10 Old Home Features That Have Faded Into History | Part 2

Explore more charming and quirky features of old homes in Part 2 of this series. Dive into the fascinating world of architecture as we uncover the secrets behind laundry chutes, lath and plaster walls, witch windows, Dutch doors, sleeping porches, boot scrapers, phone nooks, clawfoot tubs, blade bank slots, and California coolers. Join us on a journey through time to discover how these unique house elements shaped the way we live and added character to our homes.
Part 1: • 10 Old Home Features… ...
#home #house #architecture #nostalgia #retro
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[@AmericanRewind]

What other old home features do you remember?

[@hearttoheart4me]

Coffin corners, coal chutes, milk doors, ice delivery door, flip down ironing boards, bowl and pitcher.

[@TiredMomma]

The Lath and Paster is very much part of the house we live in. They can be seen along a wallspace of the basement stairwell. Some is exposed. Last I heard, renovations were done in the 1970's. An extension to side of house was made to add a place for mainfloor laundry and for hot water heater. Also a bathroom to side of kitchen was added. 😬 I've no idea where previous bathroom may've been then. *That one image that shows a hole in some brick, we have something exactly that shape in the living room! It extends up to our upstairs bedroom, floor to ceiling. Last year while getting a new roof, and new beams it looked like, we were asked if the top of the chute should be closed/removed. I'm like, it's been open this whole time? As it was removed, I heard a loud crack and a thud, and stuff came down the chute. On other end of house, same thing extends down some, and goes upstairs, also floor to ceiling, however top of that chute is already gone. The sandstone foundation dates this house to the years of 1900-1903 for when it may've been built, as I found a standstone quarry in the county records, and there's 5 standstone "sheds" within our area. There's a rumor they may've been slave quarters, or a tiny home used until the house was built. No one knows for sure. Still has original wooden shingles underneath the metal sheet roofing.

[@5Gburn]

My Grammy used to call the front porch the davenport--and there was no couch out there. (This was in Iowa; I wonder if it's just an Iowa thing?)

[@andypanda2515]

Murphy beds

[@JMan-24]

A kitchen. I hate the open concept trend.

[@KoldingDenmark]

A unique US house feature from the 1970's and 1980's is the kitchen wall phone with a "mile long" cord, that could reach into the living room or garage.

[@Bobrogers99]

I wish people would step into the hall to use their phone instead of annoying everyone with their conversations.

[@KoldingDenmark]

@@Bobrogers99 That is exactly why we have "quiet sections" in our trains. You cannot do phone calls in there.

[@dorothywillis1]

My mother had a long cord on her phone long before that!

[@KoldingDenmark]

@@dorothywillis1 Well, my first visit to the US was 1980, so I was kind of guessing. 😉

[@dorothywillis1]

@@KoldingDenmark I was just mentioning it. The long cords were not common when my mother had hers. We had a large house and there were many old ladies -- friends of my grandmother's -- who loved to talk and talk and talk. My mother felt sorry for them, so she got a gadget to hold the receiver up to her ear and did most of her housework while on the phone. She had a 40-foot cord on the downstairs and the upstairs extension. The men who installed them were sure she was going to trip, but she never did.

[@zombie_snax]

I feel like the " Milk Door " will make a comeback now that there's so many home delivery services now.

[@samanthab1923]

You’re right! For Amazon & such

[@NordicDan]

@@samanthab1923 Good call. It'd definitely be nice to have something like that for packages to help deter porch pirates. In my case I have packages delivered to my work.

[@davidpantherchild3181]

problem is getting the delivery drivers to follow instructions and use them. well that and amz's box to item size mis-match. order something the size of a man's fist and it arrives in a box so big a rottwiler can sprawl nap inside of

[@philipthomey7884]

@@davidpantherchild3181 lol

[@coolsnake1134]

I could definitely see a version of the milk door making a comeback, unfortunately it would cost more than the old way because you would want a secure door on the inside also, but if you had a airlock style setup with a modern smart lock that you could have the delivery driver unlock the outside portion

[@catherinemelnyk]

This 70 year-old Canadian remembers MANY of these things. The blocks of ice, the coal, and the milk door. Great memories..😊😊

[@mikaelb.2070]

If you're 70 today, you must have been born around 1953/1954. Didn't most people by the 1960ies already have fridges? Considering that even the Nazis already mass-produced electric fridges by 1940.

