Do you have a cold room in your basement? What's in it?

[Snowwark]

Do you know? Do you want to know?

We have a small cold room in the basement (under the concrete slab of the front porch), and it's packed full!

Cases of canned veggies, lots and lots of wine, over-sized pots and roasters that won't fit in any cupboards, and for some reason, dozens of empty coffee cans. We must of been planning on doing a lot of painting or something....

There's also a safe (empty!), and a huge bag of those styrofoam shipping peanuts. These are just a few of the items down there.

It's amazing how much stuff we've got in such a little room.

Do you have a cold room? What do you keep in it?

 

[MerryPoppins]

No. I don't even have a basement. They are rare in Oklahoma.

 

[monkeyboy]

Originally posted by Snowwark
Do you have a cold room? What do you keep in it?

Dry aged beef

 

[cosette24601]

lately my whole house has become "a cold room". but no, we don't have a cold room in our basement.

 

[Snowwark]

The jerky type, Monkeyboy?

MerryPoppins, your post reminded me that the cold room is also supposed to be our "tornado" shelter. In the spring, we put a radio (extra batteries), water, etc., down there....just in case!

Maybe basements are more common up here in the North?

 

[caseylouandtyler2]

The whole basement is cold, I haven't turned the fire on yet today.

 

[MosMom]

I think cold rooms are more common in Canada. I had never heard of one until I met my husband. Many friends and my MIL have cold rooms in the basement. Maybe more northern states that see a good winter have them. My MIL loves her cold room and keeps quite a bit down there.

 

[pumba]

in the back was a root celler..........in the old days that part was for your veggies that you picked from your garden and you would keep them good all winter.....now it is a work area for hubby and his STUFF.in the middle celler is our washer and dryer and also the tread mill...............now under the steps is a make shift toilet... had to have one there when we remodeled upstairs and had to GOOOOOOO someplace.......in the next part of the celler are two freezers, one is a stand up and the other one is a chest type..... we had to buy the chest one when three of us in the family got a deer and the moose was in the upright............now in the same area is the old refrig ...just in case ....and all the toys and also the furnace..........I do not stay down there very long .......yuck spiders.......

 

[CajunDixie]

No. I don't even have a basement. They are rare in Oklahoma.

That made me think of tornados too. You'd think with OK being in tornado alley more peeps would want basements.

We dont have a basement but do have a deep crawl space that we have tons of junk stored in. And at the entrance we have a couple of milk crates to sit on and a light so we can sit down there during tornado warnings.

 

[mickeyfan1]

The whole underpart of this house is cold. It has the oil tank, furnace my washer and dryer, the owners washer, dryer and extra fridge (none of which work) my car, a tons of boxes that we will not unpack until we move in the summer to our own new house. It is so cold down there that I only go when absolutely necessary. And the mud room that has the stairs going down to the basement is so cold that we don't need to have sodas in the fridge, they stay just as cold in that room.

I can't wait to move , again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Towncrier]

I guess by your definition, we have a cold room too (although I never thought of storing anything "cold" in there). We had our house remodeled a few years ago to bump out the front door so that we would have more of a foyer. The modification resulted in a 4' x 10' crawl space underneath the new construction. Sue stores all the Christmas decorations in our cold room. And boy does it get cold in there.

When I was a child, several of the houses that we lived in had a root cellar. We had a tendacy to live in 100 year old houses, so I suppose that's why we always seemed to have one. My mom stored all her home canned food in the root cellar. I always thought it strange to have a room inside the house with a dirt floor.

 

[pumba]

for the dirt part of that and the name (root cellar) was because of the root veggies were kept there too......carrots, potatoes, all the under ground veggies and also her canned things.......

 

[MosMom]

The definition of a cold room (at least the ones I've seen in Canada) is a finished insulated part of the basement with a door that seals. There is an air flow pipe leading into the room from the outside and a series of shelving on the walls. The cold air flows into the room and it becomes a big giant fridge. It even stays pretty cool in the summer time (though not nearly as cold as in the winter).

 

[SeaSpray]

I didn't know what a cold room was until I read this thread just now! But now I'm wondering if cold rooms are common in England because our accountant who lives on Cape Cod is from England, and she has one of these insulated cement rooms in the basement, and it has a door that seals. I work for her 1 day a week and she has files in there. I thought this room looked really odd...LOL Now I'll have to ask her about it!!!