25 VERY Old Home Features… That Have FADED Into History

[@ginmar8134]

My house is 110 years old, and it's got cross ventilation, sleeping porches, big front and back porches, laundry chutes, fireplaces, pantries, servants' stairs and servants' quarters, built in spice cabinets (in the servants' stairway), boards that pull out of the counters, built ins, and leaded glass windows. I love old houses.

[@chrisrasmussen4612]

I'm jealous, I've always even as a child wanted a house like that.

[@ShirleyDrake-xx2cs]

@@chrisrasmussen4612me too!

[@debrajones4010]

Wow, I bet it’s just gorgeous! I love the older home styles too! It’s just so expensive to find one and repair it. There’s so many old homes in my county that are just going to waste. It’s usually a family home where the mom and pops have passed on and the children have moved away, not wanting to be bothered with it and they’ll either sell it to the town who eventually let it run down or they just tear it down. It’s so sad to think that these people worked their whole lives for a homestead and then their children just let it go. My grandparents’ house is still standing and I wanna say it’s somewhere around 100 years old as well. They worked their tails off to get that house and were so humble and happy to have it. It was given to my mama to make sure it stayed in the family, but my aunt currently lives there now with my cousin and his family. He’s been trying to do some work around there to keep it up. We had a hurricane to come through and a couple of the rooms were flooded so we had to gut them out completely. You would’ve been amazed to see the quality of wood that was behind those walls. You could tell they were built to last. It has three porches; one across the front, one on the side, and another across the back. I pray we’re able to keep it up and keep their memories alive. Sorry for the book I’ve sat here and written, but when I get to talking, I can’t stop 😂

[@laniwines6401]

I too LOVE Old Homes! I am Blessed enough to of been able to buy back my Grandparents Home. An 1847 Brick Victorian turned into a craftsman’s in 1920 due to a fire. I absolutely love all the old features. Still currently being restored and can’t wait to be there for the rest of my life. ♥️🏡🥰🙏🏻

[@denisemurray412]

I wonder if the boards that pull out of the counters were cutting boards. My grandmother's kitchen had that. Her countertops were stainless steel sheets her husband welded and shaped into place. Oh, the meals we had there. They raised everything...chicken, rabbit and every fruit tree, grapevines and vegetables imaginable. I remember knocking the clods of mud off pulled peanut plants, spreading them out on burlap bags to dry in the sun. Those awful chores are now favorite memories to me.🥺

[@Sorchia56]

My husband owns a residential building company. We were offered one of showcase homes at a very low price from a company he contracted with. We said no thank you! Our home was built in the 1800’s and we’ve brought it back to life and up to speed with today’s plumbing, electrical and even finished the basement to make it a walk out. All of the beautiful charm is still there with a wrap around porch. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. We did move the laundry to the main floor and added a proper mud room. That remains my favourite project to this day. We sit on our front porch all the time.

[@bethbartlett5692]

Function never goes out of fashion, and the Comprehension of "Function and Form" drove Frank Lloyd Wright to his 1st place position in American Architecture. He is truly my favorite, and his having had first hand experience in the Victorian era clearly initiated his statement of Interior Designers being "Inferior Desecrators". Quite correctly so. Best Thoughts ... Beth Bartlett Sociologist/Behavioralist and Historian .

[@charlesstewart6191]

Anyone reading this, spread the word. The stationary windows over doors, especially entry doors are NOT transoms! Transoms were narrow windows above interior doors that opened for ventilation, NOT light.

[@stacilee9944]

Yes, quite a bit of misinformation in this video. Ugh.

[@agirlisnoone5953]

Ok but language changes. Now transom window means a window above a door or another window. You're not going to scream to the world that gay used to mean happy, thongs used to mean flip flops, etc. History is great, and it's great to be aware but language changes to mean different things.

[@bdubs8620]

The modern fixed windows above exterior doors are called transom lights.. I have operable windows above my exterior doors , what else would you call them …

[@TexasKim]

@@agirlisnoone5953 Transom describes the function, it is not interchangeable with a fixed window. The word is not being used correctly, if people are using it to describe a stationary window.

[@agirlisnoone5953]

If someone needs a door with a transom, every door supplier knows what they mean in modern terms. Sorry that you have to be so stuck in your thinking. We have awning or casement, sliding, single hung, double hung etc to describe how we want windows to open above a door.

[@nuts4fiber]

Our Craftsman home in Los Angeles, had hidden, shallow shelves in the dining room paneling, to hide your booze during Prohibition days. It also had a basement (very unusual these days in LA), a telephone nook on the lower landing of the staircase, a built in buffet in the dining room. And the buffet had stained glass paneling. There was a step up to a "Music Room", where you would have had your piano, but we had our TV. The house also had a deep, cool, front porch. I spent hours there, with my cat, swinging in a hammock, and reading books.

[@franhunne8929]

So which books did your cat read? To kill a mocking bird?

[@kkrolf2782]

Ooo … I love the picture you painted in your description! Thx!

[@carmichael2359]

Pocket doors, crystal doorknobs, skeleton keys, real attics (not crawl spaces, but attics with a stairway opened by a door, kind of like the "servant's" stairs featured in this video). And, perhaps I missed it, coal chutes (used for delivering coal into the basement for coal furnaces), the crawl spaces under those spacious front porches (usually camouflaged by latticework), and lastly, my favorite: built-in wooden bookshelves and cabinets that were actually recessed into the walls.

[@robertagannon442]

We had skeleton key for the inside doors. Starting with the rear of the house there was a door between the enclosed back porch and the kitchen. Another door from the kitchen to the living room. They were fun to play with when you are a kid.

[@triciagunberg5265]

Pocket doors are alive and well, aren’t they?

[@rjgaynor8]

⁠@@triciagunberg5265 this video is very inaccurate. Front porches are very common where I live. Pantries are extremely common where it snows. And pocket doors never left. They just aren’t seen in developments. Many people still have them installed. We have a set of them in my kitchen.

[@NinjaTenK]

Pocket doors are still around just not used a lot

[@sulynn72]

​@@triciagunberg5265yes we have some in our house, they're not beautiful like some I've seen in historical homes

[@joannahimes-murphy6897]

My grandparents were born in the 1800s, so two centuries ago. Every single thing mentioned here is a wonderful memory of my childhood. I really enjoyed this video!

[@samuelschick8813]

If your grandparents were born in the 1800's, 2 centuries ago, you must be really, really old.

[@wintersprite]

@@samuelschick8813It depends on when in the 1800s they were born. My maternal grandpa was born in 1920; his parents (my mom’s grandparents) were born in the 1800s. My mom is in her late 60s.

