Why a Wineador?

I started smoking cigars about a year ago; and for starters I bought a starter humidor:

I furnished it with a round Xikar hygrometer and a small, 65% RH (relative humidity) humidity bead system from Cigar Sciences (http://www.cigarsciences.com)

This particular small desktop humidor claims to hold approximately 50 cigars, but the actual number is closer to 35 or 40. I currently have 31 cigars in it and it's getting too cramped for my taste.

So it's time to expand; and I had to ask myself: what is the right solution? Should I buy a larger desktop humidor? Perhaps a 150 count. And when I fill that up, I will always have this smaller humidor for overflow. But is that the best long term solution? Shouldn't I be looking to buy a humidor that I can grow into instead of one I will grow out of?

In addition to keeping RH between 65-70%, another issue cigar collectors have to contend with is temperature. Cigars should be stored under 70ºF, and ideally closer to 65ºF. But keeping the house under 70º is a waste of money and electricity; and temperature controlled humidors (below) are extremely expensive and generally hold thousands of cigars - certainly a humidor that I could grow into, but maybe a tad bit overkill.

Recently, there has been an explosion of people converting small wine fridges (18-28 count) into cigar humidors. These devices have been dubbed "wineadors" and it solves both of my problems. A properly built wineador should hold about 500-600 cigars and easily maintain a temperature under 70º. And now, several wine fridge manufacturers offer thermoelectric cooling (as opposed to compressor cooling) which should allow the creation of a stable RH environment.

So over the next few weeks, I will be building my own wineador and chronicling the build on this blog - with lots of pictures and links to where I acquired all the parts.