British Couple Reacts to US Culture Shocks - 3 Weird Quirks of My American House

British Couple Reacts to 3 Weird Quirks of My American House
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Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

[@cherylflam3250]

That 2nd thing, the cutout in the wall is not a phone holder. It’s where doorbell chimes were hung. They were decorative.

[@valg.3270]

I can see some homes having a space like Lawrence showed for doorbell chimes. (Definitely decorative door chimes.) I have seen hallway nooks made specifically for telephones in older homes, but the cut out/nook wasn’t tall like the one Lawrence showed. The phone nooks would normally have a place for the phone and a small shelf under it for…I’m assuming a telephone book.

[@johnhelwig8745]

Hi guys. Basement stools are more common than you would think in the U.S.. Most 2 story homes built prior to WWII only had bathrooms on the top floor, so a basement toilet was added for the convenience of the person that needed to go and the convenience of the person that had to clean up after the person that tracked mud upstairs. I believe the niche was not just for a phone, but also housed the door bell where the chimes (tubes) hung down from the cover within the recess.

[@Dillenger.69]

I grew up in a house that was 100 in 1973 when we moved in. There was a strange nook that was half the basement height and covered by a 4 inch concrete slab. It was the original basement entrance from the outside. My house had the basement toilet, deep sink, laundry too. But I grew up in Milwaukee and it was an old farm house.

[@suesimpson309]

The house I lived in as a child had a toilet, shower, and the washer and dryer in the basement. It also had a coal furnace. Our phone was hung on the wall. It was a party line. You could pick up the phone to use it and could hear your neighbor talking on the phone and also hear whoever they were talking to at that time.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@SteveSwags]

My parents' house, in St. Paul (Minnesota), was built in 1917. It has the same basement items: Side entrance to go to the basement or up to the kitchen, stand-alone toilet, shower area next to that, then laundry area (with sinks) past the shower area. It also has a wood room for passing in wood from outside to store for burning in the fireplace in Winter. During the Winter months, every time one of us kids would go down to the basement, we are always told to "bring a piece or two of firewood with you on your way back up".

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@leephillips2837]

I'm sure it would have a basement shower at some point. What Lawrence may not realize is that it probably had no enclosure. I would look for pipes overhead or near a drain on the floor. These were really meant for knocking the grime off of you, not for a spa experience. I would bet anything that the toilet wasn't even enclosed in the past. That door looks original to the house, so may have been reused from when the kitchen was updated at some point. Not a telephone spot, it's a place for doorbell chimes. Also, in the basement laundry room, you can see a cabinet opposite the washer/dryer. That half-round cabinet was once a peninsula in the kitchen of this house or another. There was probably a laundry chute from the top floor where the bedrooms are down to the laundry room so you didn't have to carry the laundry down to the basement, only up.

[@Incipit9]

Yes, my Grandparent’s house in Ohio, built in the 1930’s, had a basement toilet…also, check the floor of the closet in whatever room is above your laundry tub, and there may be a hinged trap door that is a laundry chute directly to the basement. (My siblings and I may or may not have jumped thru such a trap door and landed on the laundry pile…as long as it was before laundry day, when the pile was high with soft dimensions. 😊)

[@tomleroyl]

A lot of miner's houses had those in the basement as well. The double sink could be used to soak extra soiled clothes, or to dye clothes. It would be right by the laundry washer, usually with a wringer on the top. Of course, you also had to have a clothes line in the basement. The coal furnace would dry clothes pretty fast.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@darcyjorgensen5808]

I once lived in an apartment in SF, built in 1909, that not only had a phone niche but there was a built-in, pull-out little stool underneath it. Extremely cool.