[@samuelschick8813]

@@wintersprite, That would make your mom's grandparents your great grandparents. Just like joannahimes, the ones she mentioned born in the 1800's have to be her great grandparents or great great+ grandparents. I'm 61 and my grandmother was born in 1911 and her mother, my great grandmother was born in 1891. In order for joannahimes grandparents to be born in the 1800's, then she would have to have well over 100 years old. After all the last year of the 1800's was 1899 and that was 125 years ago. Now perhaps she meant some of her great ( one or more great) grandparents. Like I said, if joannahimes grandparents were born in the 1800's then joannahimes must be really, really old.

[@dominaevillae28]

@samuelschick8813 President John Tyler was born in 1790 and he still has a living grandson, Harrison Ruffin Tyler.

[@dominaevillae28]

@wintersprite My paternal grandfather was born in the 1800, and I’m 48.

[@babujai1]

My home was built in 1985 and it has a laundry chute. I love it!

[@96SweetwaterBay]

Our 1978 house had a chute in the laundry room off of the family room. My younger sisters would open it from upstairs and listen in on my conversations with any boyfriends I'd bring over :)

[@pateisele4513]

My dad put a hole in the floor in the bathroom closet. There was a basket in the basement to catch the dirty clothes. Wish we had had a dumb waiter instead to bring the clean clothes back upstairs. Lol

[@dewflower7298]

Lucky.

[@MrEazyE357]

They're not allowed anymore.

[@96SweetwaterBay]

@@MrEazyE357 Mine was in Canada, so I wonder if they allow it there now.

[@susanpilling8849]

I grew up in England in the mid-twentieth century in a Victorian terraced house. We had a coal shute. It was a hole in the back doorstep with a cast iron cover. The coalman would deliver sacks of coal, remove the cover and drop the coal down the shute directly into a walled off portion of the cellar. We also had an outside toilet in a small outhouse at the bottom of the back yard. A separate part of the outhouse was where the dustbin was kept. We were lucky because each house had its own toilet. Some of the less well off areas had to share. In the 1960's my parents got a grant from the council to remodel the bathroom and we finally got an inside toilet.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

My parents house has something like that between the garage and the room with the furnace. My guess is that the garage wasn't really ever intended for use with a car, but mostly as a place to take deliver of the necessary coal. Even by standards of the early 20th century, it's got a steep driveway and a tight fit.

[@jessicaleighdargaclark4536]

It depends on the age of the home. It may have been intended as a carriage barn.

[@caronlittle3539]

I have one in my house too. The coal burner and box are still in the basement

[@mistylange8037]

You missed attic fans. My great grandma had one when I was growing up and I wish I had one now in my home. I loved it.

[@sheilakirby5616]

ABSOLUTELY MY FRIEND ❣️❣️❣️ WE DIDN'T HAVE AC IN MICHIGAN AND HAD ATTIC FANS *** AND LARGE WINDOWS *** IT KEPT THE WHOLE HOUSE COMFORTABLE *** NOW I LIVE IN FLORIDA AND WISH MY HOME HAD THIS FEATURE ***

[@Loveoldies50]

I wish I had a dumb waiter put in when I built my house. I'm disabled now and have a terrible time trying to bring things up and down the stairs. They should be in every home with stairs.

[@deespyker2271]

We bought our house in 2015. It was built in 1975. We've been remodeling on and off since then. It had an inwall vacuum cleaner, radio intercoms, dark brown shag rug and a blender with milk glass bowls that would pop up from under the counter to the top of the counter. We kept the brick fireplace that has an extra inlet for fire wood and it runs across and entire wall with a large mantle. The room was so dark I painted the fireplace white to lighten things up, came out really pretty. The hall bath had a peach tub, toilet, tiny mosaic type tile that was pink and brown and a double peach sink. The master bath still has the same but in baby blue. Remodeling is still ongoing, lol.

[@crowznest438]

Front porches, front and back, are like having more rooms. And the space under the front porch is a great place for the dogs to hang out and kids to build forts.

[@claranielsen3382]

People still love porches. it's a thing.l

[@malyndabeuth2534]

The so-called transom windows in this video are fanlight windows. Decorative, not for moving/circulating air, which was the purpose of a transom.

[@bdubs8620]

tran·​som ˈtran(t)-səm. 1. : a horizontal crossbar in a window, over a door, or between a door and a window or fanlight above it. 2. : a window above a door or other window built on and commonly hinged to a transom.

[@rosestewart1606]

you're right but the lights, whether it be a fan light or a side light also light up the foyer. this was more important when people didn't have a light in every room

[@dsxa918]

@@rosestewart1606 aaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyy

[@catherinethomas3130]

You forgot indoor transoms. They allowed for air movement with privacy. And those 100% cotton clothes... that's why the ironing boards were necessary.

[@PoshPilgrim1776]

My college dorm room had an indoor transom, as did all the rooms in the 100 yr old dormitory.

[@jessicaleighdargaclark4536]

Did they do a decent job of keeping it cool?

[@dsxa918]

@@jessicaleighdargaclark4536 better than a wall would in the right weather and with students that understood them

[@joesmith7427]

If i was invited over for supper, i had to call home and find out what mom made for our supper at home. I had already ask what was for supper at my friends, so i would choose what i wanted to eat that nite, and then i would dine at the house with the better meal in my opinion!! Pretty smart kid, Ha!! 😊

[@erinnelson434]

I think it's cute that you call it "supper." That seems to me like a Midwestern term maybe. We called it dinner over here on the west side. 😊❤️

[@AngelPrissy]

I grew up in the South and we called it supper

[@robertagannon442]

You missed the broom closets! I really would like to have one. When I was growing up we had one in the kitchen.

[@carmichael2359]

@@robertagannon442 Yup, we did, too!

[@pdmullgirl]

I remember some of these bc I’ve seen them! In fact, in the house I grew up in we had an intercom system throughout the entire house. And when I was a little girl, we’d play Christmas music at Christmas time. It was cool. If you didn’t want to hear it you just turned it off. And I had friends that had some of these other things in their homes. My high school boyfriend’s house had a secret room and a laundry chute! ❤️💜💚

[@carmichael2359]

Did you ever find out what the secret room was used for, originally?

[@pdmullgirl]

@@carmichael2359 No, never did. It was only about 4x6. It was right in my boyfriend’s room. In the back of his closet, through a small door. And when I say small door, it was regular height but narrow. Interesting room. We grew a pot plant one year in that room. Ha! Put a light in there and it grew pretty good. No one ever knew. Ah teenage times. ❤️💜💚

[@jenelleprins5306]

Root cellars are not from the 1970s. These are very, very old school way of keeping produce, particularly root vegetables, and canned items cool.

[@loribug12]

Every rural country house had one. My Mamaw’s was built into the hill, and kept things very cold year round! Old timers were very smart and reliant!

