The Root Cellar…er…Basement


A blogger friend want to know about my sorta-kinda root cellar.

I don’t have a true blue root cellar, I wish I did, that would be so homesteadish!

Anyway, until we move to a farm and I can get Dadzoo to build me a real root cellar my basement will have to do. Really it does quite well. My basement is only partially finished, there are two rooms, a bedroom and an office, then there is a big open unfinished space and this little room. Dadzoo walled this off very soon after we moved into this house and built some shelves. There have been times that this little room was pretty empty, however the last few years I have been stocking up. About two weeks ago Dadzoo went and bought me some more shelves and so now I feel like I can share what my root cellar is like, things aren’t piled all over the place anymore!

This is the view from one end of the room, facing the shelves Dadzoo built a long time ago, that is where I am keeping all my canning. Underneath I have buckets and boxes (the boxes hold #10 cans) of rice and beans. I don’t have nearly enough rice and bean stored, it is a work in progress.

This is to the left of the door, these shelves are where all my caning supplies and misc jars are stored. In the back corner I have buckets of wheat, each bucket has about 40 pound of wheat. I am still working on stocking up on wheat.

These shelves are directly across from the door. The shelves on the right hold baking items, oatmeal, some boxes of pasta on the top and the bottom shelf will hold bags of flour and sugar, I need to do some more stocking up of those, I have been a bit lazy lately. The buckets in front are for flour and sugar. After I open the bags I pour the contents in the buckets and that is what I use when I bake. The bucket in the middle is full of wheat, I use freshly ground wheat in my baking. The shelf on the left holds fresh produce, vinegar, a bin of candles and other misc items.

In the left corner is my deep freeze.

Here is a shelf that has a box of tomatoes slowly ripening, a basket of apples and the big bushel basket holds onions. Below I have another big box of tomatoes and 150 pounds of potatoes in bags and baskets.

On the far wall is a widow. I love and hate this window. It makes for nice natural light, however that isn’t always a good thing when you are storing produce and you want it to go dormant. I need to cover it. I also keep it opened a crack all the time to let in the cold air. This room stays between 40 and 50 degrees in the winter, perfect for keeping potatoes.
(in case there is a weird-o reading this post and now thinks they know how to break into my house let me tell you a few things: first, there is nothing of value in my house, second, I own a big dog..ok not really, third, my husband owns guns that he doesn’t get to shoot often and is always looking for a chance to do so, and fourth, there is a security measure on this particular window that allows it to stay open a crack but no further.)

To the right of the door are my original shelves, they are nice and deep so I can store a lot there.


On the top shelf I keep all my pint jars. From right to left I have: Syrups, Jellies, Jam, Fruit Butters, Green Relish, Chili Sauce, Tomato Sauce, Tomato Soup, Chicken Broth, Apple Sauce and some Salsa.

On the bottle shelf I have my quart jars. From right to left: Stewed Tomatoes, Tomato Juice, Tomato Soup, Potatoes, Apples, Grape juice, and misc canned items (I hope someday to not have to purchase many canned items from the store.)

These shelves change as the year goes on, in the early winter I will can more potatoes and there will be more room because a lot of the tomatoes will have been used.

So there you have it, my root cellar. The biggest thing is to keep the room cool and dry.

Do you have a food storage room?

6 thoughts on “The Root Cellar…er…Basement

  1. It's so organized and looks great! I love the idea of having the deep freeze in the basement instead of outside.

  2. Very nice and so organized!

    We do not have a separate room for storage so I use several rooms in the house for my “stock up” items for now.

    We do have lots of space outside of the house so I am able to have 2 extra refrigerators in my husbands shop and 2 freezers in the storeroom; these are used to store grain and anything else bugs will get in. Living in a warm climate has both advantages and disadvantages and bugs are definitely a disadvantage!

    When storing items I also have to be cautious about mice so this limits where I can store extras but all in all I am pretty happy with my set-up.

    Thanks for sharing your storage, I so enjoy seeing how others store their extras.

  3. I have a storage room that was half for food and half for other storage, but it is nicely getting taken over by food storage. I have no window, but we have ducting that leads to the outside and on the outside of the house is just a vent cover we can open and close to let the cool air in or keep it out.

    Love seeing your organization. Inspiring as always.

  4. Basements are great for storing food and extra things. Wish we had one! Yours is so clean and organized…makes life easier when everything has a place on a shelf.

  5. thank you so much for sharing!! now i can show the pics to jason and say "that's what i want in the basement, help me do it!" he'll grumble and all that, but it will be worth it…