[@chrisgraham2904]

@@mikaelb.2070 I was born in -53 and all city homes had refrigerators, but I remember going to summer cottages that we rented, just a hundred miles north of the city, and ice boxes and ice delivery were still very common.

[@catherinemelnyk]

@@mikaelb.2070 Not poor people..

[@Protect_all_ljf3forms]

Laundry shoots are still legit useful

[@jrkorman]

They are also a BIG fire hazard if not properly constructed.

[@123ElectricMonkey]

“Chute”

[@anyasviews8415]

As well children would use them as slides, and sometimes get stuck or hurt.

[@stezton]

I always liked dutch doors. The phone nook would still be a great design to have by a front door so you put your keys and whatnot when you come home.

[@jaquigreenlees]

Nordhavn and Selene trawler yachts both offer dutch doors even today.

[@chrisgraham2904]

I made a dutch door for our nursery when our first child was born. Could leave the top half of the door open at night, so the baby's cries could be heard, but kept our dog out of the baby's room at night.

[@Tsamokie]

They suck scissors.

[@genecarpenter5511]

My house, built in 2000 was designed with a laundry chute. I added it as the 40’s era home I grew up in had one.

[@rhondapease8516]

My house was built in the early 1960s and has a laundry chute. I love it! The clothes drop into a tall wicker basket which is close to my washing machine.

[@quincekreb6798]

They went away because of fire investigation and science that shows the chutes didn't fully separate the floors of a house during a fire. Provides an oxygen source and place for flames to reach to the next level before burning through the ceiling/ floor.

[@mrcryptozoic817]

@@quincekreb6798 I built and installed one with fire protection built in. It wasn't hard at all.

[@crazywarp36]

@@quincekreb6798 Source? And you can easily make them fire resistant

[@chrisgraham2904]

@@quincekreb6798 Yes, it was the fire code that killed laundry chutes. In the event of a fire, they acted like a chimney, causing the flames to quickly spread to the upper floors.

[@rg1whiteywins598]

Neighbor had a laundry chute and she showed me we could slide down it, and one i did, i didn't want to stop. I just kept going and going. I was about 7 and friend was about 10. Oh the good old days.(1960s).

[@keetahbrough]

first thing my brother did was slide down the laundry chute lol

[@r.kellycoker1981]

My elementary school had boot/shoe scrapers at the entrances. I just remembered this. That was almost 70 years ago.

[@TheAngeltinks]

We have them still

[@Yikes_its_Psychs]

Claw-footed tubs still exist, and are still made. So they haven’t “faded” yet. Same with “Dutch doors”, and boot scrapers.

[@Telecolor-in3cl]

But people preffer other types of material for bathtbus, this if they still want a bathtub. Talking at least of the country where I live. But there is nothing like bathtubs and radiators made from cast iron.

[@shells500tutubo]

The large boat-shaped bathtubs are trending now on many DIY shows, but they don't have the feet.

[@AMcDub0708]

Those are special order items, not commonplace like they once were

[@That.Guy.]

They are certainly not the norm or even popular nowadays

[@chrisgraham2904]

Yes, the claw foot tubs are still around and very trendy, but the tubs and their fixtures are now very expensive compared to modern tubs. I acquired and removed two cast iron claw foot tubs for free from an old Victorian home. I had them professionally refinished for $600 each and sold them for $2,000.00 each. They sold in 2 days after listing them for sale.

[@catatonicbug7522]

My first house in Missouri had lath & plaster walls throughout, a phone nook, and a laundry chute built into the underside of the phone nook. Most of the houses in the neighborhood also had coal chutes left over from decades ago.