[@jenelleprins5306]

@@loribug12 Iif you are into the Little House on the Prairie books, the last one, published posthumously by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, about Laura after she married, talks about bit about root cellars. I don’t think Laura wrote about them before that, because they were so ubiquitous and everyone knew about them. However, as our country became more urbanized, fewer and fewer people became familiar with root cellars and the concept became quaint. Root cellars deep underground kept root vegetables exactly where they wanted to be to last. Springhouses, houses built over and next to a spring, kept dairy and unsalted meat and non-root vegetables cool/cold for really long periods of time. If a spring wasn’t available, a place along a creek or stream where the water moved fairly fast would do. Fast moving creeks and streams and literal springs had extremely cold water, which provided natural refrigeration. To an extent, before a meal, a member of the household would do a mini “shopping,” going to the garden to get produce, the henhouse for eggs, the root cellar for canned goods and/or root vegetables, and the spring house for dairy, such as cheese, and fresh meat. Usually in the morning, they would have milk fresh from the milking parlor, unless the family didn’t keep a milking cow or goat. Otherwise, milk, buttermilk, cream and possibly butter was also collected. Meal prep was a lot more involved back then.

[@hopelight444]

Yup. Root cellars for root vegetables. My mom's big garden and that root cellar kept us in potatoes, onions, carrots, parsnips and squash well into the next summer. If you line a large wash boiler (totally an antique now!) with layers of newspaper and carrots or parsnips, they stay fresh in that cool environment as long as you leave the tops on and a little bit of dirt. Mom canned every fruit you can name, including tomatoes and the shelves were filled with those and pickles and canned green beans. Far Northwestern MN, 40 below temps for weeks in the winter, but that cellar stayed the perfect temperature year round.

[@serenitycox217]

Yeah I almost think he was meant to say 1870's there or something... Even though I'm pretty sure they're older than that.

[@imperialpresence1173]

not if you lived in the country

[@debbied7035]

I remember the days with no a/c. You would leave your windows open from the evening when the breeze came up until the early morning. Then you would close up the house and draw the drapes. This was to let the house breath. The cool evening air would fill the house during the night, shutting the windows would keep the interior cool as long as possible. Curtains were closed till the shadows were long so the radient sunlight wouldn't flood in and heat up the rooms.

[@sharistrazz3313]

The house I grew up in and my Dad STILL LIVES IN ( 51 YEARS NOW) HAS A WROUGHT IRON BANNISTER FOR THE ENTRY WAY, AND A SUNK IN LIVING ROOM. AND A DOUBLE SINK BATHROOM. IT WAS PERFECT IN MY FAMILY OF 4 GIRLS GROWING UP. 😁

[@deborahdanhauer8525]

Sitting room at the top of the stairs. Razor blade catcher behind the bathroom mirror. Horse hitch by the front door. Gas light out front. A well house.🐝❤️🤗

[@marshawargo7238]

Mail slot in the front door (I added to your comment because your mention of the razor blade slot in the medicine cabinet, was my other memory😊...

[@Christine-777]

The Razor Blade Catcher!! Oh my word! I remember!! 🥰

[@NdnUrbanCat]

Boot scraper

[@winstonelston5743]

Umbrella-type clothes line

[@deborahdanhauer8525]

@@marshawargo7238 I remember those too! We need something like the milk door for packages now. But it needs a lock somehow.🤗❤️🐝

[@KimiW420]

I love the idea of conversation pits and I especially love your commentary on them. LOL

[@jamespembleton2666]

I remember Grandma's laundry shoot. Everything slid down to a huge basket right beside the washing machine in the basement. She also had a toilet stall in the basement. I thought that was so cool to have those things handy in the basement. The phone nook was in the hallway on the ground floor and the iron board cupboard was in the kitchen beside the ironing mangle (for ironing sheets, tablecloths and anything else that was large that would need ironing).

[@sharihere8809]

Why did I have to iron sheets as a kid? They were already sun/wind blown dried from being on the clothes line outdoors; just needed folded neatly. I understand ironing clothes but as I got older, fabrics changed and became cheaper quality there was no way to iron them without burning them. After awhile, they never had me iron again hahhaaa

[@dawnelder9046]

My last home had a laundry shoot. Loved it.

[@drvictoria2002]

CHUTE

[@maureenfitzgerald1895]

It is a “chute.”

[@maureenfitzgerald1895]

@@dawnelder9046 it is a “chute.”

[@pauletterobinson1299]

I have a big front porch where I live In NC.😃

[@dawnelder9046]

We have on in Goshen, Nova Scotia.

[@deanaltman6841]

When I was little we lived in a house that was built probably in the 1910’s. It had wide extremely steep attic stairs plus extremely steep stairs down to a root cellar and a very narrow passageway to a storm cellar that was not under the house. Big front porch. Had the floor grates, pocket doors, those awesome big wooden posts and built in bookshelf room dividers. Built in window seats. I remember the cast iron doors on the foundation. Didn’t know what that was for back then but I bet it was a coal chute. It also had a big cast iron hand pump to get water from the well next to the back door. And the pump still worked then. There was a small (maybe 12”) cast iron man-hole cover so you could look into the well and see the water level. Also had an old barn that I’m told used to house the towns polo ponies. Probably a lot more if I thought about it long enough.

[@davidatkins1483]

This video is rather fun however why is it nobody ever mentions the static electricity that you used to get from That Hideous shag carpeting. Every time you wanted to leave the room and grab the door knob you got this hellacious shock. I remember that like it was yesterday!

[@diane1390]

I hate shag carpeting. I'm 70 years old and still hate the stuff. Not only did you get the poop shocked out of you, but my sister stepped on a needle in my parents shag carpeting. She had to have it carved out a bone in her foot 🦶!!!!

[@strummercash5601]

@diane1390 Same thing happened to my father at a motel in the Bad Lands of South Dakota. Being a dad, after we left the hospital, he limped with a bandaged foot for the rest of our family vacation. (And, we did drive there from Minnesota in a Ford Country Squire station wagon!)

[@diane1390]

@@strummercash5601 that must be a dad thing with station wagons. My late father had a Chevy Parkwood Station wagon. It had stick shift, but in the steering column. It was three on the tree rather than 4 on the floor. It was funny when the stick shift was used as the car would rock a lot.

[@CarolMortensen-e2b]

The shag carpets absorbed odors such as cooking odors, etc. They could make a room smell awful. I lived in an apartment building in the late 1970's. Some apartments had a normal pile type carpet and some had the shag. I told them would not be interested in a shag carpet because I thought they were awful. I recall that people had little carpet rakes to clean the "strings". In my apartment building when someone with a shag rug opened their apartment door or left it open, there was a terrible smell that went out into the hallway.