[@timreno72]

I shared this on Laurence's video this little trick. If your home has the 'original' toilet that came with the house from when it was built there's a quick way to find the age. Take off the toilet tank lid and flip it over. Stamped into the porcelain will be a date/year that should match the homes build/year.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@johnfritz1164]

Two things. The niche is for door bell chimes. You can see its modern replacement at the top of the niche. There were usually three chime tubes two to three feet long. It’s by the stairs so the sound can be heard upstairs and downstairs. It was quite loud. Second, the cover in the backyard is not a coal chute. It is part of the sewer system. This one is connected to the kitchen sink’s drain. My grandmother’s house built in 1941 has both of these.

[@sallyintucson]

You need to go to Lost in the Pond and tell Lawerence that.

[@johnfritz1164]

@@sallyintucson I did a week ago on the original video.

[@kokomo9764]

The niche he showed was for a phone not door chimes. Normally door chimes were on the wall not in an enclosure of any kind.

[@MsTwister57]

This niche is for the telephone. My aunt had the same niche in her old house. Perhaps there is a similar one for the doorbell

[@SBC581]

I had a working doorbell with the original chimes in my first house. That area is for the doorbell. It's a small version of what's in your church. The phone idea is a nice guess but the phone would have been in the parlor, not the foyer.

[@jacd751]

Both my previous and current homes in Minnesota were built in the 1930s and feature all of those quirks. The coal chutes were sealed & the storage rooms had a small window/door installed instead for wood deliveries sometime after switching off of coal. My old house's basement was pretty unfinished in that it was a large room aside from the coal/wood room that had concrete slab floor, washer, dryer, furnace & plumbing. My current home's basement came mostly finished with 4 rooms and the coal/wood storage room. The telephone niche is basically my cat's throne.🤷🏻‍♀️

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@donnadlb1]

My house which is located half hour south of Pittsburgh was built in the 30s and has a single toilet with not sink in the basement ,a second room in the basement has the furnish ,water heater ,laundry appliances beside that room is a small brick room under front porch which is where they would put the coal for the then coal furnace. Our furnace is now electric central heating and a/c . We don't have a phone niche however we do have a "sub" basement under our basement . The sub basement is larger than a crawl space but not tall enough to stand up the entire way. We didn't know it existed until about 6 yrs after we moved in ,I was converting the basement to a craft studio and I opened a closet I had opened many times before and never saw the stairs going down in the corner of the closet .

[@tomgardner2638]

I actually live in Pittsburgh, great view of the city he showed. He has a half bath, but most do have a sink in them. We have rooms, on most older houses that if you were dirty, you went in. On my parents house, you went around back and entered the mud room. There you left your coat and dirty shoes. A quick trip across the kitchen and down to the basement to the laundry room you went. We did not have a phone niche in our house, though they are very common. The coal chute was actually a wooden door, right in the wall under our front porch. The coal delivery guys would open it up, and dump the coal right in. In the basement, the coal room was sealed in by a door so when they delivered it, it would not fly all over the basement, but it stayed contained.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@jeffmalone5557]

One of my grandmother's houses had a phone niche, it was in the dining room. The cord was so short, you had to pull up a chair if you were gonna be on the phone for a while.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@tawnyforest7932]

I actually found the Beesley's through Lost in the Pond. Love Lawrence and his new home. Also, the Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite films of all time. Love it.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@DUEYZ4U]

Wonderful reaction...thank you, guys!

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@meggzcharm]

My house was built in 1860. At some point in the first half of the 20th century, someone put a bathroom in the closet on the living room. It does have a sink. Our house is a fixer upper so sadly nothing worked.

[@JPMadden]

That coal chute reminded me that the fog London once was known for was largely coal pollution. Have you ever heard of the "Great Smog of London" in 1952? It has a Wikipedia page. I don't know of any videos.

[@geedavia1785]

I mentioned in either your guys video or Lawrence's vlog that(that) his type of home is called a *Bungalow* here In Chgo they're were originally working class homes for working class people & generally were not that huge. Many were *converted to gas* in the late 60's, 70's. Lawrence's home has many updates from it's Original Build(like) Modern Electricity, AC, Forced air Furnace & of course appliances. I suggest your subscribers look up *Bungalows or the Chgo Bungalow* while here. They're quite interesting.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@JnWmMatt]

I absolutely love your reactions to Lost In The Pond.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@chrissihr1031]

A lot of the houses in Bethlehem, PA have these odd, open basement bathrooms, too. But that makes sense because Bethlehem Steel was a huge employer here in the last century.