[@chrisgraham2904]

My 1928 home still has 60% of the walls of plaster & lathe in excellent condition. Much more sound proof than drywall.

[@josephtaub20]

I added a laundry chute in a house I built in 1977. VERY useful for second-story bedrooms!

[@HappyGoLucky70]

My home was built in 1959. When I remodeled in 2009, it was quite a surprise to discover rusty razor blades in the bathroom wall.

[@foxied]

I think it would be somewhat gross too since anyone would have to touch them in order to throw them away later

[@thebastardgift]

@@foxied Older houses were never built with the mindset unlike today to be torn down in a few years which is why houses over a century old are still livable today. New houses today will never last that long. With that said in placing razors inside walls it was done they would remain there forever.

[@naomiemoore5725]

Why a surprise? That's how things were done back then.

[@thebastardgift]

@@naomiemoore5725 For those who never lived in an older house they will have odd features that will be surprising, it's a natural reaction.

[@thebastardgift]

@@foxied Unless and until the house was remodeled or demolished, razors were place there to remain that way. The area behind the walls were never otherwise cleaned out.

[@adacotto1873]

I like the Dutch door, the laundry chute, i love the sleeping balcony idea, they should have built it today. ❤❤

[@mrcryptozoic817]

It's pretty easy to make one. Add two more hinges then cut the door in half, but it has to be a solid door. Nothing a reasonably handy person can't do,.

[@REALPapaLags]

The sleeping balcony is basically a modern day sunroom

[@jimbojimbo8]

​@@REALPapaLagsor a screened in porch

[@floodlime8620]

The house I moved out of in 2020 had picture rails, knob and tube wiring, claw foot tubs, lath and plaster walls, and a laundry chute. It was so cool living there.

[@cloud5buster]

I just had to rewire and entire house with knob and tube wiring. What a pain. The wiring was still functional in most places, but was so deteriorated that it was a serious fire hazard. Because of the way knob and tube was run, we couldn't use the old runs as pathways for the new wiring on the upper floors, either. We had to run entirely new chases using the old laundry chute as a starting point.

[@gaywells7340]

I grew up in late 1940’s-early 1970’s in a post-WWII home. We had most of these. My dad made a Dutch door with my brother’s bedroom door so I couldn’t get in and play with his toys. Great memories! We built a house in 2005 and put in a laundry chute from the upstairs hall right to the top of the washing machine. So convenient!

[@woohunter1]

Another one is the heavy cast iron weights that were hooked to the lower sash of a window to act as a counter weight.

[@stephenlee5929]

In UK these weights are lead.

[@tammyjohnson4826]

Love clawfoot tubs and Dutch doors!

[@glasslinger]

Had a funny a few weeks ago! A friend was visiting and had her two teen kids along. I have an old house and have many antiques, including a phone nook in the hall with an old dial phone sitting there. One of the kids was staring at it and asked, "What is that thing?" She had never seen one of the old phones, not living in an old house. They are rare even on TV.

[@wyomingoldiron3437]

Live in Wyoming and the boot scraper is still essential.

[@15halerobert]

Boot scrapers are still a needed and in some places popular thing.

[@shorttimer874]

Shallow cupboards for a fold down ironing board, the one in the kitchen made a great spice cabinet.

[@bjornsmom123]

Did he really say the old Dutch Doors were made with PVC & Fiberglass?????

[@Telecolor-in3cl]

Yes... he did. Probably in the '50's they could made such things.

[@That.Guy.]

Also claimed plaster protects timber from firw

[@felisleo101]

I have a feeling this narrator is AI-generated.

[@tomernest2004]

Yep more AI generated misinformation.

[@Zombeegun]

Yep he did. Or should I say, it did

[@Tebogojm87]

I could use some of these today

[@IdahoRanchGirl]

I had a laundry chute in my house in Las Vegas. It was really handy. I miss it. I also miss the indoor pool. 😢

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

I never heard of the "Witch/Coffin Windows" although I lived next to a people's cemetary for over six great years!