[@diane1390]

@@CarolMortensen-e2b I believe that. My parent's carpet was in the living room, and we didn't have too much trouble with cooking smells, they had an aluminum Christmas tree and you'd get the Pa-Jesus shocked out of you.

[@marlenalinne]

I don't consider the 60s as being VERY old.

[@liquidsleepgames3661]

84 years

[@wyattprice2928]

@@liquidsleepgames366164 you mean.

[@jessicaleighdargaclark4536]

It always amazes me that in the USA "antique" tends to be about 100 years old. So things my great grandma owned are antique. Just seems odd.

[@avancalledrupert5130]

I don't think of anything after 1800 as old. It's all just post industrial. It's modern.

[@nicoroberts7388]

Except you’re wrong.

[@JamieCobb-o8w]

I bought a house built in 1880, she has stained glass, pocket doors that still work and a roof hatch. We are working on this beauty and hope to restore her to her original glory. We also have transoms and high ceilings and it keeps the house cooler in the summer time.

[@lorenclarke7815]

The small door is where the house elf loves.

[@JDDees]

LIVES.....

[@violetsinspring5863]

And loves! ❤

[@strummercash5601]

Those house elves love living, and they live for loving.

[@alecs1196]

​@@strummercash5601....Right up until one of the skankier house elves had a bit TOO much loving with a hot looking garden gnome... & 5 kids later, they relocated to the milk box! (shorter commute to work for him!)🥰

[@brylcreemy]

We have an ash chute. It’s in the 2nd floor bathroom, the 1st floor kitchen under it, to a bin in the basement. The house originally had coal grate fireplaces and a coal cooker. The ashes were gathered and sent to the basement for removal. We also had a coal chute in the basement but took it out and replaced it with glass blocks.

[@magicme5730]

My Great Grandparents house had an ash chute too. I was in the basement and I "cleared" it My grandmother said it had been clogged for a long time, long before I was born, I was 12 at the time and it was full. I was covered head to toe in antique ashes. lol I was so proud and pleased with myself having cleared it.

[@anyascelticcreations]

Ooohhh, that's what the glass blocks in my parent's basement must be for! I always wondered about those. I know the house did have a coal room and a coal furnace before we moved in.

[@schaeffervuf]

in the nordic the use of mudrooms is still common, most also do their laundry in there, store decorations and out of season coasts. they are very practical

[@biggerock]

Front porches began to disappear long before AC. In the 1920s architects considered them passe and unattractive, and porches began to be placed in the rear, overlooking the back yard.

[@legomylinda]

When I built my house the plans had a front covered porch, my builder quoted me the price of adding the porch and it was just ridiculous expensive. Sucks because I really wanted a porch

[@TheWanderingFinnegan]

No mention of attic fans, although some called them whole house fans. Generally located in a hallway, in the center of the house, to suck air in through the winows and push it out of the attic. The strength of the breeze was determined by how wide/narrow the windows/doors were opened. Summertime in Houston (Texas) with one of these would require a sheet, or light bedspread, because sleeping in front of a window, opened a couple of inches, it would be nice and cool.

[@tastx3142]

I have one in my 1985 house but it’s best use is after the heat of the day, the cooler outside air can be drawn though and replace the hotter inside air. It’s also useful when painting or removing odors. We have 7 ceiling fans that run constantly and live on a hill that is situated to catch the breeze but look forward to the sun started going down and it cool off a bit. A few other homes in our neighborhood have the whole house fan, but only the original owners ever used them, and we all knew each other and spent time outside, newer owners are only seen leaving and arriving through the garage. Few do their own yard work and never open their windows.

[@patriciatinkey2677]

I had one of those fans in my house in Miami, which was built in the 1940's. Lots of big windows for that all important cross ventilation. A door to door salesman came through in the 1960's, & darn near everybody on our block bought one. That thing was awesome. Mounted in the hall ceiling, it was noisy, but when I got home from work & the heat of the day had cooled some, it could exchange all the stifling hot air for fresh, cooler air in 5 minutes. A literal lifesaver in a non air-conditioned house in the 80's!

[@patriciatinkey2677]

​@@tastx3142Sad that few know their neighbors, anymore. My current neighborhood has lots of outside activity through most of the year, but this last month has been so nasty. August was either rain or stifling heat every day, so the mosquitos are thick here now. Most people just going inside. And now comes the dangerous part of the hurricane season for South Florida.😮

[@tastx3142]

@@patriciatinkey2677 Our fan was built into the home during construction. Back then our builder still put in hardwood Judge’s paneling , hardwood moulding, built in hardwood cabinets and shelves in all the bathrooms, dining areas and laundry room and even undercabinet lighting in the kitchen, which only recently became popular. People just paint everything white, but real wood has a unique grain and I love the warmth it brings to rooms. Nobody really appreciates quality and I see all that stuff being ripped out and replaced with MDF or particle board and painted. Nobody opens their windows in my neighborhood because they want everything climate controlled. It’s hot and humid in South Texas but if the dogs and I are outside working in the yard, I don’t want to pay a high utility bill. At least we don’t have hurricanes as we aren’t on the coast but we do get damaging hail, wind and freezing temperatures with ice and uncommon snow. I deal with rattlesnakes and coral snakes but at least don’t have alligators 😝

[@drkatel]

Without our attic fan, I would have died of heat stroke as a kid in our old Victorian house. We got a window AC for the main floor when I was about 5 but the bedrooms were upstairs,plus the AC would "freeze up" if it was left on all night. At least that's what my dad told us. I remember going with my dad every Friday to pay the bills in person. One was $5/week for the AC. No clue why I remember this in detail.

[@jimbearone]

The mustachioed man with the Dalmatian was Movie Star Burt Reynolds.

[@stacilee9944]

Sarah Winchester build the convoluted house to CONFUSE the spirits, not to appease them.

[@denisemurray412]

She also commissioned multiple rooms built in order to keep people employed because it was during the depression. That was her philanthropic nature. She had stairs that went nowhere and doors in solid walls with no opening on the other side. Quirky yet generous. If the workers got close to finishing, she'd ask for something more to be built.

[@jessicaleighdargaclark4536]

Agreed! The stairs that went nowhere remind me of the construction gaffs you see in online threads with bad building design. Come to think of it, so are the doors that open to a wall. Maybe bad design isn't what we think it is and the owners of these locations may be related to the Winchesters? 🤣jk

[@129stacey]

@@denisemurray412the stairs to nowhere came about when an earthquake hit and destroyed part of the home, she just had them close the top instead of rebuilding that part

[@kathymorphet8156]

Our 100 year old house still has a milk door and a laundry shute, a previous owner removed the built in wall ironing board.