[@furrantee]

My Grandma's old house had a standalone toliet/shower/sink area on the same wall as the laundry in the basement. My house was built in 1919 and has a coal chute door on the side of the house next to the ground and a basement window. The back door puts you at a landing where can go up to the kitchen door or down to the laundry door. We are in rural Iowa.

[@ciscokid0110]

It’s funny, we do have a hallway phone shelf and we don’t have a coal chute but we have a laundry chute that I dearly love (in hallway off of bathroom that goes into laundry room in basement)!😊❤️

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@alysonbowler9040]

That's called a 1/4 bath. It's a throwback, but I've definitely seen it.

[@PEPPER2323]

Before dryers came around, in the winter time, people would dry their clothes in the basement next to the furnace.

[@StaciaAmnaber]

The Pittsburgh Potty made the video!! So sweet! Every old house has one here. I love it

[@theluckyfishmarket]

The house I live in right now has a phone niche that's set in a cut-out between the hall and living room so presumably you could answer the phone from the hall or the LR, I guess? It's now called a Cat Shelf in our house and I always wondered if people had a hard time keeping their cats off of it when it had a phone on it

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@markhine3232]

Live, as a kid, in my parents house that had a coal shute on the front corner of the front porch. Coal truck would arrive n with the aid of a metal chute, would deliver coal for the coal stoker furnace. Father owed the coal mine, so that made it less expensive to receive a ton of so of coal. The room where you entered where the washer/shower was essential so as to not track coal/dirt/grease into rest of house. Many homes still have this feature.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@michaelmardling3152]

If he was in basement alone no need to fully close door, or even close it at all. My Uncle and Aunt here in Canada (before they passed on) had a house that has a basement bathroom toilet and sink, has a sliding door instead or the traditional doors. Also had the Milk delivery door, or whatever they used them for after words, same with their neighbour.

[@robinmills8675]

My great aunt's house, just minutes from D.C., had been used as a Union hospital during the Civil War. My cousins and I spent countless hours trying to find secret passages. Never found any though. She did have a corner bathtub shaped like a triangle though. Both her house and my grandmother's house had coal chutes and my grandmother's had a telephone nook.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@reneehomen2226]

My home was built in 1836. It is a Preservation House bc it was part of the underground railroad.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@christianoliver3572]

My house was built between 1919 and 1920 but has been renovated many times since then. The only older feature I still have is the phone nook which still has a modern phone jack which would still work if I still had local phone service. But who needs that now with cellphones? I've lived in other older homes in central Texas that had built in natural gas heaters in bathrooms and transom windows above doors that when used correctly really did create enough airflow to help cool rooms down.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@Wiley_Coyote]

I recently learned my mother's new house (her whole housing development) has submerged/underground garbage cans next to the house. You pop the weighted lid and toss bags into it. The garbage men retrieve the trash from there rather than from cans dragged to the curb. I'd never seen this before anywhere else. BTW: I'm currently in an old house with a sinkless basement toilet, with an industrial sink elsewhere in the basement next to the washing machine. The house dates from around the same time as Laurence's. The toilet is really never used, because the basement rarely is.

[@munchausen8755]

That underground garbage can was common in New England as well. The idea was to only put food waste (garbage) in there to keep the smell down and discourage raccoons and other critters. Non-food waste (trash or rubbish, as my Massachusetts wife calls it) was put in rubbish barrels on the curb. There were separate garbage and rubbish trucks.

