@@SisypheanFarm couldn’t agree more! I’d like to be able to turn it down, but then we lose the narration. This music takes a while of the enjoyment of this piece away.
Too bad these cool things disappeared. I had a house built in 1897 and all the doorways had transom windows and they are still cool. This house had a fantastic butler's pantry and had an original tin ceiling in the dining room. Modern houses in my opinion are boring and lack character.
Also the laundry shute. If your washer and dryer are in the basement, that would be ideal to have. Dangerous carrying baskets of clothes and such up and down stairs.
@@hulynchow8505 I've seen homes that had their washer and dryer on the 2nd floor, where the bedrooms and main bathrooms were upstairs. Then you only had to bring kitchen towels up. Makes better sense than hauling the majority of your laundry down and back up.
My grandparents lived in the country and had Transoms. Grandpa showed me how the house was placed when built to allow the Transoms when and created air flow to help cool the house. They even had one in a closet so the air flow wasn't blocked.
Not mentioned was that transoms were used with high ceilings, at least nine feet. Because the hot air would rise, the high ceilings would trap the hottest air at the top of the room. The transoms would open to a hallway which would allow the transom to vent the hottest air out. The advent of inexpensive fans, and later AC, that could move the air did away with the natural ventilation.
Wood paneling was not associated with the 1980s. It started with Knotty Pine paneling in the 1940s and expanded into using other types of wood paneling in the 1950s, and its popularity peaked in the 1960s. In the 1970s paneling a single wall in a given room became a new style that carried into the early 1980s.
My mother had the entire house in 1964. Oh how I hated it. My room had such pretty yellow roses and I felt like I was sleeping in a rose garden. Came home one day and it was ALL brown. 🤮
I got married in 1970 & loved paneling, that had made a comeback then! Luckily, my wife didn't like it, so she kept me to limit paneling to one wall, per room!
@shepberryhill4912 true but the topic at hand is fake paneling, it's a thin plywood 8x4 foot with groves cut in at varying widths. Ran about $2 a sheet back in the 1960s and the look exploded over the home decor scene. Massively over used and never looked anything but bottom end cheap and tasty.
Wood paneling goes back to the 17th century. Because cut timber was expensive it was a mainstay of expensive homes. Even today you will still see wood paneling used in wainscotting (the lower half of a wall) paneled in wood. At first, plaster walls were rough and for lower classes. It was the invention of sheet rock that plaster walls became more common place. When you see old houses that are all wallpapered that is because they used plaster over lathe. The walls were rough and the wallpaper covered that.
Here in the UK, we still have milkmen, coal men, clotheslines and rotary dryers. Electric tumble dryers are very expensive to run, and so are not so common. Some things will never entirely go out of fashion.
@@mickeyfilmer5551 Loves it. I've always chosen to live in 30's era apartments in California with old milk doors, oak floors, wood windows and lots of extra storage space as well as built in drawers and bookshelves.
In Japan, finding an electric clothes drier in the home is more of a rarity, whereas clothes lines and ceiling-mounted drying units in the wash tub area are the norm.
So many of these remind me of my grandmother. She had a house with the coal chute, she had both a clothesline stretched between two trees AND a rotary clothesline. Furthermore while she had a refrigerator, she always called it the “icebox”. Thanks for helping me remember the fond memories of her.
You missed a few: old razor blade disposal slots in bathrooms, usually inside the medicine cabinet wall. Also--anyone know about separate little buildings off homes (not outhouses) but I've been told these would've been "summer kitchens". In the summer baking & cooking would heat up the homes too much, so a separate building would keep the main house cooler.
@@4got102c, my house was built in 1941 and I still have the OG medicine cabinet with the razor blade slot. I only learned what it was a few months ago. Lol.
I remember so many of these, and they were so welcome. We had a metal box, on the doorstep for the milk bottles delivery, but the coal chute was a great help. If money ran out we had to walk to the nearest grocery store to buy bags of wood and coal, and carry them home in a wagon, or sled, if it snowed. We lived in multi apartment buliding in the first floor front,, not an individual home. We didn't have a car so buses were ours for transportation, but we had to walk a couple of streets over, to catch the bus.
I work in a building built in 1925. It was originally a school but now it houses the administration for the university. In every room down in the baseboard is a metal tube with a cover on it that sticks out about 2 inches. These are also located evenly spaced along the hall way corridor. The building used to have a central vacuum system. Pretty high tech for the 20s
4:40 My first house had a "phone nook," and it was very practical. That's also where we kept the "white pages," and the "yellow pages," in case we needed to look something up.