[@carmichael2359]

@@kathymorphet8156 boooo! hisssss! on him

[@deepfriedohiogravy4756]

My grandparents built their home in 1957. It included a laundry chute, amd a whole houae fan built into the hallway ceiling. I know that fan saved them 10s of thousands of dollars over the decades in cooling bills during the summers. It worked until the day gramma died in October of 2018 and my uncle sold the house.

[@nreynolds75243]

It was an attic fan. Parents had a house built in the 1980's in Louisiana, that I grew up in that had this fan. Mom didn't like it because she said it brought in mosquitoes.

[@cthall7428]

Thank you for sharing! Wonderful memories👌

[@deborahshallin5843]

I don’t understand why we can’t get these useful features today

[@alecs1196]

I don't understand why you believe this? Every item he has mentioned is still relatively easy to find and have installed. Have You ever asked your architect to specify any of these features for your home? i am an architect, and except for the coal chute and ice box access thing, have been asked to add virtually any and every item he has mentioned. The most popular are the transoms, laundry chutes and porches of every kind. The only other thing that is most often requested, but has changed in size and location placement, is, instead of a milkbox, I often add an exterior accessed closet/locker near the front door for Amazon and courier deliveries.

[@codystrader7594]

@@alecs1196you do realize most people can’t afford an architect, right?

[@alecs1196]

@@codystrader7594 Exactly. Which is the answer to the query of why most people do not have these useful features, nor will make the effort to source them on their own.

[@codystrader7594]

@@alecs1196 that’s funny. Your first and second responses don’t match. Are they easy to find or do people have to put in effort? It can’t be both.

[@alecs1196]

​@@codystrader7594 LOL They ARE easy to find, but "most people" (such as the poster who prompted my initial response!) will default to: "I don't understand why we can't get these?" instead of turning on her computer and simply googling queries like: "residential laundry chute doors" or"built-in residential Intercom" (and if U wanna go retro and get the original: google Nutone Vintage Home Intercom" )You get dozens of hits, not only from Amazon, but from lots of other suppliers from all over the continent! P.S: I must sincerely thank You for posting your reply to me! I actually DID google the above items (cuz I knew that YOU would too! lol) and to my great surprise & delight, found the identical replacement for MY own 1960's "Vintage 12” Chrome Laundry Chute Door by Leigh Products,(New in Box)" (that never closed properly ever since we had to wrench my kid brother out of it after he got stuck there during hide& seek) But BEST of all was an exact replacement for the now somewhat corroded (used to be "bronze tone") 1960's Nutone exterior (and VERY loud!) front entry intercom unit, on my front porch which is perfect for scaring away solicitors & Jehovahs Witnesses (while watching them jump from a newer nearby hidden camera!) Lastly, please do note that I'm merely replying to your query as I did to the one above, and am certainly not complaining about the aforementioned: "Deborah-Don't-know-why"s" , as they have been quite profitable for me...because actually I AM an architect. 🏠💰😏

[@jenelleprins5306]

We didn’t have a milk chute, but a milk box. It was a galvanized box with insulation and once or more times per week, depending upon need, the milkman would deliver milk (regular and/or chocolate), cream, sour cream, cottage cheese or sometimes yogurt. This was back when moms planned out menus in advance so she would have a clue about what dairy products were necessary. However, as supermarkets developed, it was deemed more convenient to just buy one’s dairy along with the rest of the weekly groceries. I miss have dairy delivered. I also miss the Good Humor man who drove a funny little truck with a bar of actual bells that the Good Humor Man rang manually. When we would run out, he would stop and exit the cab to walk around to the side by the sidewalk to take orders. He’d open a little door in the side where all the novelties - popsicles, Good Humor bars, Orangecicles, etc., - were kept. Popsicles were a nickel. I always wondered what the door at the back had. I learned when I was 16 and very sick with bronchitis while staying on my own for two weeks that the back door had the half gallon cartons of Good Humor ice cream. I loved the chocolate chip.

[@butterflygirl3359]

Growing up in the 1970’s, we had a laundry chute right outside the second floor bathroom across from the linen closet. You threw the dirty laundry into it which landed right into a big basket in the downstairs laundry room. It was genius. Why these disappeared from new homes is baffling.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

Square footage. They take up space on every floor between the laundry room and the bedroom. You need a thicker wall to accommodate them and they can screw with heating and cooling. Plus, you still need to go down to the laundry room to do the laundry and a second trip to return our bins. With ventless driers, it's often a lot easier to just put the equipment closer to where it's actually being used and use that basement space for storage.

[@KMF3]

Less two story homes

[@momcatx2]

Many builders now put the laundry on the second floor.

[@LongNickOfDaLaw]

My grandpa laughed at my dad for bitching about stepping on a lego and said well luckily your child doesn’t play with jacks 💀💀💀 Miss you grandpa!

[@CarolMortensen-e2b]

When my late husband and I bought our 1979 built house in 1982, it had a Nutone intercom system and the speakers were everywhere including the garage and front door. We just used it to play the radio to listen to news and music. Never did try the intercom to speak to each other. My husband blew it out when he had the idea to attach some large speakers to it. I liked to play the radio when I was cleaning the house and it was nice to hear the music in each room while I was cleaning. I found out about my husbands misadventure when I turned the Nutone radio on and it just lit up and no sound came out. All the speakers remain in the house because if I were to remove them, there would be huge holes to repair in the drywall and ceilings.

[@eleicajunstrom8724]

The little doors under the steps, we used to keep our screens windows for the windows. We would remove them in late fall and or... before the first snowfall.

[@deanaltman6841]

That’s something I completely forgot about. Changing out the storm and screen windows every spring and fall.

[@eleicajunstrom8724]

@@deanaltman6841 Nope, we still do it. I live in a home from the late 1800's. We still have the transom over the front door that has our house numbers on it. We still have the ice door in the back of the house and an insulated milkbox from the Milkman. We do not have a furnace either, just natural gas fireplaces. I never really think about these things, until I see a video. Then I have to laugh.

[@spierson4671]

You didn't mention transoms were able to be opened to let out warm air risen to the ceiling and allow cooler outside air to enter lower windows. They were primarily for ventilation and cooling of interiors later in the day. If a high window can't open it is not a transom.

[@HighHolyOne]

My 1925 bungalow has a laundry chute, main floor to the basement, and it's WONDERFUL! The ceiling light in the kitchen always had a cord hanging from it with a switch and socket at the end. You would turn the light on with the switch, and plug the iron into the convenient socket. And a transom above the back door was how you could lock the back part of the house, but still get a breeze in the bedroom. My Dad said when he was growing up, people knew that's how the burglars got in.

[@matthewtipton7623]

I have a scar on my left hand from a floor grate. I slipped on one as a kid and burned my hand. I remember them well.