[@deeyoder]

The House of Tomorrow built by Westinghouse as a prototype of future living here in Mansfield, Ohio in the late 1930's had these kinds of underground garbage containers, too. But you put the garbage down a chrome covered hole in the kitchen countertop that had a chute attached leading to the garbage containers in the ground. That house also had windows that closed and opened by themselves in case of rain when the owner was away. It also contained the very first automatic garage door opener and lots of other really cool electric gadgets. (Like a small room that was a clothes dryer. You put the damp clothes on hangers, shoved the frame into the dryer "room" and clothes dried on the hangers.) The house is still being lived in.

[@laurawendt8471]

My grandparents lived on a dairy farm. My grandma would shout supper out the window, my grandpa would go down the outside basement door to the laundry room and shower the farm off, change into house clothes, and go up the basement stairs to the kitchen 😅

[@HRConsultant_Jeff]

yes we had the phone niche in our home in California and it was a great place between bedrooms for the phone.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@creinicke1000]

I remember my grandma's house had a spot for the phone like that. The kitchen had old covered up chimney hole for an earlier wood stove. Coal chutes were in my childhood homes in Milwaukee WI. Also.. talking about niches.. In homes with stairways, there would often be a Niche in the corner wall of the stairs.. it was to ease the carrying of the casket from upper rooms downstairs. We also had a milk box where the milk man would put the milk delivery, empty bottles and money would be left in the small door from inside (about 12 in square) for milkman to switch with new bottled milk from the outside. And finally, the laundry chute.. another small door and chute where we tossed the dirty clothes to go to the basement laundry room, the chutes would be in a hallway near bedrooms upstairs (so no lugging laundry downstairs) we used to play and once accidentally sent my baby sister down the chute.. not recommended by the way (she landed in the laundry basket).

[@nickdevriese]

He threw me through a loop. I know we have have coffin corners on stairwells.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@kristen6324]

Ok. I also have to add that those basement bathrooms were also very popular with houses whose owners had servants. The basement bathroom was often for them, (among other areas, depending on the house and how many servants the owners employed. There may be a third floor that was the maid quarters or even an extension to the garage for a Gardner/chauffeur and so on).

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@petertrabaris1629]

I grew up in a two-flat building. My immediate family lived on the first floor, and my Uncle and Grandmother lived on the second floor. (My grandmother felt safer living on the second floor.) We had a full basement half-way under ground for convenience, and for greater protection during storms. We did not have a shower, or toilet in the basement. The building was new when the adults moved in in the late 1950's, so they had the option of having these built in. They chose not to for fear of flooding from these features. They proved to be smart in making this choice, even though there was a drain in the basement floor in case there ever was flooding in the basement. Occasionally, the sewer would back up, but mostly, as it turned out, with very heavy rains, we would get water seepage that came in around the foundation. Nevertheless, the laundry and that big, ugly wash basin was down there. My mother always made my sister and I, and depending where anyone else was coming from, them too, go down to clean-up in using the that sink (sponge bathing), and changing clothes before coming into the house proper. My parent's turned half of the basement into a finished recreation room. We spent a lot of time in the basement. Good memories. We did have a coal chute, and when I was very young, my father and uncle took turns at night going down to replenish the coal in the furnaces, but before I was four, we had to have the system replaced with a gas furnace for the entire building along with central air conditioning. My sister had asthmatic allergies, and it was necessary for her health. So yes, these are pretty normal from my experience of older houses. Peace

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@johnchristopher20]

One joke you may have missed is “when Capital One brings you free toilet paper” that’s an aggressive credit card company and the toilet paper is their solicitation letters.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@mattkiesling7796]

Pittsburgher here. Yep, the good old Pittsburgh potty. My house has it. And since we're talking about things you sit on, we also have the Parking chair. A lot of houses in the city have on street parking. You save your spot by placing a chair (older the better) on the street. You do NOT touch or move the chair if it is not yours!

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@kirsty8]

I live in Pittsburgh and we have a Pittsburgh potty as they are called, but ours was redone and it's a complete bathroom with a shower.