We still have a coal room and transom windows. Sadly, clothes lines are illegal here because they are considered to be an eyesore. Too bad, because they had no bad effects on global warming.
Oof....! Party line! My parents were lucky enough to have a private lube but my grandma had a party line. When I would go to her house I’d sit and listen to the neighborhood gossip until the ladies heard me and yelled at me and I had to put the phone back on the cradle.
@@jessbarnes8521 My parents’ had a phone bench with the seat, the small tabletop on the left for the heavy, rotary-dial phone, and under the tabletop for the phone book. My daughter has it and their original telephone. My son-in-law converted the innards to make and receive phone calls.
My Nanny had a pink bathroom outlined with black tiles, it was beautifully decorated!! Her crystal etched sconces on either side of the mirror & the shiny silver faucet, towel holder that was on the wall next to the tub & the silver hooped hand towel holders hanging on either side of the sink brings back joyful memories!! One thing that I miss was her octagon vanity where she had her jewelry box, makeup, perfumes & the table mirror that had her ornate silver hand mirror, brush & comb!! Her stacks of hat boxes & hat pins in her closet, watching her put on her hats as she sat on the padded bench in front of the vanity chest, all of her different gloves & embroidered hankies, brooches & clutch purses laid in each drawer with sachets & covered with silk covers to prevent any fading or random dust that could possibly get on them. I never understood why she had them since you could eat off any surface, she kept the cleanest most tidy house I've ever seen!! She & my Granddad were apart of "society" & entertained both the City Mayor & State Governor where I grew up. She wasn't extravagant, frugal with money but dressed impeccably & never left the house without dressing to the 9!! She was an amazing cook & at baking & was adamant that I go (all girls & young women) to etiquette classes, to learn how to walk, sit, address different people, dress for every event, properly "sit" a table for every eventuality & to be the proper host & guest! This was during the late 70's early 80's, the 2 different times I attended. It's something that I've never forgotten & honestly so glad now that she insisted & know that it's something that is surely needed today
11:00 My dad was raised with an icebox, and for the remainder of his life, he referred to a refrigerator as an "ice box." He remembered the ice man coming 2x per week to put a block in the icebox, and the melting ice into a bowl for Taffy, the family dog to drink.
@@josephgaviota it is a good idea from where I sit. We have one that we have the door in the basement propped open, and it drops into a laundry basket. The sides are metal so nothing could build a home or get stuck.
Growing up in the '60's I remember going to houses that had those. I grew up with an oil furnace for heating, a washtub to take a bath and an outhouse for a toilet. Boy those were the good ole days.(Not!)
I bought a sewing machine cabinet for my sewing machine at a thrift store. I only sew to mend things, which isn't often. Most of the time the cabinet is used to have place for my printer and router.
Thank you for acknowledging that, although mostly gone, several of these things linger. I only wish I had the space to install an ironing board. I know they are still available to be installed. My father bought a very old apartment building that started its life as a rooming house over a hundred years earlier. We found many interesting details over the years as we modernized it. From the flagstone foundation to the full log used as a column in the basement to the "refrigerator box" built into one of the kitchen windows. We lived in New England where you could count on consistently cold periods in the winter. So our basement bulkhead functioned as a would be root cellars. It was perfect for storing the extra produce needed for the holidays. And even storing leftovers safely for a day or two after Thanksgiving or Christmas.
5:40 When my best friend got married, their home had an "ironing board nook" in the kitchen. Don't forget when Romney ran for president, he talked about his parents eating dinner on the fold-out ironing board.
We didn't need a milk door in the 1960s. The milkman actually came in to the house, took out the expired milk from our refrigerator and replaced it with fresh milk.
Laundry chutes were still a feature at least as late as the end of the 1960s. My parents had a townhome (or rowhome) that was built in 1968 that had a laundry chute. I'm not sure if or when they disappeared. That home also featured an "intercom" system, which had a speaker mounted on the wall in the various rooms and the controls were in the kitchen. It was just a radio with a two-way speaker phone, but we thought it was high-tech. Also, at home milk delivery didn't disappear until the late 1960s as well. It might have lasted into the 1970s in some more rural areas. We had a milk box - essentially an insulated metal box - that was positioned by the front door where we received all manner of dairy products, not just milk, and left the returns. I still remember the dairy, Green Springs dairy.