[@gingw7333]

I remember falling on my bare butt on one as a very small child. My earliest memory. Ouch!

[@anyascelticcreations]

We had a big cutting board that slid into its own space under the counter top. We used it for everything from cutting out cookies to rolling pie crust to extra counter space for a little while. We also had a vaccume system that had retractable hoses on each floor. Just pull out the hose, turn it in, (I don't remember how), and vacuum to your heart's content. I don't think we ever did empty the canister in the basement.

[@SamManor-r5i]

I’d be willing to bet, your mother actually DID clean out the basement vacuum canister... but you just never realized! Think how filled our vacuum cleaners get today- I am always amazed how much it fills up because my home is pretty darned clean! And if you have a dog, oh my!! Just all part of daily & weekly house cleaning! My family never had that type of vacuum, tho I’d seen a few time at friends home and sort of envied this as a child! I thought wall vacuums came with being being able to afford a nice new modern home! Yes, walls with holes for vacuums were a trend for a while, but for some reason, actually didn’t last too long, maybe at times tubing could get clogged especially for dog owners. When my military parents finally bought 1st home, new homes no longer carried wall vacuums & I felt like I really missed out on something that was so modern! And yes, as a little girl I equated those built in vacuums with luxury! Military homes were actually nice place to live but very basic & always the flooring was hardwood. WOW this just brought back a memory for me: Mom had a buffer for both our vinyl floor squares in the kitchen & the hardwood everywhere else. She buy a hard wax in a tin similar to shoe wax but 20x larger and always kept our floors with beautiful shiny glow. The buffer had two 5-6 inch circular pads- one with bristols like a hair brush and then you’d snap on too of those, two very thick felt like pads to polish the wax. How life changes over time!

[@anyascelticcreations]

@@SamManor-r5i I'll bet you're right that my mom probably did clean it out. But mostly we used a regular vacuum so we didn't wear out the wall one. I was once getting my bedroom all spick and span including vacuuming. (I was a high school kid time.) And my dad got mad and turned it off. When I asked why he said that the wall vacuum was part of the house and shouldn't get ruined. I just thought I was being clean. Oh, well. The house is over a hundred years old now. And as far as I know everything still works. I never thought of the wall vacuum as being luxury, though I guess it was. I just thought it was cool and associated it with everything else cool about a very old house built with love by a man for his wife. (That was before we had it.) I did love growing up in that house. Cool that you've seen so many. 😎

[@tracylalonde4972]

Shag Carpet: Ours was a bright orange, and I can still remember my mom vacuuming and then raking the carpet trying to keep it as clean as possible.

[@jamiewddsmith-dl9bk]

We lived in an old farm house. We had a storm cellar on the side of the house. Great for Tornadoes. Also had shelves for canning.

[@paulus.tarsensus]

Those tiny little 'closet' doors at half-height and a metre depth were not for luggage storage, they were for storing folding tables ( and sometimes folding chairs ) for when you had company over for games, socialising and the kid's tables during holidays.

[@debratatum6330]

Attic fans I would rather go back in time and live I miss the way we were

[@joesmith7427]

Some kitchens had a dutch door!!

[@patriciatinkey2677]

Dutch doors were great for keeping kids & pets in, while still allowing the breeze to come through.

[@marthaperdew]

The house I lived in Reno, Nevada had a dutch door

[@jessicaleighdargaclark4536]

I love dutch doors and told my dad I want one. He thought/thinks I'm crazy🤣

[@129stacey]

I always wanted one

[@deborahshallin5843]

I would love a house with a laundry chute. We also might add a front porch on our house. Pantries are still being found in today’s house designs.

[@Jomama02]

After the kids grew up I turned the small bedroom nearest the kitchen into a pantry room.

[@pamelatapia5595]

Those are not transom windows. Transom windows opened and sided in cooling down the house. I can see how people would adopt the name for stationary windows above windows and doors, but originally they moved and opened.

[@sulynn72]

Front porches are still loved

[@ginmar8134]

I won't buy a house without one.

[@robinluich5576]

I want my Laundry shoot, fireplace,and big front porch

[@ALRIGHTYTHEN.]

22:37 Rotary phones didn't disappear all that long ago. My grandfather still had one on his wall when he died in 2000.

[@129stacey]

Our family farm home still had one in the basement in 2017, I still have them and hung them as decorations in my basement

[@jenelleprins5306]

The second item, the little hideaway hole, was not for luggage or hideaway beds. It generally is not really big enough for either. It is for card tables. They were built during a time when it was customary for friends and neighbors to gather in the evenings to play cards of some sort - bridge being the big one, but canasta and cribbage were also popular. It was inconvenient to have to lug the card tables, which were generally made of wood back then and were HEAVY, up from the basement or down from the attic. The tables were generally too big to put into a standard coat closet and, even if it did fit, along with the four chairs, it took up needed space or had to be placed behind all the coats and then tugged out again. (This I know since we didn’t have a nifty specially made hidyhole, so I was generally asked to retrieve the table from the closet or my brother had to lug it up from the basement.) Since the card table was pulled out at least once per week for the card games as well as for Thanksgiving (kid’s table, anyone?) and Christmas and so on, having a dedicated spot for it was handy.

[@quiltedwithlove]

As a kid I was terrified of my grandma's root cellar. Even now, it gives me the creeps. My house has doors that obviously were made for shag carpeting as they sit 2 inches high off the floor. You could lose a cat in that thick of carpeting from the look of my doors. LOL

[@AnastasiaPaige-i1z]

Omg I wish I had a root cellar. Free from an electric bill. Wonderful

[@gregpendrey6711]

They had roll away beds instead of sleeper sofas for company that could be stored under the stairs. Bathrooms were added under stairs when indoor plumbing was introduced. Usually a half bath on the entry level and they named them The Cloakroom because it cloaked your business. Nowadays laundry is done upstairs by the bedroom eliminating the use of the laundryshute. Dumbwaiters are being replaced by home elevators. Intercoms are replaced by smart phones.

[@Music-yq2yz]

I didn't watch until the end so I don't know if you mentioned the following: pocket doors between rooms, first storey front windows that reach almost down to the floor of the porch/veranda/piazza floor with louvred shutters that actually worked as they were intended (keep rain and wind, out, and also sunlight that might overheat the room or fade the furniture), and awnings above the outside windows to block sunlight entering. These were on city rows of brownstone buildings, as well. Then there were swinging hinged curtain hangers for opening and closing them, carriage houses, and porte cocheres. There were bars in the basement or elsewhere for having drinks, and people owning old houses used clear plastic shields on light switches, and there were overhead lights that turned on and off by pulling a string hanging from them. The string pull usually had an ornament on its end-sometimes glow in the dark. If the overhead light was removed after improvements in electrical wiring, a round series of concentric plaster rings with a nipple in the center would cover the old ceiling outlet. There were skillfully made plaster ceiling mouldings in some houses. Some houses had a stairway especially for servants to use to go upstairs to their living/sleeping rooms, and butler bell pulls. There must be more, but I already probably said enough.

