I saw this on a friends FB page. I love the idea of the trap door in the floor for a wine cellar or pantry. This one eliminates all the cabinets/appliances you can put in the island though! Here I am making my island bigger and bigger to get more into it!

You can find plenty of ideas Here

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.

Wow the previous owners probably invested a lot of money into that wine cellar. I can see how it would be very difficult to handle if you don't drink wine. I actually love your idea for yarn storage. Just think how beautiful the colorful yarn would be neatly organized in there! That said, I think your options are to dismantle the room and turn it into something completely different, or somehow repurpose or leave it as-is, but empty. You can always store other beverages in there (fancy sparkling water, etc), but it's always going to look like a very high end wine cellar / collection.