@@juliancate7089 Bought my current house in 2005. Had some work done before moving in. That included adding two clothes chutes. I grew up in a house with a clothes chute. All three houses I have owned have had a clothes chute. I like dirty laundry immediately leaving the bedroom.
@@ubermothman5584 I don't know what the percentages are compared to other areas, but here in the South, most homes since the 1980s are single-story, slab-on-grade construction, so it obviates the need for a laundry chute. Too bad.
I once told my boss that I was installing a solar-powered clothes dryer. He was very excited to see it installed, but he seemed a little dismayed when I told him it was just a clothesline. However, it worked brilliantly, and I miss having space for one in my home now.
I am 70 years old an remember my mom doing that. Last year i started washing clothes outside an hanging them on the clothesline. Except in the winter when its to cold.
I've got a phone nook, iron board in the wall, laundry chute, pantry, Cold cellar, and laundry clothes line. lead glass Windows 1932 home. With a old ringer washing machine out in the backyard.
For the knob and tube wiring, couldn't you find an image of that? You showed mostly modern Romex in a junction with an older wiring system, but there wasn't a knob or tube to be seen.
Commercial kitchens have 3 well sinks!! There are 5 steps to using it! The 3 wells are Wash, Rinse, and Sanitize! Step #1 is scrape any food off the plate, next is the 3 wells and #5is Air-Dry the Plates and items! Its more sanitary!!
An occasional feature not seen today was the built-in central vacuum system. When a home was built in the 1960's or 1970's, you could order an optional vacuum system, with tubes built in the walls and a central vacuum unit. You only carried a short hose from room-to-room and plugged it into a tube connector in the wall. Another common sight were TV antennas. Every house had one. Many homes also had a den, which was a quiet enclosed room which contained books, a record player, radio, small TV and a few pieces of casual furniture, for quiet relaxation and entertainment. Finally, most older homes had an incinerator in the back yard for their garbage.
Central vacuums are still around and companies designing and making modern systems for installation in new and existing homes. TV antennas are making a comeback as many people are fed up with paying high prices for cable or streaming services. I remember seeing the den as room on 1950s and 1960s TV shows but never actually knew anyone who was wealthy enough to have one. However, after I moved out of my parents' house, my father converted my bedroom into a small den for himself. My grandparents had an incinerator in their basement for the burnable trash. As I recall, they stopped because it became illegal to use in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Our house has one, but step dad broke one of the pipes in the basement, plus I felt like an astronaut attatched to a spaceship so I would rather use a regular vacuum cleaner
I would love ❤ a rotary clothesline like my grandmother had!!! 😊 Clothes came down the chute into a basket in the basement. After being washed in her wringer washing machine, we carried the wrung out clothes outside to the rotary clothesline. That was the coolest clothesline I ever saw!!! I've never seen one since!
Further south of the United States we still use many of these things, largely because they are easy to use, environmentally friendly, and do not require egregious energy consumption. I think some of these features would be useful to have back in order to take better care of our planet.
I like dumbwaiters that are manual instead of automated. Much safer than carrying stuff up and down stairs that blocks your view. Nicer to have one's hand's free for grabbing the rail...
Is it just me or did this video forget to cover the very thing they put in the Thumbnail? I've never seen those weirdly small doors in a home but I do recall seeing some in the School Library of a School I once went to in the 90s, I never asked about them at the time.
Wood paneling was popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. When I was a child, both houses were lived in had rooms that were covered in paneling. Both were built in the early 1960s. It was an upgrade when you bought a house. My mother painted over them, in the early 1980s. The same with rotary clothes lines. 1960s gone by the 80s.
Paneling was a 60's and 70's decorative thing, our rowhome in Philly the downstairs had paneling, parents bought it in the 60's, my mom bought a house late 70's downstairs living room and dining room was paneled plus upstairs. My mom bought a built in Singer sewing machine at a thrift store 35 years ago. We hung clothes out in the spring and summer, loved the smell. People still hang clothes out.
I grew up with a lot of these items in our home. My house now is over 100 years old and has a boiler-hot-water-radiator heating system, never got replaced with gas because no duct work for forced air. Also advent of poly-ester fabrics made ironing unnecessary. Not only did we get coal and milk delivered, but I had to help my Dad haul coal ash from the basement out to the curb for garbage pickup. So many things that were essential then are obsolete now, thx for the walk back on memory lane, and above all, love the smell of sun dried laundry!