[@paulthomson2288]

claw foot baths are definitely making a comeback

[@Bobrogers99]

They're awkward if you want a shower, and they're a pain to clean under and behind.

[@paulthomson2288]

@@Bobrogers99 they are not usually used by people as dual purpose bathroom fixtures like a shower too and people who have the authentic types don't care about maintenance or cleaning up when they likely have a maid. for them it is about the look and style.

[@Telecolor-in3cl]

​ @Bobrogers99 I'm taking showers in a classical bathub. But I live in a commie made apartament and they where walled, they wheren't like in the picture.

[@thebastardgift]

They are beautiful.

[@feanacar]

I love those soaker tubs

[@williamhoodtn]

My parent's house (built in the 1950's) had several of these old features. The laundry shoot, telephone nook, razor blade slot in the medicine cabinet, lath and plaster walls, etc.

[@naomiemoore5725]

I have a house built in the 1920's, has all these features. And will not remodel them out either.

[@Cjinglaterra]

Boot scrapers are still common in rural areas, though a model that has brushes on the sides and bottom seems to be the most common nowadays.

[@tonycollazorappo]

I used to bath and play with toy boats in a bathtub that looked like the one with feet. Memories :)

[@hollish196]

The only one I did not know was the California Cooler.

[@willystanford]

Here in Australia when I was a kid before electricity in rural areas where there was no ice factory, we had Coolgardie safes to keep food cool especially in summer with repeated100°F/38°C days and pretty warm nights. It was invented by McCormick in 1890 and named after the outback West Australian mining town which necessitated its invention to keep precious fresh meat, veg and dairy safe from heat as well as freeloaders. It was basically a large shelved box on legs with a shallow metal dish as a top, with canvas strips draped from it over all its canvas sides and door, either sitting in a shallow metal dish or having a gutter around the bottom of the box. The top dish was filled with water which the canvas strips by osmosis wet the canvas sides and door. Evaporation lowered the temperature somewhat inside. Any excess water which reached the bottom of the canvas was either caught in the gutter or in the bottom tray. The only issue if there was no water in the bottom tray or there was just a gutter was invading ants and other creepy crawlies; the usual deterrent adopted by Mum was to stand the safe's legs in old golden syrup (cocky's joy) or other tins full of water. We had a Coolgardie safe for years until we could afford a kerosene refrigerator and a backup ice chest.

[@noodengr3three825]

The classic foursquare home that i grew up in had lath and plaster, a laundry shoot and a boot scraper. When i renovated my own old home i added a laundry shoot. A recent house guest managed to drop his cell phone down it

[@gramethyst2920]

The correct word is "chute". A laundry chute.

[@noodengr3three825]

@@gramethyst2920 thanks I knew that but chances are typed it during a sleepless stretch of night. Lol

[@noelletakesthesky3977]

I’m actually in the process of putting a claw-foot tub in my master bathroom. 😁 We also have a laundry chute.

[@midcenturymodern9330]

In the 1970's, central vacuum cleaner systems were quite popular. The vacuum cleaner resided in the garage or basement, the home had a network of plastic vacuum tubes distributed throughout, and each room or living area had a special vacuum port, where you'd connect a flex hose.

[@cloud5buster]

We had one of those in the '70s. It didn't work very well -- all the "sockets" for the hose and the sheer extent of the piping meant lots of opportunities for lost suction.

[@coolsnake1134]

In big houses back in the '60s and '70s to go with the phone, a lot of times you had a set of external ringer bells mounted in an area where you wouldn't otherwise be able to hear the phone ring like outside on the back deck or in the basement or in the garage.

[@monicacall7532]

When I was growing up one of my favorite things to do at my dad’s parents’ house was to slide down their giant clothes chute with my sibs and cousins. We’d make sure that there was plenty of clothes at the bottom to cushion the fall at the end. On a rainy day there was nothing more entertaining to do than slide down the chute!

