7Step 7: Finishing The Inside
Add stairs and doors at top and bottom, and you have a fine root cellar, ready for lots of fruits and vegetables. Currently we are storing apples, carrots and potatoes, and we are pleased with the results. One of the two 4 inch vents can be seen in the corner. The other is in the opposite corner.
To save labor and materials, I built the stairway with half of it on a foundation at the floor level, and the other half of the foundation just below the frost line. I felt that digging the entire stairwell to the floor level would have just created a large inaccessible space.
This project took a few months of evenings after work over the summer. It was cooler then, and the mortar did not dry too fast. All concrete and mortar, about 8,000 pounds in all, was either mixed with a small mixer, or by hand.