Transoms are still around, but they're mostly decorative now, or installed for extra natural light or to make a doorway look taller. I love using transoms in The Sims 4. A lot of doors in that game have them.
Memoriiiiiiies, I recall them all here. I'm a geezer now but this was nice bringing back times with my grandmother. :-) I still have some of these items. Handy stuff.
My first home had many of these features. It was built around 1900. I got a great education in dealing with all of it’s problems. From lead plumbing to knob and tube wiring. But I did used the clothes chute and telephone nook.
I still say the folding ironing board would still be totally practical today. I've seen a lot of these features in homes at the Los Angeles Heritage park and the Pasadena Gamble house where a lot of historical houses were moved to. I'm surprised Murphy beds were not mentioned, to me they still could be pretty practical. My 100 year old home had one, but the previous owner removed the bed and turned it into a regular closet. My neighbor and I still regularly use my clothes line, it's the only home chore I don't mind doing and in the summer my clothes can be dry in one hour.
We had a milk door. We used it as our mail box. We also had a laundry chute that was under the bathroom sink to the basement. When my sister buil t her house about 25-30 yrs. ago she had a laundry chute but in her new house. So convenient. We even had wood panneling in the 1960's. We hung our clothes outside to dry until my sister and I bought my mom a dryer.
I have fond childhood memories of my sister and I both lying on the first floor of the house while our mom threw down unwashed clothes on us from the upstairs clothes hamper. We’d actually look forward to being bombarded with dirty clothes as we lye on our backs on the floor laughing. 😄😊
It was a PHONE BOOK, listing every phone number in your area. All businesses in same area listed their services in the YELLOW PAGES. Both were organized alphabetically.
Wood paneling was mid-1950s to mid-1970s. It had gone well out of style by the 1980s. Most people got rid of it or painted over it in the 1980s. Though some homes still have it today.
It was pretty obvious by all the references to the '80's that this historian is a tad out of touch with what happened when. The house I grew up in from age 8 onwards had the push-button light switches, the laundry chute, the milk box/hatch, the tiles in the bathroom, a pedestal sink (rather than wall-hung), the ironing board in the cabinet, but no transoms over doors. It was built in the early 1930's and our family moved in in 1960. You are correct on the sewing machine too. I have one just like the photos and another half dozen too.
My grandmother’s house was a colonial built around 1800. Among many unusual features it had a doorbell consisting of a crank on the outside of the door and about a 6” domed bell on the inside. The sound was more of a clank-clank-clank, maybe because of all the coats of paint put on it over the years.
I wish clotheslines would come back. I still remember snuggling down into clean sheets at night that were fresh off the clothesline and still had the fresh smell of outdoors on them. I’d also like wallpaper to come back although I know it’s awfully expensive.
We, My family, had a clothesline on our house. My Dad installed it. He bolted a piece of wood to the outside cellar wall, from there it went about 60 feet to a pole which was half an old telephone pole he got somewhere, and drove it into the ground which had a horizontal piece of wood fastened to it and a pulley so you could move the clothes along the way. There was a pulley on the house wall as well. We used white clothesline rope that you could buy in a hardware store or similar place.
People still hang clothes out, just that people are lazy now. I don't have the time, plus have a zillion birds in my rurual home or I would use a clothes line. Mom during the spring and summer or on warm fall days always used clothes lines to dry her clothes.
@ Once most women were leaving home during the day to work it was no longer possible to hang clothes out during the day and HOAs forbid clotheslines now. It’s all part of the changing society. So sad.😔
We had milk delivered to our home when our kids were young. This was 15/20 years ago. It was nice having it delivered. The milk man would come twice a week. Leave new bottles and take the empties.
OMG, the background music is distracting and maddening with it's repetition!
@@SisypheanFarm couldn’t agree more! I’d like to be able to turn it down, but then we lose the narration. This music takes a while of the enjoyment of this piece away.
Didn't make it 3 minutes.
@@SisypheanFarm
I completely agree about the annoying music! I love these videos, but I don’t need the distracting sound.
@@SisypheanFarm that music AND his voice was just awful..4:38 in and I have had enough!🤯
@@SisypheanFarm I know why do they feel they have to play music when they're talking! It's like they try to annoy Us 🙄
Too bad these cool things disappeared. I had a house built in 1897 and all the doorways had transom windows and they are still cool. This house had a fantastic butler's pantry and had an original tin ceiling in the dining room. Modern houses in my opinion are boring and lack character.
