Hey gang!
A few months ago I got a Whynter CHC-251S Cigar Cooler. It's 2.5 cubic foot interior is described as holding ~250 cigars. I named it Whyntermute in honor of William Gibson. To increase circulation, I installed a couple of computer fans, wired them in parallel to a wall-wart, and plugged them into a timer. They turn on 4 times a day for an hour each time. It works a treat and makes no noise.
This cooler is great if you've got the room to store it. I don't. But I do have closet space. Problem 1: The cooler is 20" deep and requires 6" clearance in the back. the closet is 22" deep. Enter simple & easy Solution 1: Turn the cooler 90º counter-counter-clockwise so the door faces to the right. No biggie; it's not a centerpiece or anything. But wait! There's more! Problem 2: The door on this cooler must open over 115º before you can remove a shelf or drawer; any less and the edge of the shelf/drawer binds on the door gasket or frame. Once again, a normal closet ain't big enough. Grrr. While I consider this particular trait an evil, unconscionable, indefensible, inexcusable design flaw, I do NOT consider it an insurmountable problem. After much thought and sketching, in addition to an excellent Partagas Cifuentes Maduro Double Robusto, I arrived at complicated and time-consuming Solution 2: Make new shelves, make them better, thinner, and make them stationary; they don't have to come out. Then make some trays that are narrow enough to slide in and out without hitting the door gasket or frame. Make them with customizable dividers, add some beautiful African Mahogany facing, attach matching drawer pulls, and da-du-duh! You have a fine solution.
Not one to shirk overkill, I dove right in. I got me some 1/2" and 1/4" Spanish Cedar stock, resawed a piece of African Mahogany I had leftover from the desktop humidor builds, and went to town. A month and a half and 62 hours later, I was done. I ended up with 6 full-size shelves to fit the slots in the cooler walls, a smaller half-shelf for the floor of the cabinet to elevate humidity beads and cigar boxes, 5 customizable cigar trays equal in side and depth to the stock versions, and a sh*tload of tray dividers (too many) so I could configure each tray individually as needed. I pre-seasoned everything as much as I could before putting it into service. The shelves were immobilized with small bits of double-stick carpet tape, and the trays slide in and out perfectly.
The cooler rests on a cabinet inside the closet. I didn't need another project so I bought a media console furniture kit from Target and spent a few hours (and a couple of Rocky Patel Royal Vintage Robustos) putting it together. I added glue, screws, better hardware, loads of added additional cross-bracing, and extra support blocks underneath where needed. Unlike most cam-lock furniture, this thing won't fall apart when you move it! When I placed the cooler on the console for the first time, I discovered Problem 3: The cooler isn't heavy enough to inhibit side forces applied when overcoming the door seal. In other words, when you try to open the door by pulling on the handle, the whole cooler slides around. Not. Good. So I put on my thinking cap (a Romeo y Julieta Romeo Toro) and arrived at Solution 3: Screw on some of those square brown plastic hardwood floor furniture protector cups so they capture the cooler feet, preventing movement. It worked, so I leveled everything and was finally done!
The 5 cigar trays hold the bulk of my cigars. The overzealous ventilation channels should do the job. Tray organization is roughly by brand, alphabetically from the top. Boxes and humidification go on the top shelf and cabinet floor. I'd like to say tray divider configurations were determined by a weighted average analysis between cigar brand, line, and current and future inventory levels -- which I actually spreadsheeted -- but the truth is I just hauled everything out and freestyled it in a couple of hours. An AVO XO Toro helped out considerably. In the photos I've got it loaded with 228 cigars, with room left over for an order of 53 more cigars on the way, at which point the trays will be pretty full. Overall, I'd say the stick count for this coolidor is still ~250 cigars -- roughly 50 cigars per tray -- plus room for 2-4 additional boxes. The awesome organizational capabilities provided by the dividers really appeals to the geek in me, though I made way too many of them! Still, it's nice to have extras available for future re-configuration.
PM me for a PDF of simplified plans if you'd like to DIY.
P.S. This should have been a simple project, but it didn't turn out that way. Each piece required at least 3 separate woodwork operations, not including final dimensioning and sanding! Plus, arriving at the final divider lengths was far too fiddly. To give you an idea of time, rounding just half the divider edges took an entire Arturo Fuente Flor Fina 8-5-8! (The other half took a full Drew Estate MUWAT KFC Fat Molly if you must know.) If I ever do this again I'm getting one of those fancy CNC machines, but since I'll also need a new garage to put it in, that ain't happening any time soon.
