that require fancy dresses . I do think the dress you found sounds lovely , and I do want to see a pic of you wearing it . LOL , on the 'dope slap ' for Nolon . He hasn't a clue ! Congrats , Martie , on your pic posting success . You are a fast learner . Guess I need to get out and do some walking . I don't want to go up the road while the work crew is there , so will walk around and around our yard . That in it'sself can cover a bit of territory . Marian

I think your desired wine rack is goint to be determined by whether you are a serious wine drinker or not. If wine is more incidental, then there are all sorts of decorative wine racks you can use...but you should locate them so the wine is maintained at a constant, desired temperature, away from light and sunlight. I'm a serious wine drinker and collector, so my wine racks are very practical, and are located in my unfinished basement. Each wine rack holds 110 bottles, and one is dedicated to reds (and almost constantly filled, as reds are my favorite), and the other is dedicated to whites, sparkling wines and champagnes. All of my bottles are labeled with hanging tags so I can more easily review and select the wine to serve. And the wines are kept a constant temps, and away from artificial or sunlight. While not pretty, I love my wine racks because they help me organize my collection, and store it safely. You can purchase wine racks like this from Wine Spectator or any other catalog dedicated to wine accessories. Ideamom, your wine room and wine racks are very nice....

You are going to have a lot of problems. You're sealing the concrete wall with the insulation? "I started with 1 layer of the 4” XPS over the ceiling and then covered all the walls with 1 layer of 4” XPS foam leaving 1’ of bare concrete at the floor on the exterior North and East walls)." What's on the other side of the concrete? Dirt? Or is it an attached house like a row house? If it's a detached house and it's just dirt on the other side, which seems to be the case because you said it extends 7 ft below grade, you will have a great deal of condensation and eventually mold. The concrete walls are not completely dry and sealing them the way you did allows no place for the moisture to go. Don't seal those walls off. "As for venting, no. It is a fully inclosed concrete box. Monitored humidity is a constant 70%." So the ceiling is concrete too and your entry stairs are over that? If so, no wonder you have condensation. On the other hand, you have the makings of a great wine cellar. I wish I had that. Depending on where you are, the soil temperature can vary quite a bit between winter and summer but you're in a cool area so you should be fine. If you have 70 percent humidity in the concrete room, why are you insulating with a vapor-proof material and then sealing off all possible avenues for the moisture to escape? You can't do that. What happens to the temperatures if you don't seal the ceiling and concrete walls and just insulate the walls exposed to the basement? I think you'd be far better off with that approach. If the concrete walls give you a stable temp, why insulate them? Also - the door is R10 and the rest of the insulation is R20? If you really want R20, put insulation on the door too. Otherwise, you have a huge section of your wall that has a lower R value than everything else and you will effectively have insulation of R10. To start, I would take down the insulation from the concrete and monitor the resulting temp in the room. It seems like you can actually get a pretty good temperature and perfect humidity with what you have, doing minimal work. Good luck.

You get the maximum storage if you use bins because you don't waste as much air space. The downside is that you can't easily get to the bottom bottles and you really will be cursing when you try to stack a bunch of Rhone or Burgundy shaped bottles. The alternative, which I use, is shelves that are spaced about 3 3/4 inches apart. I just made them. A Bordeaux bottle is about 3 inches diameter, a Burgundy bottle is about 3 1/4 inches so 3 3/4 gets you enough space. Then space a couple of shelves over 4" for weird shapes like Turley, Pax, Champagne, some Beaujolais, or some other big bottles, or bigger if you tend to buy mags. I just took plywood, ripped it to 9" and built shelves for the wines myself. Alternatively, there is IWA that has pretty good prices but you pay for shipping, and there other places that sell racks. My suggestion if you have time is to check out some local restaurant supply places - they often have things like that.