They need to bring some of this stuff back. Trying to keep an ironing board from being in the way or falling over
Also the laundry shute. If your washer and dryer are in the basement, that would be ideal to have.
Dangerous carrying baskets of clothes and such up and down stairs.
@@hulynchow8505 The issue with Laundry Chutes, recently, has been that they are virtually impossible to build to pass fire code requirements.
@@hulynchow8505 They are considered a fire hazard now and won’t pass code as flames can spread very easily up them.
@@hulynchow8505 I've seen homes that had their washer and dryer on the 2nd floor, where the bedrooms and main bathrooms were upstairs. Then you only had to bring kitchen towels up. Makes better sense than hauling the majority of your laundry down and back up.
2:50 As a kid of the late '50s and '60s, I think Transoms are WONDERFUL.
They were in the elementary school I attended.
I always, even as a kid, thought they were neat.
My grandparents lived in the country and had Transoms. Grandpa showed me how the house was placed when built to allow the Transoms when and created air flow to help cool the house. They even had one in a closet so the air flow wasn't blocked.
Not mentioned was that transoms were used with high ceilings, at least nine feet. Because the hot air would rise, the high ceilings would trap the hottest air at the top of the room. The transoms would open to a hallway which would allow the transom to vent the hottest air out. The advent of inexpensive fans, and later AC, that could move the air did away with the natural ventilation.
super annoying music...
Yes! It drives me nuts!! TURN OFF THE AWFUL BACKGROUND MUSIC, PLEASE!
Very!
@@savannahsmiles1797 turn down your speakers and turn on closed captioning. Not that difficult.
@@savannahsmiles1797 😂 yes
I was thinking how repetitious is was. 😖
Thank God for captions and being able to mute the music.
Wood paneling was not associated with the 1980s. It started with Knotty Pine paneling in the 1940s and expanded into using other types of wood paneling in the 1950s, and its popularity peaked in the 1960s. In the 1970s paneling a single wall in a given room became a new style that carried into the early 1980s.
My mother had the entire house in 1964. Oh how I hated it. My room had such pretty yellow roses and I felt like I was sleeping in a rose garden. Came home one day and it was ALL brown. 🤮
I got married in 1970 & loved paneling, that had made a comeback then! Luckily,
my wife didn't like it, so she kept me to limit paneling to one wall, per room!
Um, wood paneling has been a feature of houses for centuries.
@shepberryhill4912 true but the topic at hand is fake paneling, it's a thin plywood 8x4 foot with groves cut in at varying widths. Ran about $2 a sheet back in the 1960s and the look exploded over the home decor scene. Massively over used and never looked anything but bottom end cheap and tasty.
Wood paneling goes back to the 17th century. Because cut timber was expensive it was a mainstay of expensive homes. Even today you will still see wood paneling used in wainscotting (the lower half of a wall) paneled in wood. At first, plaster walls were rough and for lower classes. It was the invention of sheet rock that plaster walls became more common place. When you see old houses that are all wallpapered that is because they used plaster over lathe. The walls were rough and the wallpaper covered that.
Here in the UK, we still have milkmen, coal men, clotheslines and rotary dryers. Electric tumble dryers are very expensive to run, and so are not so common. Some things will never entirely go out of fashion.
I doubt very much we still have Coalmen...dgp
@@crabtonia we do in Omagh
@@mickeyfilmer5551 Loves it. I've always chosen to live in 30's era apartments in California with old milk doors, oak floors, wood windows and lots of extra storage space as well as built in drawers and bookshelves.
In Japan, finding an electric clothes drier in the home is more of a rarity, whereas clothes lines and ceiling-mounted drying units in the wash tub area are the norm.
So many of these remind me of my grandmother. She had a house with the coal chute, she had both a clothesline stretched between two trees AND a rotary clothesline. Furthermore while she had a refrigerator, she always called it the “icebox”.
Thanks for helping me remember the fond memories of her.
@@davidroddini1512 Awwww! Thanks! Icebox!!! Fond memories I es. Had cousins born in the Kate 50's, who still said icebox!! Cool.
4:00 The idea of a "butler's pantry" seems like a GREAT idea to me.
