We had one in the house I lived in for a long time.
It was just a closed off area in the basement.
I thought ours was kind of cool.
We have a new house in NH and the basement is one big open area, but mr. mm was asking me if I’d like one cause he could portion off part of the basement and build it in a corner so it would have outside walls and would not be heated.
Canned foods store much better in the dark and chilly temps.
Parts of our cellar’s floor was dirt. It was that way in the root cellar area. It was a partitioned off area, crudely built, but it did the trick. I was just a kid at the time, with a vivid imagination. Across from the root cellar, where the fuse box was, there was a large, black cauldron. I know now it was probably used for pickling or some other food production, but to a kid, it meant something different. We had a big coal furnace, and across from that were two good-sized coal bins. We used to love look out the window, when the guy came to deliver the coal, and watch it go down the chute into the cellar. No kid today would ever think that something like that could be entertaining.
How nice of your husband to want to do that for you...sounds like he’s as happy as you to settle in your new home.
I grew up in an older victorian house that had a dark/cool pantry in the rear of an unfinished basement. As kids we hated going down there, when mom asked us to fetch a jar of preserves, because there were yucky cob webs and spiders hanging out. Oddly enough when a teenager I would go down their periodically and sweep it clean to surprise her! LOL