[@elizabetha2601]

I had that tub in my old house and that door is in my childhood house. The laundry chute was great. Child hood home. Had all but windows and razor blades. Always lived in old homes

[@spacecatandthekittens1954]

The only thing i hadn't heard of were the witch windows. One house I lived in as a kid had a cooler cupboard; it was used as a pantry.

[@thexalon]

A couple of upsides of plaster-and-lathe walls and ceilings: 1. If you're putting in a wall hook or something like that, you're far more likely to get your screw into something more solid than drywall. 2. If you damage the plaster, it's easy to patch up with some spackle.

[@kasiem.8321]

lol my grandparents had a dutch door off their kitchen and i thought it was so kool as a kid 😂

[@kasiem.8321]

they also had a laundry shoot and idk why we ever got rid of them lol

[@songofruth]

Cold boxes that would be mounted to the outside of a window in cold climates for a temporary fridge in the winter.

[@Srinathji_Das]

Thanks for these awesome videos! They're beautifully put together!

[@panatypical]

When I was a child, we lived in a tenement in New York City. Each unit had what was called a 'dumbwaiter', a vertical chute in the wall that had a door, and behind it a platform with a pulley rope or chain. You would put your garbage on it and release the pulley. After a while, when the concierge in the basement had removed the garbage, you could pull the rope or chain and the platform would come back for the next load.

[@stevenlitvintchouk3131]

Our NYC apartment had a dumbwaiter in the kitchen too. But there hadn't been a concierge to handle the trash in a long time, so they ended up just sealing up and painting over the dumbwaiter door.

[@panatypical]

@@stevenlitvintchouk3131 I'll bet that's what's happened just about everywhere. A concierge would now be called a maintenance guy, but in our gentrified world so many maintenance guys are on call rather than stationed at the premises.

[@NordicDan]

I always liked Dutch doors. My GF and me want to put a Dutch front door on when we ultimately get a house together. Her current house also has a phone nook and even laundry chute. Always makes me jump when one of her daughters hucks a load of laundry down it as I'm walking right by where it empties out 🤣 I have a combination boot scraper and brush that I mounted to the deck just outside my back door. While their existence in architecture may have been pretty much gone away, their usefulness hasn't!

[@lesiepetersen1582]

Lived in many older homes in my 73 years. In Michigan all older homes had fruit cellars . They could store fruit, preserves, wine, 2nd set of cookware, anything . A lot of fun for kids playing,too.

[@nyneeveanya8861]

Well, I never lived in a home with a California cooler. I have lived in homes with all the others. I still have a sleeping porch and a boot scrape. I’ve had at one point or another a coal chute, laundry chute, phone nook, grandmothers had laundry chutes, witch windows, Dutch doors, vegetable cellars, and a room with a big sink and workbench for skinning and rending fish and animals before cooking or storage.

[@AmericanVintageTales]

great walk-through old times.

[@Carmensrt]

My parents' house in Huntington, L.I. was an old Craftsman. It had a butler's pantry, the slanted metal lift up door from the outside into the basement and built in cupboards in the bathrooms, as well as a room in the stone basement for storing home canned stuff and root veggies. Also had the huge old hot water radiators until they swapped them out for hot water baseboard heating. That made me sad. 🥺

[@micheleirl22]

Boots scrapers are still very popular in Ireland

[@foxied]

I think Poland needs these too😭

[@chrisgraham2904]

Still very popular on farms where people are walking in muddy fields and stepping in animal sh!t.

[@maxmouse3]

My grandma in Brazil had Dutch doors, I never understood why until now haha great video

[@rayshelld791]

Lol, I'm in my 80s. I remember all of these.

[@rosejoly]

Thank you for your video, I love architecture and I am happy that it found its way to me!

[@Outdoorsy368]

Laundry chute is the best thing ever, fun to slide down😂

[@garrettlundy3959]

Cast iron tubs still have better heat retention than any more modern material.