[@darla896]

Poor Lawrence doesn’t seem to have the hand crank pencil sharpener in the basement either. 😂

[@devRH23]

I live about 10 mins from downtown Pittsburgh n in a home built in the early 1900s. I have a basement bathroom n a coal chute on the side of the house as well

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@annfrost3323]

If that niche was for a telephone, where did the phone lines come from in the middle of the house? I'm more inclined to believe it was for the doorbell's vertical "pipes" that looked like the tubes in a church organ.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

When I was in elementary school, I lived in a house on west Market Street in Canal Fulton, Ohio, that had been renovated and had an addition put on, in the middle of the nineteenth century. That house had several notable quirks. One entire room of the basement, had originally been used for coal storage, and one entire wall of that room was slanted noticeably (somewhere around a 110-115 degree angle with the floor, rather than the usual 88-92). This appeared to have been deliberate, perhaps because someone thought that was a better shape of room for storing coal. And yes, there was a coal chute down into that room from out next to the driveway. The upstairs bathroom, was the largest bathroom I've ever seen in a house, and we think it had originally been a bedroom, and was converted into a bathroom with the advent of indoor plumbing. Similarly, the downstairs bedroom that was mine, had probably been the original kitchen; the kitchen at the time we owned the house, was in the "new" part (along with the dining room, living room, and a sun room, and one upstairs bedroom), that was added at the time of the renovation and did not have basement under it. Part of the original kitchen had been walled off to make a half-bathroom and a small closet, probably when it was converted into a bedroom; the room also had a door to the backyard, which is normal for kitchens, not so much for bedrooms. But probably the single most interesting quirk of that house, was the slave-hiding nook, a remnant of the Underground Railroad. From the back yard of the house, you could see across a couple of parking lots and a field to the trees along the bank of the Tuscarawas River, and the Ohio & Erie Canal ran parallel just on the other side of it. One of the closets, in the master bedroom, did not extend along the entire wall (between the bedroom and the bathroom): there was a small space, the depth of the closet and roughly square, that was not part of any room or closet you could access from the second floor; only by going up into the attic and then back down via a ladder, could the space be accessed; it contained a small bench, and the ladder permanently affixed to one wall of the space. (I never saw it, because I wasn't allowed up there due to the blown-in insulation; but it was described to me by adults who did go up and look.) As it was explained to me, the house was being renovated at the time the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, so they built that nook into the house to hide the escaping slaves during the day time, so they would not be discovered and sent back. Presumably, they brought them up from the canal before dawn, probably fed them, then hid them in the nook, and maybe threw some boards over the top just in case the attic ever got searched. Then when night came again they'd send them on their way up the canal toward Lake Erie, whence they could escape to Ontario via boat. There was significant sympathy for the escaping slaves that far north, and even law enforcement charged with enforcing the FSA were typically not exactly enthusiastic about doing so, so the house was never searched thoroughly enough to find the nook, until someone in the twentieth century renovated the place again to insulate it better. (Most of the time, it probably wasn't searched at all, but it's worth being careful when someone's freedom is at stake, hence the nook, and the need to go through the attic to get to it.) According to Google StreetView, the house next door, on the corner, is no longer there; but the house I lived in, is much as it was (on the outside; the inside is of course not visible on StreetView), though it does look to have had newer siding installed (probably aluminum or vinyl; at the time we lived there, in the eighties, it was really old wood siding). Also, the back yard has been fenced in at some point, and it looks like they've put in central air, because there's an exchanger sitting not far from the coal chute.

[@k1hasard]

My childhood home, built in 1905 and my in-law's house had street level living rooms with large windows. My grandparents as well as the in-laws didn't call it a living room, they called it a "parlor" because it was common for the dead to be displayed in their home in a casket instead of a funeral home. The window was removed and the casket passed through and set on a stand for viewers to come like they do in a funeral home. The window was removed again to pass the casket out of the house into a hearse and taken to a burial place. The first house I bought, plus my grandparents house both had coal bins in the basement which is basically an enclosure with wooden walls all the way to the ceiling for coal storage. Neither had a chute like this video shows, both had moveable wooden chutes that caught the coal sliding down the chute from the coal truck directing the flow to the coal bin. I removed the coal bin in my house that hadn't been used for coal storage in decades, the previous owners used it for a store room.

