Long ago, when I shared about the canning room, I promised to take you on a walk through my freezer room when it was finished. It’s been complete for several months now, and it’s time to follow up on my promise!
I call this space my freezer room, but it holds more than freezers. Because it’s only 8 ft wide and has poor lighting, it was incredibly difficult to take good photos! However, I hope these images will capture the feel and idea of the place.
Ready?
Let’s just step through the kitchen door and take a peek!
Along the South Wall
When we built the cold room, I wanted a place to permanently keep my grain grinder. My man built this little work table for me, just inside the door. It’s perfect for holding my grinder and the Bosch mixer! You’ll notice I keep my juicers underneath. And on the floor, you see garlic, potatoes and (apparently) egg cartons? Some day, I’d love to have baskets to hold everything. But for now, sacks will do!
See the little, beat-up chest freezer in the background? We call it “the meat freeze.” Yes, this is where we preserve our wild game, turkeys and old laying hens! It’s is dedicated to meat alone!
High on the wall above this area is a long, 6 ft shelf. It holds bulk baking supplies: salt, baking powder and soda, molasses, maple syrup, honey, fats, oils and vinegar. It doesn’t look like much, but this shelf is 14 inches wide and I can fit 72 quart jars on it, if needed!
Along the North Wall
Directly across the room from our meat freezer is a floor-to ceiling shelf. Even though it isn’t our primary, dry-goods storage area, I do keep a few bulk items in the grey totes. Gotta keep wheat near the grain grinder, right?
On this shelf you’ll also see winter squash, onions, ripening tomatoes and on the very top shelf, an odd assortment of belongings! I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to use this space!
Snugly tucked in beside this shelf is our large chest freezer. This freezer holds fruits, vegetables, dairy products, baking and anything else that needs chilling! I believe (cough! cough!) there are still two sheep hides in the bottom, waiting to be tanned. Somebody needs to get on that!
Ok, I’ll confess. This freezer is like a junk drawer. Everything goes in it and right now, it desperately needs sorting!
Above the freezer is a long shelf that holds my preserving equipment. I love the fact that I don’t have to store this stuff in my kitchen cupboards! It’s there when I need it, but it’s also out of the way!
What’s sitting in the space beside our big old chest freezer? Our refrigerator! The mountain cottage is small, so we decided to put our refrigerator in the pantry. It’s just a few steps off the kitchen and I’m actually loving the system!
Not to mention the fridge is very old and sometimes (e-hem) makes unusual squealing and whirring sounds from time to time!
This is the view from my canning room, looking back at the kitchen and exterior door. There’s no wasted space in this freezer room!
A Walk Through My Freezer Room
Folks, you just took a walk through my freezer room, with all it’s charm and beauty! Except it doesn’t look charming or beautiful (even I have to admit that!). The floor is plain old concrete and has blotchy stains in it, the walls and ceilings are made from particle board, displaying several uneven cracks, shelves are constructed with leftovers from our house building project and nothing is “picture perfect.”
But you know something? It’s not supposed to be perfect. But rather, it’s supposed to be functional. Usable. Helpful to us. And that?
That’s exactly what it is!
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