House 173 Shorts
It's Still the Cold Cellar
After almost a century, this little room is still doing what it was built to do.
There's an old white door in the basement at House 173.
It's made from simple vertical boards, held together in the old batten-door fashion, with big black strap hinges and a plain handle. In a basement that now has a washing machine, refrigerator, tile floor and fluorescent lights, it would be easy enough to walk right past it.
But the door has a history.
According to my friend, whose grandparents, the Moshers, were the original owners of House 173, it's been here since the house was built in 1927.
And nearly a hundred years later, it still leads to exactly what it led to then.
The cold cellar.
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| Nothing fancy. Just the original door to the cold cellar, still where it was put in 1927. |
Open it, and perhaps the more surprising thing is that the room on the other side hasn't needed a new name.
It's still the cold cellar.
There are Mason jars on the shelves. Canned goods. Preserves. Bottles. Pantry supplies. Potatoes hanging overhead.
There are also plenty of things nobody in 1927 would recognize from the grocery store.
That's fine.
We're not trying to recreate 1927 down there.
We've done some work down here over the years, but we still just use the room.
The shelves hold food. The cellar provides storage. The old door opens and closes.
After almost a century, the whole arrangement remains useful enough that nobody has had to invent another purpose for it.
Old houses change constantly.
Rooms get remodeled. Porches get enclosed. Walls get painted. Kitchens and bathrooms come and go. What one generation considers indispensable, another eventually wonders why anybody wanted in the first place.
And then there's the cold cellar.
Still behind the same old door.
Still earning its keep.
Hey, thanks for stopping by - see ya' next time!
