Brand new kitchen. Beautiful white cabinets. So new, in fact, I only have it about halfway reassembled. Husband breaks an ENTIRE unopened bottle of red white on the White Ice granite and it runs down the face of the brand new cabinets. It was a good old vine zin, too. Did I mention that it's a BRAND NEW kitchen? With some newly-christened PINK cabinets? Every cleaning suggestion I came across involved abrasives except this bleach and water combo. I decided to give it a try. Took a little patience and gentle wiping, but within minutes the stain was gone. Flamingos will no longer be able to camouflage against my kitchen cabinets. YAY!

Definitely a different perspective. We are surrounded by wine country, have been in the wine industry and are big wine drinkers. Our remodel did not include room for a wine cellar so our compromise was a custom built-in in our dining room - open concept so kitchen and dining room flow right into each other - flanked by 2 wine refrigerators. One is a full length and the other is wine on top two drawers fridge on the bottom. THose are for kids beverages and beer. We love them - they are beautiful to look at and serve an absolute need for us - they are full and we just moved in. We are mostly red wine drinkers and red wine stored needs to be kept at 54-56 for optimum storage. All that said - I would not use the space for something if I did not personally need it for looks only. Function is always number one for me. I fell in love with a Sonoma Cast Stone 4 ft sink I "thought" was functional - only to find out for the VERY first time AFTER it was installed that it needs to be sealed every month - and not used for 2-3 days after sealing with some awful stuff that you need gloves and a mask to apply (yeah right - that is "green") - and no boiling water can be poured in the sink at all - ever. SO no pasta water etc. TG I have a prep sink near my stove. I am not sealing it and have no idea what that means in terms of wear but I have chemical allergies and I do not need to mess with toxic sealers. My point - it is gorgeous but it doesn't make up for the fact that I see it everyday and think what a waste of space for something non-functional.

edenchild, I bet you could find fancy stuff online or in an upscale sort of store if you wanted to... but just the basic stuff a local fabric store would have would work just fine. Most fabric stores sell felt by the yard in basic primary colors, some pastels, and sometimes some prints. Get it by the yard, it comes in different widths, but common around 36 or 44 inches, sometimes wider- then you can cut it to whatever size you need it and you don't need seams or anything to finish the edges. Don't get squares or sheets of the stuff, you got too much racks to play with that. If you want, you could pick something bright to add a wee pop of color to the shelf fronts while still being functional. Red would be traditional, but light or bright colors would be nice too. Cut the felt to be barely inside the depth of the shelves, draping over the front edge is a PITA and usually looks like tacky crap. But do be sure to leave yourself with a few inches of drape on both ends over on the width of the shelves, gives you shift room for bottle movement as they get added or removed from the shelf. To do this... and use a fabric tape that's soft and not a hard ruler or metal measuring tape... measure the depth of your shelf just inside the braces, and that's final. Then lay the tape across the width of your shelf, using a bottle in each slot to make sure the "dip curve" is accounted for, and use that for your width measurement. Also... you might not be one for chardonnay since it's a white, but since you like reds... watch your cabs and pinot bottles. Some of them have a slight taper with the bottle and it's better to store them punt facing out instead of the wall if you stack your bottles on top of each other. Again, vibrations can cause a slide, and better to slide into the wall instead of onto the floor.

Thank you for your opinion. We do have a cooler already for wines that we keep chilled and ready to go. While I agree with you that a dark space would be best for wine, unfortunately we do not have a basement where we can make a true “cellar” storage. I would not be opposed to a shade or other means of restricting light coming in from the window, but just didn’t want to close off the space entirely because I like the openness to the adjacent rooms. If anyone else has some helpful suggestions, please send! I would love to benefit from the creativity I’ve seen on other posts!!