The cold room is an essential part of the laboratory facilities for ice research and cold regions engineering. The experiment with a cold room includes various tests of materials at low temperature, whose range is often encountered in the Arctic. As a non-arctic country, the first Korean cold room facility for ice mechanics experiments was assembled in 2004. Since then, the 4 m x 6 m cold room facility has been extensively used under various different environmental and loading conditions. After reviewing published references on cold room testing methods and also by trial and error, the standard procedures for testing and preparing laboratory ice material were established for the measurement of basic ice properties. Laboratory-grown fresh water ice was used in the cold room, especially for unconfined compressive strength tests. Preparation techniques and dimension of the specimen are the most important issues arising in cold room tests. The details of specimen preparation, testing procedure and analysis of the strength test results are discussed.