[@toomanyopinions8353]

Weird that a Pittsburgh-specific feature is in his Chicago house!

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@gregorybiestek3431]

That because it was very common in the industrial Midwest for any working class house built between 1910 & 1950. Besides Pittsburgh, you see these in Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, etc.

[@gregorybiestek3431]

As an industrial area, Detroit likewise has many homes built between 1910 and 1950 that have similar features. All five homes I have lived in have had a lavatory in the basement, a discontinued coal chute, and a spot for doorbell chimes (not phone niches, those are much deeper). By the way if that was actually a coal chute, Lawrence's home would have the other opening inside the basement. Since does not, it is most likely an access to the sewers which is also common to homes from first half of the 20th century.

[@Blondie42]

There's a local mansion, built in the 1890s, that has a chute that goes from ground level to the basement but it was for wood As the furnace wasn't equipped for coal. Right next to the chute is a small closet sized room containing only a toilet. With a sink nearish by, added after indoor plumbing become a thing

[@PenelopeFrank]

He tripped on the cement block is what I’m guessing was his accident.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@tycobb2580]

06:35 Larry should write Sci Fi books

[@robertkoons1154]

That's a 2 chamber laundry tub by the washing machine. They were used prior to washing machines to clean clothes. One side has a wash board built in to clean clothes with soap. The other side was used to rinse. There would be a basement clothes line to dry clothes in Chicago's cold weather in doors. US houses had central heating with coal fired steam heat (radiators) since about 1870. Then were convertted to oil fired in early 1910s, Later, natural gas conversion occurred after WWII .

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@nathanetchoe2335]

Good choice millie! Keep on picking the videos!

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@kristen6324]

I haven’t even finished watching but I have to say there’s gotta be a sink not far away. (God I hope there is) My grandparents had an old house and basement bathroom without a sink. But there was sink next to it in the laundry room.

[@SBC581]

I had a similar setup growing up. I came in from outside through the side entrance and straight to the basement washing machine. Washing my hands wasn't a priority because I was covered with dirt. A sink would have looked like the sink in an old gas station toilet. I needed to get the dirty clothes off and get to the shower. This was back when kids went outside and got dirty.

[@suzettesanborn5659]

I really liked this one too. I subscribed to lost in the pond today as well. I really like Lawrence and enjoy his videos.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@NarwahlGaming]

'The People's Elbow' is what The Rock delivered as a final move in the WWE. If you smeeeelll what The Rock is cookin'!

[@AW11-e4h]

The basement bathroom is a peaceful place 🤘🤘

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@blafonovision4342]

I still have a coal chute in my house. Don’t use it, obviously. But it’s still there and functional.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@cynthiahaun9269]

Great choice

[@karlamackey4675]

My daughter and I went to view a house for rent years ago. There was a stand alone toilet in the basement. It was randomly sitting beside the washer and dryer. It was hooked up and ready to be used. I don't know if it still worked or not, though. There were no walls surrounding it. It was just sitting there😳

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@laurawendt8471]

In one of my childhood homes we had that and put up a curtain around it and it became “dad’s toilet” lol

[@timglennon6814]

They had coal deliveries to houses in the U.K.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@GlennMurano]

Great videos.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@melkaman8200]

We have no stand-alone toilet, although I know of a handful of people who do, and we all find it quite strange. One friend of mine, it's just sitting out in the open! No walls around it or anything. Just walk into their basement and there's this toilet sitting there in the middle of everything! My basement does, however, have a coal bunker. It hasn't been used for coal probably since sometime in the late 1950s, but you can still see staining on the walls from where the coal piles used to be for the old coal furnace.