[@anselgirl4840]

My house was built in 1912. It still has its lath and plaster walls. You can’t drive a nail in it! I also still have a blade bank in the upstairs bathroom!

[@Kevin15047]

Curious, how do you hang pictures and such? Do you have a picture rail?

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

I have a Victorian home and it broke my heart that the previous owners bragged that they had removed the original pass-through china cabinet between the kitchen and dining room. It allowed clean dishes to be placed in it that could then be accessed directly from the dining room. They left a huge, gaping hole in the wall where it used to be! They also cut up some of the original, solid-wood panel doors to make corner shelves for paint cans in the garage! Philistines. At least there is a lot of original moldings and hardware left that they didn’t get to.

[@coolsnake1134]

One of the reasons you don't see laundry shoots more often in newer homes is first of all some townships and municipalities don't allow them anymore because of fire issues and also more and more people are putting the laundry room on the second floor. However with the growth in residential fire sprinkler systems I could see laundry shoots making a comeback, put fire-rated doors at each access and put a sprinkler with a protective cover at the top of the shaft.

[@valeriefouchey4201]

🙋 It's spelled chute, not shoot 😊

[@jannisares]

I love clawfoot tubs. That and a big water heater.❤

[@OkieTLB]

Thank you for this wonderful video! Never heard of the California cooler, but love the concept and will be adding it to my “want list” for our forever home. Already have Dutch doors on that list! I only learned of witch windows a few years ago when visiting Vermont. What I was told was that when folks added on more space to their original homes they would reuse any windows and doors and place them where needed. The old windows were strategically placed in areas that needed natural light, mostly near staircases thus having them placed however they could fit which led to the odd angles. 🧙🏻‍♀️

[@dorothywillis1]

A cooler is very simple. It is just a kitchen cabinet that has screens instead of shelves and a screened hole into the space beneath the house. And of course a vent at the top! I grew up in two houses that had them, built in 1907 and 1923. The 1923 house had a drawer for eggs!

[@stephenlee5929]

In UK these are larders

[@dorothywillis1]

@@stephenlee5929Interesting. Do they have the shelves made of screen? I have read of "drying closets" in English books. Is that something similar, only connected with the heating system to move warm air instead of cold?

[@stephenlee5929]

@@dorothywillis1 Hi, A Larder is cold, Not sure how they work (but they do), I think there is a vent at the top to allow air out, they are normally either stone or concrete, with stone or concrete shelving. I would expect this to be on an outside wall. The 'drying closets', I would normally call an 'airing cupboard' (unless I misinterpreting), these have wooden shelving with , a little like a picket fence, so gaps in the shelf. They are normally in a cupboard (closet) that contains the hot water tank, the door would be wood (but most are) and might have a vent. I would expect hot water pipes to line the back of this closet (not extra pipes just pipes that need to go between floors, are likely to go through this cupboard) I might expect any (water) cut off valves to be here too. I would expect this to be in the core of the house not on an outside wall.

[@lexyladybug81]

my aunt had a clawfoot tub and I swear i lived in that tub when I visited her.

[@dorothywillis1]

I grew up in houses that had laundry chutes and coolers. I always wondered why the laundry chute was not also set up to be a dumb waiter. It would be handy to move something heavy or awkward from one floor to another.

[@Saknika]

My grandmother's house had a laundry shoot, but it was very basic. Just a hole in the bottom of the linen closet with a metal tube that went straight down to the basement. The place I live in still has lathe and plaster walls and ceilings. We replace it only if/when it needs a major enough repair to warrant it. And when we redid the bathroom we absolutely found razors in the wall. We also had/have counter-weighted windows (and have left the ones on the three-season porch alone).

[@californigirl]

Nawnaw, dutch doors are great! Silly people are the ones who don't realize how fantastic they are.

[@chrisgraham2904]

Dutch doors are impractical as exterior doors where bugs and other wildlife are abundant. Chasing a squirrel through through the house isn't fun. lol. They are great as interior doors, if you wish to restrict access between rooms for pets, like dogs.

