Reclaiming our depression era root cellar

Our home was built in 1923. No doubt, very soon after the house was built the root cellar which was built into the back corner of the basement was put to good use, providing the original owners with a place to store canned and preserved food. You see the depression happened very soon after the Wall Street collapse of 1929.
When we moved into our home in 2002 we saw this root cellar downstairs and we thought we would really never have a use for it, although I always dreamed of living a Laura Ingalls style of lifestyle where we canned and preserved our food for consumption later. But, we didn’t have the time…energy…inspiration.
Well, times have changed. Since the economy has gone down hill and I have become more educated about preserving food, I have often gone downstairs and stood in the spider-infested root cellar, thinking, “Someday, I want to start using this.”

Today is the day.
My husband and I, after talking about it for 2-3 weeks have decided to start cleaning it out and reclaiming it for our long-term food storage goals. In addition, the garden is growing well, and it seems like we will need a place to put all of our consumables! Fun!

I have posted a couple of photos of the cellar in the before stage. Nasty stuff! As we make progress, I will post new shots. We feel very blessed that the original builders of our home decided to put this in…and we can now benefit from it.
God bless!