[@americansmark]

My house came with a basement bathroom as the original owners worked at the steel plant in town. I converted the dilapidated shower to a self-cleaning litter box for my cats. We're adding on to the house next year anyway, so the bathroom will be replaced with a larger bathroom in the basement with a door to the whirlpool outside.

[@darla896]

There was often a toilet, sometimes a hap-hazard shower, and rarely a sink in the area as you were normally right near the wash basin in the basement. Just a toilet alone is a score! Add one of the other features and it’s extra classy!! Lol I actually even knew/know people who still have the shower and in some cases it’s almost random and you just pull a curtain around a circular ceiling bar

[@americansmark]

@@darla896 that sounds about right. Mine had the sink, but it was definitely an afterthought. I replaced it with a utility sink. The shower was built around a basement drain hole that someone stuck a shower pan and a rod over. It had no ceiling and the flimsiest walls ever. I would look up and see electrical wires. Once we are finished remodeling, the dividing wall will come down and it'll be part of the laundry/furnace room. We're planning a master bath upstairs and knocking down a wall to expand the current main bathroom. The basement bathroom will be a guest bathroom with our hottub/lake shower and storage. It'll connect to the hottub outside and sauna in the basement. 😀

[@crabdonkey6381]

My parents house in Rhode Island had a wringer washer, soapstone sink but no toilet. Clothes were dried on a clothes line in the back yard. House built i n 1950.

[@runrafarunthebestintheworld]

Damn no toilet. Oof

[@RogCBrand]

😄 "It's only weird because we're not used to it. For example we can see one on the screen in a moment." All with Lawrence on the screen!

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@Cricket2731]

There's houses on my street that have coal chutes. Mine was built in 1950; too new for that. Houses on my street date from 1920-1960-ish. My g-parent's house (in Toledo, OH) was built ca 1940. It had a toilet, sink, & shower, all more or less in the laundry room.

[@eMemoryCard]

Front load *Washer & Dryer* *Direct Drive Inverter by LG!* 2 in 1 *combo* *Welcome to Florida!*

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@heathermichael3987]

Back in the day to have a telephone niche was considered classy. That house would have been the more upper side of the middle class. The steel works and auto plants were considered the elite of the factory workers.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@deeyoder]

I've lived in houses here in Ohio that had all of these quirky areas. 😊

[@davidschlapman9305]

Millie another good job

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@Smitty753]

I'm from Pittsburgh and he's not lying a lot of the houses that I lived in specially my grandparents had a shower a toilet and you have to walk to the laundry room to wash your hands and we literally live down the street from the steel mill so yes she's not lying Pittsburgh has a lot of houses like that

[@roysmith3675]

My oldest son just bought a house built in 1950 and has a phone niche, he didn’t have a clue as to what it was so I bought him a black rotary phone and found a 1964 phone book and now it’s one of his favorite spots in the house He has to show everyone that visits

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@Boodieman72]

Front load washers are better.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@williamharrold1422]

Yet another thing to remind me that I am old as sin. I remember the coal men delivering coal ... and helping my father bank the furnace every night to make sure the furnace fire lasted the night. It formed my earliest images of Hell. I also remember when we switched to gas and got a furnace 1/10th the size of the coal monster. The coal room became my train room, so I was doubly happy. Our home was too old to have a phone niche ( too new fangled). But, I remember standing in the kitchen waiting for the phone line to be free. All phones then were party lines that you 'shared' with about 10 neighbors.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@williamhogge5549]

Good evening The Beesleys, you might not have noticed the invasion of bots yet... I'm just making you aware.

[@TheBeesleys99]

We are tying to sort them! It's so hard and youtube just don't take them down :(

[@johnhelwig8745]

Yes, Millie, you did good!