You missed a few: old razor blade disposal slots in bathrooms, usually inside the medicine cabinet wall. Also--anyone know about separate little buildings off homes (not outhouses) but I've been told these would've been "summer kitchens". In the summer baking & cooking would heat up the homes too much, so a separate building would keep the main house cooler.
Sometimes summer kitchens were attached to the house, but single story so they did not heat up the rest of the house.
Or in the basement!
They also kept down odors, too. Nice to avoid some smells like cooking cabbage...
@@4got102c, my house was built in 1941 and I still have the OG medicine cabinet with the razor blade slot. I only learned what it was a few months ago. Lol.
They also forgot Murphy beds.
I love pocket doors and had them in the last place I lived. I wish we still had a lot of these items!
@@wolfgirl13555 us too! We just had one installed for our bedroom and one for the kitchen pretty ivory color :) #Lowes
@ They are so nice! I’m happy for you! 😊
When I built my new home I had pocket doors in the two upstairs bathrooms. They are such a space saver.
My dad put them in our house that he built around 1963. They are so much better than regular hinged doors that take up so much room!
@ I love the ease of being able to close off different rooms. I think that they add a lot of value and class to a home. 😊
I still have my Bigmoma's Singer! It has outlived 3 other newer machines and still works GREAT!
I remember so many of these, and they were so welcome. We had a metal box, on the doorstep for the milk bottles delivery, but the coal chute was a great help. If money ran out we had to walk to the nearest grocery store to buy bags of wood and coal, and carry them home in a wagon, or sled, if it snowed. We lived in multi apartment buliding in the first floor front,, not an individual home. We didn't have a car so buses were ours for transportation, but we had to walk a couple of streets over, to catch the bus.
I work in a building built in 1925.
It was originally a school but now it houses the administration for the university.
In every room down in the baseboard is a metal tube with a cover on it that sticks out about 2 inches. These are also located evenly spaced along the hall way corridor. The building used to have a central vacuum system.
Pretty high tech for the 20s
4:40 My first house had a "phone nook," and it was very practical. That's also where we kept the "white pages," and the "yellow pages," in case we needed to look something up.
We still have a coal room and transom windows. Sadly, clothes lines are illegal here because they are considered to be an eyesore. Too bad, because they had no bad effects on global warming.
I could still use a fold out ironing board
@@loisfromohio3109 Nutone makes one
I think you can buy them like the setup at 6:17 . Looks to be fairly easy to install.
Just a flat box mounted on the wall.
They still sell them my folks have one.
they still sell them. YOu can buy one and install it. I have one in my kitchen.
😅i was building a summer cabin and installed a fold down ironing board in the wmall utility room--so handy!
Remember phone benches- to sit and talk to grandma (or wait for neighbours to finish a call via a party line).
Oof....! Party line! My parents were lucky enough to have a private lube but my grandma had a party line. When I would go to her house I’d sit and listen to the neighborhood gossip until the ladies heard me and yelled at me and I had to put the phone back on the cradle.
@@jessbarnes8521 My parents’ had a phone bench with the seat, the small tabletop on the left for the heavy, rotary-dial phone, and under the tabletop for the phone book. My daughter has it and their original telephone. My son-in-law converted the innards to make and receive phone calls.
My Nanny had a pink bathroom outlined with black tiles, it was beautifully decorated!! Her crystal etched sconces on either side of the mirror & the shiny silver faucet, towel holder that was on the wall next to the tub & the silver hooped hand towel holders hanging on either side of the sink brings back joyful memories!! One thing that I miss was her octagon vanity where she had her jewelry box, makeup, perfumes & the table mirror that had her ornate silver hand mirror, brush & comb!! Her stacks of hat boxes & hat pins in her closet, watching her put on her hats as she sat on the padded bench in front of the vanity chest, all of her different gloves & embroidered hankies, brooches & clutch purses laid in each drawer with sachets & covered with silk covers to prevent any fading or random dust that could possibly get on them. I never understood why she had them since you could eat off any surface, she kept the cleanest most tidy house I've ever seen!! She & my Granddad were apart of "society" & entertained both the City Mayor & State Governor where I grew up. She wasn't extravagant, frugal with money but dressed impeccably & never left the house without dressing to the 9!! She was an amazing cook & at baking & was adamant that I go (all girls & young women) to etiquette classes, to learn how to walk, sit, address different people, dress for every event, properly "sit" a table for every eventuality & to be the proper host & guest! This was during the late 70's early 80's, the 2 different times I attended. It's something that I've never forgotten & honestly so glad now that she insisted & know that it's something that is surely needed today
11:00 My dad was raised with an icebox, and for the remainder of his life, he referred to a refrigerator as an "ice box." He remembered the ice man coming 2x per week to put a block in the icebox, and the melting ice into a bowl for Taffy, the family dog to drink.