[@thefancydoge8668]

Honestly I like screen doors more

[@isaaccan3155]

My last house had a laundry chute. Wish my current house did. Such a great feature.

[@ronm6585]

Thanks.

[@kentondickerson]

We had both a claw foot tub and a sleeping porch.

[@aszurejackson8251]

I have a laundry chute and it is great, I use it every week. My house was built in 1960.

[@deniseeulert2503]

My house had a clawfoot tub. It was huge.

[@KoldingDenmark]

Last time we saw a phone nook was in Santa Monica in 2011 in a house before it was renovated. We have always nicknamed them Stan & Ollie holes, as we mostly know them from old movies.

[@samanthab1923]

I’ve noticed a few in CO. I watch a house flipper.

[@KoldingDenmark]

@@samanthab1923 What is a house flipper?

[@samanthab1923]

@@KoldingDenmark Guys buys homes, fix them up & resell for a profit.

[@KoldingDenmark]

@@samanthab1923 OH we love watching Good Bones Home Town and other programs like that.

[@genevarailfan3909]

The house I grew up in had several of these--a couple Dutch doors, blade slots, and a phone nook. The phone nook had a sliding panel on the back so that it could be accessed from either the living room or the bedroom (office?). The house I lived in during college had a laundry chute, though we didn't use it.

[@IdahoRanchGirl]

I want a sleeping porch!

[@karengrohs4942]

I have a clawfoot tub, cast iron, new six years ago.

[@stephenlee5929]

Same here

[@JesyBear100]

It is my dream to own a clawfoot tub

[@FearsomeWarrior]

New house. Installed laundry chute, porch we have slept on, two Dutch doors. We have box elder bug boot scrapers we have painted neon green.

[@manbtm1]

Laundry shoots, one in the kitchen behind the sink, and one in the master bedroom master closet, perfect, went right into the basement laundry basket.

[@rabbytca]

That must be an American activity making holy laundry, but I imagine laundry shoots are more common out back of the church in the cemetery where the dead need something to wear in October. 🤣😂😆👻👻

[@dewilew2137]

I had a claw foot tub in my house crowing up in the 2000s. They haven’t gone anywhere. I also use a safety razor, and I have a small tin container that looks like a small piggy bank. It’s called a razor blade bank. It holds 50 used razors. When it’s full, the whole thing goes in the recycling. There’s no reason those couldn’t exist back in the day as well. Or just use a makeshift sharps container. Like a large detergent bottle. Instead, they chose to make an unsanitary and dangerous job for future renovators. That’s idiotic.

[@ericabu1140]

We have a clawfoot tub and we love to soak in it!

[@sandyzalecki1145]

WEe had some of these when I was a kid.

[@shdwbnndbyyt]

My current home's medicine cabinet over the sink has a razor slot on one side. My old home in Akron was plaster and lathe, had once been heated by coal (based on the amount of coal dust that blackened me as I had to tear down and replace plaster and lathe walls and ceilings that had fallen into disrepair before I bought the house). It also had (no longer connected) gas pipes for the gas lighting... Electric was installed when the house was built about 1919 but it also had the gas lighting pipes.

[@isaaccan3155]

I remember phone nooks

[@stevegabbert9626]

My house was built in 1951, and has many of the things here. It also has a tall narrow drawer n the kitchen for hanging towels, and a built in cutting board or hot pot board. Looks like it was used for both.

[@Puritan1985]

every house I've lived in has a laundry chute.

[@SusieQZee]

What city?

[@ShadeATV]

When I was 10, I went to a cabin with a clawfoot tub that had a showerhead attached and it was the most painful bath of my life

[@Bg-xk1uw]

Clawfoot tubs allowed for easy cleaning under and behind tubs. They make a heck of a lot more sense than the freestanding tub popular with designers today which are absolutely horrible to try to clean around and behind.