[@DylansPen]

And be sure, 40 years from now they will look back to today and not believe what is considered normal or standard now. Everything changes.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@kyrithevans7943]

I have a house from 1920 in upstate NY. I was so confused the first time I saw the toilet in my basement. It's not in a bathroom, no door to close it off for privacy, just stuck in a corner behind the furnace.

[@kristen6324]

These i don’t understand…. When I went searching for a house I saw a lot of those out in the Midwest (in houses that weren’t old either).. I don’t understand

[@sageduff4747]

I owned a house from around 1900 that had the same thing.

[@RogCBrand]

I wonder if the toilet original had a wall, or maybe they used a curtain or such?

[@kyrithevans7943]

@@RogCBrand There was never a wall and there isn't room to put one in easily. The people I bought the house from had a folding screen that you could use for a little more privacy. I just use the upstairs bathroom...

[@RogCBrand]

@@kyrithevans7943 Ah! I'm very uncomfortable using public restrooms, etc., so maybe in an emergency I could use it with a screen, but I'd much rather have walls with a door I can lock!

[@carolewhite6356]

Our house had all three of these. It was built for coal miners, not steel workers.

[@goomy02]

The basement entrance, toilet & sink (shower if really upscale) were quite common in worker tract houses in many industrial cities, especially around "dirty" industries such as mining, smelting, &steel production centers

[@ladysky2883]

Weird site for a toilet. Many homes built before 1950 did not have indoor plumbing. So many times the bathroom is in a weird spot. Cubby hole is when we had to go to the phone not the phone comes to us. I remember that time. There was a time when the Milk Man would put the milk in a closet outside the kitchen and then the homeowner would open the corresponding door to the same closet like place and get the milk. That was cool to find one of those in a home.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@gregorybiestek3431]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but homes, at least in the east and midwest most certainly had indoor plumbing. if you grew up in the rural south, maybe yes, maybe not. Approximately 60% of the homes in industrial cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, etc. built between 1910 and 1950 had this feature to allow the working adults to come from the factory, go straight to the basement, clean-up and only then come upstairs.

[@lindacarroll6896]

My husband grew up in Rochester, NY with 7 siblings. The house they lived in was built before 1930 (where his father's family was living at the time of the 1930 census). Officially, the house had one bathroom for 10 people. However, there was a toilet in the unfinished basement. It was strictly for the use of his father, except in dire emergencies. Since it was not totally enclosed, I don't think they had a lot of issues with anyone else wanting to hangout down there.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@markkertz8223]

Catholics have a Grotto similar to your phone cutout where the statue of saints are placed.

[@markkertz8223]

I've seen them in New England and in Tx in Hispanics homes and restaurants.

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@lawrenceliebman9079]

"Bob's your uncle?"

[@TheBeesleys99]

Is that not a saying in the US?

[@blafonovision4342]

@@TheBeesleys99 yes it is. We even have a restaurant named so.

[@lawrenceliebman9079]

@@TheBeesleys99 I've never heard it used in general conversation.

[@blafonovision4342]

@@lawrenceliebman9079 I live up on the border with Canada. I think we have more British expressions and pronunciations up here.

[@SteveSwags]

@@TheBeesleys99 only if we're imitating a Brit. I've never heard it used organically here.

[@aweiserbud]

Here, let me gross you out. I wash my hands several times a day but I've witnessed many Americans not washing their hands after they pee or poop

[@ginganinja1548]

A basement toilet and shower is a very mid west thing.

[@andrewchristopher7138]

Hi

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁🎁

[@realnicksutton]

Planning a US trip?

[@eurow3808]

Root beer is gross 😅

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@kevinbrown3075]

Ya’ll need to watch this one titled, “When “The Balloon” Comes South” It totally represents the Southern perspective regarding pretty much any current event.😆

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@mokokawi]

it reminds me of the Waltons TV Show....i think they had a ph9ne niche too 😄

[@writemeontele_gram_thebeesleys]

Dm❤️❤️ I have something for you 🎁

[@wadeintonature2975]

You have crypto scammers on the channel.