[@xe3uq]

Oh to time travel back to my girlhood Pepto Bismol pink bedroom with hot pink shag carpet to match. I loved it!!!

[@dawnmcr802]

They missed the fold out seat that was often below the phone nook.

[@mermaidopulence8539]

I remember as a kid we would visit our family in Tennessee and my great grandparents had this big old house on this huge land and a second kinda smaller house in front by the street. It had a well that you pump to get the water and they had a root cellar that they sometimes used. I remember going in there with my grandpa and I saw that he had lots of moonshine stored in it.

[@margiemistretta8885]

We used floor heating vents to dry our gloves and hats

[@thefamouspeopleus]

I’d love to see one of those making a comeback in modern homes!

[@karlaunger-laffin3460]

The little door in the wall for storage...leaf pieces or inserts to extend dining tables and or cots. Our held the table extensions..take them out and slide into table or onto and turn a 4 seater into a 6-8 seater or more.. also extra folding chairs

[@jaytitus902]

Transoms opened and were used for cooling and heating.

[@colorjunkie]

I hate floor vents. Anyone with pets will tell you that there's nothing like finding out that your pet has puked or pooped in one...

[@kkrolf2782]

🥺‼️ 😱🥹😂😂🤣🤣🤣😂🥹🤭🤭🤭 … Sorry … T R U L Y ! … that thought just b r i e f l y brought on the giggles … until I realized I’d have had to do the clean-up 🥴 🤢 🤬.

[@ddtompkins5961]

Pocket doors!!!

[@winstonelston5743]

We remodeled a small house in 1997, and in the interest of space efficiency, we used pocket doors for the master bath, the hall divider between the living-dining end of the house and the bedroom end, and for one of the bedrooms.

[@joesmith7427]

I was in a house that had a chapel !! It was in Valrico, Fl. Outside of Tampa! It was owned by Phil Reed, the bobcat dealer!

[@mikem6384]

2 things. Kitchen swing door. Kitchen "pass-through", a counter-height, small door connecting kitchen and dining, for passing the prepared food through without kitchen help being seen.

[@jameydupuy9280]

In the south, we still love our big front porches! 😂❤

[@tracycraft2971]

Our old farm house is the perfect example of these old houses! So many windows and cross breezes! Yeah, we bought window AC units to survive southeast Missouri humid summers! ❤

[@AngelPrissy]

Whole house vacuum cleaner (and a port in major rooms). Cellars, not "sellers." Split door or half door often off the ktchen ("Mr. Ed" door). Screen doors. Screened in porches. Rock flower beds. Outdoor clothes lines ( t posts). Built in cabinets in various rooms. The kids table. Glass door knobs with old school lock n key. Chair rails. Fireplace cleanout and fireplace circulator fan. Clawfoot tub. Attic fan that pulled heat out of room/s including kitchen. Door knocker. Mail slot. Outside gas lamps for light. Wrought iron fencing. Flower bulb gardens. Hydrangeas or other heiloom plantings or dried flowers. Prominent mantles. Porch swings. Trash racks. Alleys. Bird baths. Storm shelters. Awnings. Old school hurricane or storm shutters and slatted windows. Built in lazy susans especially inside kitchen cabinets. Built in spice rack.

[@sulynn72]

My dad had our house built in 1959 with air conditioning, so i grew up with it, during the 60s and 70s.

[@jenelleprins5306]

I always wanted to have a laundry chute. As a kid, I thought it would have been the height of luxury. I had to lug baskets of dirty clothes down two flights of steps to the basement. The laundry chute generally emptied into a basket in the basement near whoever the washing machine was located. They used to have them in hotels as well for use by the maids, but idiot guests thought it hysterical to dump other things, including used room service trays (with dirty dishes), room keys, and even lit cigarettes or smoldering cigarette butts.

[@stacilee9944]

Interesting. The narrator says something about installing a dumb waiter and running from a a retired engineer. What the heck does that mean? So, I googled and found it was copied directly from a Redditor's post about their experience with building a dumb waiter with a family friend who was a retired engineer. Copied without thought (AI?) as to context or meaning.

[@tracycraft2971]

My grandfather had a root cellar! It was always so cool in summer!❤

[@CarolMortensen-e2b]

The 1947 house that I grew up in had a laundry chute in the floor of the linen closet in the bedroomand bathroom hallway. The laundry and whatever else my bro and I threw down in that hole landed in a huge cardboard box in the basement which was never emptied so who knows what lived in the very bottom of that box because we mostly just brought laundry from upstairs via the basement steps. I have never seen those vacuum chutes before. Weird. Great video. Thanks

[@cmccloskey56]

We had push button switches; in the master bedroom there were switches that controlled the lights downstairs. It was the way to light up the downstairs from the master if you heard a noise downstairs. In my current home, the extra switches in the master control the floodlights around the perimeter of the house. Vestibules - these were entries in the front of the house that were airlocks between the outer door and the inner door to the main house. Mud rooms were in the back of the house. Vestibules had, at most, an umbrella stand. They had tile floors overlaid with mats to pick up dirt. Sidelight doors - where the sidelights beside the front door were actually doors themselves. They had screens, and could be opened to let in the outside air without opening the front door. They were the size of today's sidelights, too narrow to allow an adult to gain entry. Kids loved them!

[@winstonelston5743]

28:00 We had a convection furnace with no blower or filter, just a cantankerous Hercules brand coal furnace that had been converted to natural gas before my parents bought the house. Hot air came up the grates near the center of the house and the cold air returns were at the perimeter. We called the furnace _Vesuvius_ because at odd moments the pilot would allow just a little too much gas to accumulate and the eventual ignition would shake the whole house. The best thing about it was that when the power grid went down in a blizzard or an ice storm, we still had heat because nothing in the system needed electricity.

[@CarolMortensen-e2b]

Wow. Never heard of those narrow " card table" doors/spaces.

[@mamazabakaka]

You missed the coal chute. But quite a trip down Memory Lane. I've experienced every one of those features you described, as well as outdoor and indoor water pumps from underground wells and even the annual retirement and replacement of the outdoor privy, usually coinciding with Halloween pranks.

[@loislewis5229]

My father converted our built in ironing board into a shallow shelf with a door to keep our Campbell soups 😅

[@rtex8563]

Pantries are very much alive and well since the 1980's! You should have said Butler's pantries which held fine china, silverware, and serving pieces for dining rooms.