[@ceasarjamestolentino9749]

I still remember the previous three houses I lived in had a phone nook even the current house I lived in has a phone nook my current house lived in and the previous house I lived in has a California cooler used to store all the food powder mix and canned food

[@georgegarcia1445]

I remember seeing some of these items in my grandparents house in Saint Paul.

[@mumsie2739]

We.had a claw-foot bathtub until 1963!

[@Telecolor-in3cl]

Shoe scraper where installed in some apartament building where I live. They where not as fancy as those. There where rods connected to a frame and a small space bellow. Good for scraping ice of too. Some more fancy prewar buldings had ones like in the clip.

[@paul28177]

i'm from the UK and the clawfoot tubs are still popular here and considered "posh". We have a barn door... ours is a PVC one and the top can be tilter or open fully...it's great because we have a dog so we can have the top open to allow fresh air in without being worried about the dog getting out. Laundry shoots here have never been that common - I've seen them in commercial buildings and hospitals...I've never come across one in a home (they may have existed but I've only seen coal shoots) it's interesting to see similar things across the pond but also how the climate allowed for adaptation

[@disgruntledtoons]

The house in which I grew up was built in 1966 and had a laundry chute. It went from the upstairs bathroom to the basement.

[@minuteman4199]

An old feature that my 100 year old house has is a coal room in the basement. There is a bricked in room with a window that was originally intended to shovel coal through and store it in the basement. We now use the room as a pantry. The house has had gas heating for about 40 years now, as far as I know, since I have only lived here for 20.

[@darnice1125]

Claw foot tubs and Dutch doors are still made new and available. So can't say they no longer exist.

[@jimd1841]

I was thinking of some of the other features my first few apartments had, which were in buildings from the early 1900’s. There were pocket doors, which disappeared into the wall, a great space saver, since no room for swinging doors was needed. There were two stained glass windows set high, flanking the fireplace. There was a large wooden hall tree just inside the front entrance, where one could hang their coat, hat, bag, etc, and perhaps remove their shoes. And there were radiators with these “keys”, with which you needed to occasionally release steam or “bleed” the radiators.

[@cgschow1971]

Clawfoots aren't totally dead yet. Last one we installed was 2018. The slipper tub is the new version of the clawfoot and those are very popular now. Come across 1 house with a CA cooler, many with the phone niche, and medicine cabinets with the razor slot. Another bath feature that disappeared was the dental sink.

[@HannesA-my3xp]

We still have the dutch door in our home and a sleeping porch. Our house have two back doors. One at the kitchen leading into the backyard and one from the sleaping porch, both backdoors are dutch doors

[@SSNewberry]

Had clawfoot tub, Dutch Doors, California Cooler.

[@Aar0nDavis]

I grew up in a house with a Dutch door. And my grandparents house had a laundry chute.

[@tomcondon6169]

California coolers, I think you'll find most of these, (all the ones I've seen), were ice boxes. They used to deliver ice to us. The ice man would drive his van up, and your regular order of ice was delivered. The block of ice had a spot to store it up top, cold moves down, increasing effuciency. You will notice the walls are galvanized sheet metal.

[@marigeobrien]

Actually phone nooks became less common when the wall phone (a landline telephone that attached directly to the wall) came out, with long cords. These were often placed in the kitchen, allowing a woman (mostly) to talk while she worked. Not sure when they first became available. I looked it up and according to the various sites, wall phones were available anywhere from 1879-1899. The modern kitchen wall phone was definitely available in the 1950's-1960's, as I remember having them when I was young. I've lived in old houses most of my life and remember many of these features. In one house, not only was there a laundry chute, there was a built-in ironing board in one kitchen wall, with a special outlet inside for the iron. It also had a wonderful walk-in pantry, the two side walls having shallow shelves 18" apart and was big enough to place the washer and dryer at the back, under the window. It also still had the original coal burning cook stove sitting right next to the newer stove and, of course, a baked enamel kitchen sink. I loved it.