What can a cellar be used for in the 21st Century?

Ditto

Lease it to the local mass murderer?

bigyorkshireman

For some great ideas on what you can turn your cellar into Timberwise have a 3D basement animation on their website that allows you to walk around and explore various ideas! From a wet room to a home cinema and more. The only limitation is your imagination! Just make sure though that the waterproofing of the cellar is done correctly!

skintandsad

This site appears to be very useful when looking for tanking options for a cellar/basement to make it waterproof:

http://www.riw.co.uk/

I don't know too much about tanking, however, it looks like you can tank inside the building, although I don't know how things like drilling to install wiring etc might affect its purpose.

Someone with more info might be able to comment.

milliebear00001

Had a cellar in my old house. Was relatively dry (although not all are) and I was able to keep my computer down there, as well as a freezer and other 'stored' bits! Tanking is VERY expensive, and converting cellars is much more problematic than attics. I wouldn't bank on using it as a room, but it could be handy for storage depending on how dry it is. Some of the cellars where I now live flood when it rains heavily! Apparently the houses were built with this in mind, but I wouldn't buy one!

spugzbunny

We keep random bits of junk, the ghosts of female child triplets and dead rats in ours - I refuse to go down there unless it's an emergency. If I do go down I sing and clap my hands to scare the girls and the rats away!

DVardysShadow

Something I found with our cellar was that when we bought the place, it had been carpeted and was a bit damp - with a definite cellar smell - and after we turned off the freezer we inherited, it became even more damp and certain parts of the carpet began to smell of ammonia. We removed the carpet and hey presto, a dry cellar with much less cellar smell - although the air is always slightly more humid than upstairs.

I don't think a cellar is a good place to spend hours - but it is excellent for storage.

oystercatcher

When ExH was a student the kitchen was in the basement ....... it was dark, damp, cold.......and full of slugs :eek:

Dazi

We rented a house with a cellar and I was convinced I would never go down there.:eek::eek::eek:

BUT we had to put the fridge freezer down there, no room in the kitchen, had to buy small fridge. So the fridge part of the fridge freezer became the drinks fridge, I soon overcame my fear when I wanted wine

Also had tumble drier down there as someone else had obviously done that as there was a vent in the wall, looked strange from the outside, all this white mist appearing out of the wall and floating across the garden.

Also it was very good for storing all those things that you MAY actually want/need again one day, needless to say when we moved most of this wanted/needed stuff didn't move with us, it went down the tip.

It was a bit damp down there, but nothing bad, didn't even have that nasty dampy smell, was just cardboard boxes down there felt a bit damp at the bottom. In the summer it was fine.

The house also had a bedroom up in the loft, now that was scarey, I hated going in there, it just felt wrong. I've lived in a house with one before and was fine with it, but this one was just creepy..... I kept the door to this firmly shut.