[@HeideGroves]

I remember the butler closet in San Francisco when I was a child of the '50s. How I miss them.

[@audioaddict420]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane lol

[@AnastasiaPaige-i1z]

I want a laundry shoot and intercom system, also I have a victorian house with slat and plaster and tall ceilings. I was always told they were so old they were very hot in the summer. How come no one ever told me that slat and plaster made your home nice and cool in the summer even without a fan? It only starts to get warm when it's 85 plus out. Other than that it's stays very comfortable. And omg i just realized i have a servant staircase. 😢

[@AngelPrissy]

You are fortunate. Love older well built homes.

[@joesmith7427]

I sell houses not homes, thats what people make the house- their home!! Some people dont know the difference!! Some homes have a wine cellar, for barrels and bottles and meat too! Salami, and dried whole muscle meat and herbs and flowers! This is old school!! A root cellar!!

[@denis3208]

I enjoyed this video 😊😊

[@ginasizemore5544]

We had a broom closet i remember the 3quarter bed i slept in and the big floor vents we could look through to the rooms downstairs and listen to what our parents were saying we had a laundry, shoot the ironing board in the closet the windows above the doors opened and closed the transom windows. We had the big porch with the swing food was kept in the pantry. I miss a lot of those features now.

[@andriaduncan5032]

I remember the house my grandparents lived in, in the '60s and early '70s, had one of those floor grates, and it TERRIFIED me. They also had rotary dial phones, so no, they're not THAT old. My parents bought a brand new house in 1970, which had pushbutton phones, and oh how we loved to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Mary Had a Little Lamb, on those pushbuttons! But when my grandparents bought a new house in '72, they didn't pop for pushbutton phones (they were more expensive than dial phones), but got the old rotary dial ones. Ever try to win something from the radio station using a rotary phone? HAH! I've seen pics from my aunt and uncle where they're sitting by one of those phone niches, but I've never actually seen one of those IRL. But I definitely remember fighting over the phone -- my stepdad did sports betting, and every night he had to call his bookie, while I wanted to talk to my boyfriend! 🤣 Much worse, later, were dial-up modems; if you were online and someone picked up the phone, everyone in chat with you (on amateur chat BBS's in the 90s) got to see NO CARRIER as you suddenly dropped off! Which led inevitably to wags commenting NO AIRPLANE and NO BATTLESHIP, etc. 🤣

[@winstonelston5743]

Our next door neighbors to either side had the whole house furnaces under floor grates between the living and dining rooms.

[@megb9700]

We would hang out outside under the trees, with a fan on outside. The fan had a long extension chord. We did everything outside, cook, eat, play…

[@lucyhare5799]

Dad used to bring the tv out onto the patio. Early in the evening as the sun was going down and it was cooling off, watching tv outside on the patio was a treat.

[@gingw7333]

My Grandmother's Arts and Crafts home had most of the very old features. I loved the large built-in cabinets and shelves in the living and dining rooms.

[@JChow-e1c]

This is a terrific video.

[@themoabrigade]

25) big front porches..... never used one, but I love the look of houses with those! 21) Shag Carpet.... yeah, while it feels nice, I have only ever seen 1 shag carpet clean enough for me that I felt safe going bare foot, and the owner was one of those crazy "everything must be clean" types 18-19) yeah, verticality helped those lol 16) yes... these are still useful imo, just spare storage for food that wont go bad at room temperature! 15) you can still get intercoms..... just need to use a power outlet now :p 13) love these in movies that take place in those times.... but yeah agreed, would be a tripping hazard today lol 12) high ceilings.. YES! we need more of these!!! haven't seen a house that looks bad with these, and they ALWAYS seem cooler (temperature wise) that other houses in the area! 8) stained glass.... yeah.... belongs in a church not a house 2) Mud Room.... yeah, some places could STILL use these, mostly in the rural areas but still

[@kandipiatkowski8589]

I had a 2nd staircase/servant staircase in a home I once owned. It had the triangle stairs to turn the corner 180 degrees. It was not done well, as some of the stairs weren't the same size or depth. I made a change to the house to enlarge a bathroom and move the laundry room to the 1st floor, so I straightened the stairs (and evened the steps so they were all the same height and depth) and changed it to land in the dining room instead of the kitchen. My grandparents had a large mud room. It had an entry off the garage, and had storage, laundry, a half bath, and single pocket doors to close it off from the rest of the house. My grandparents house had all kinds of cool features because they had the house built for them. They moved in to the house in the late 50s. I wish I could have been in a position to keep the house in the family, but they lived about 4 hours from my house.

[@AngelPrissy]

Windows that used weights on ropes inside the window frame to help with opening, closing and balancing windows (balasts)

[@tastx3142]

My neighbor’s house was built in the mid 1980’s and was built with an intercom that also had an exterior unit. The owners left the outside unit on ALL the time and since they were never outside, never had to listen to it. They also had a cocker spaniel who was left outside and barked constantly facing the back of the house and I couldn’t understand how it never got hoarse. The dog did drown out the speaker 12 hours straight and we had about an hour respite until the dog was dumped outside again. I was grateful that they moved and the dog was gone but the speaker was still on. It didn’t get removed until about 5 years ago a new owner remodeled and removed the intercom.

[@strummercash5601]

@tastx3142 I grew up in a house built in 1967 that had the NuTone intercom. The house wasn’t that large, so it was rarely used. Then, during a 1990’s renovation, my parents had the then suddenly ubiquitous “surround sound” system installed with speakers in the walls of all the common rooms and the back deck. I ONLY ever abused the outdoor speaker capacity at Christmas, when neighbors could hear Charlie Brown’s Christmas and Duke Ellington’s Harlem Nutcracker on repeat. Forgive me.

[@tastx3142]

@@strummercash5601 I have no problem with people enjoying music while outside enjoying it or even occasionally forgetting it’s on outside but 24/7 isn’t appropriate. The same house next door had one family who lived there but the parents moved elsewhere leaving their 20 something son who played music so loud that it was heard in my house. We are on half acre lots and the houses are easily 30 feet apart. Even on walks I could hear it almost a half mile away. I’m a night person so at one AM I’m still awake, but most people try to sleep. The neighbor across from us is so hearing impaired that even with his hearing aids utilizes lip reading so the noise never bothered him. Heavy metal music with the bass turned up and repetitive stanzas became obnoxious. I grew up in an older house with no air conditioning and am sure that my neighbors had to endure my sister’s and mine trumpet and clarinet practice☺️ People make noise including me, but I also try to be a good neighbor and be respectful of others. My other neighbor has 4 children who have grown up with friends, had pool parties with music but I also keep my 4 dogs from barking at them.