@josephgaviota most of our grandparents and parents had ice boxes and still referred to them as such instead of refrigerators
Same with my parents and referring to the ice box. I even picked up the term as a kid. I think I may use it again to confuse people.
STOP that horrible music
@@KennaObregon YES!!
6:32 How could anyone in a multi-story home _NOT_ think a laundry chute is a good idea?!?!?
The space it takes up & the danger it can pose. Plus tough to clean if someone chucks something gross down it. Other reasons I'd imagine as well.
It was not uncommon for clothing to get stuck in the chute and clog it up. Also it was a nice dark place for bugs and mice to live in.
I guess I stand corrected. As a person who lives in a tri-level condo, it _SEEMS_ like a good idea !
@@josephgaviota it is a good idea from where I sit. We have one that we have the door in the basement propped open, and it drops into a laundry basket. The sides are metal so nothing could build a home or get stuck.
I my current house the laundry room is on the top floor instead of the bottom.
The GOOD OLD DAYS!
I had a milk door in my kitchen 25 years ago all this time I thought it was just some sort of weird ventilation type thing to let smoke out
Sewing machines were not built-in they were in a swinging machine cabinet. It was a stand-alone piece of furniture that held the sewing machine.
Growing up in the '60's I remember going to houses that had those. I grew up with an oil furnace for heating, a washtub to take a bath and an outhouse for a toilet. Boy those were the good ole days.(Not!)
The outdoor toilet or outhouse was far too unsanitary and totally inconvenient on very cold, rainy, snowy, or hot days.
@@joelfrombethlehem It certainly did ensure that one did what needed doing and got out of there quickly though!
@kellycarver2500 What is "unhakt?" I think you misspelled whatever word you meant to use.
I bought a sewing machine cabinet for my sewing machine at a thrift store. I only sew to mend things, which isn't often. Most of the time the cabinet is used to have place for my printer and router.
Thank you for acknowledging that, although mostly gone, several of these things linger. I only wish I had the space to install an ironing board. I know they are still available to be installed.
My father bought a very old apartment building that started its life as a rooming house over a hundred years earlier. We found many interesting details over the years as we modernized it. From the flagstone foundation to the full log used as a column in the basement to the "refrigerator box" built into one of the kitchen windows.
We lived in New England where you could count on consistently cold periods in the winter. So our basement bulkhead functioned as a would be root cellars. It was perfect for storing the extra produce needed for the holidays. And even storing leftovers safely for a day or two after Thanksgiving or Christmas.
No Murphy beds? C'mon! Are you even trying? 😂
OK, nice video, but that looped music gave me such a headache I had to shut it off at 10 minutes.
One of the bad things about hanging laundry out to dry is during the spring the wet laundry would get covered with pollen while drying.
And don't forget bird doodoo also
5:40 When my best friend got married, their home had an "ironing board nook" in the kitchen.
Don't forget when Romney ran for president, he talked about his parents eating dinner on the fold-out ironing board.
We didn't need a milk door in the 1960s. The milkman actually came in to the house, took out the expired milk from our refrigerator and replaced it with fresh milk.
@@sharonheckel8899 that wasn't his reason for coming into your home, just your mom's excuse 😁. Sorry. I couldn't resist.
In the 1970s we had a little cooler that was outside on the porch. The milkman filled it and took away the empties.
Laundry chutes were still a feature at least as late as the end of the 1960s. My parents had a townhome (or rowhome) that was built in 1968 that had a laundry chute. I'm not sure if or when they disappeared. That home also featured an "intercom" system, which had a speaker mounted on the wall in the various rooms and the controls were in the kitchen. It was just a radio with a two-way speaker phone, but we thought it was high-tech. Also, at home milk delivery didn't disappear until the late 1960s as well. It might have lasted into the 1970s in some more rural areas. We had a milk box - essentially an insulated metal box - that was positioned by the front door where we received all manner of dairy products, not just milk, and left the returns. I still remember the dairy, Green Springs dairy.
@@juliancate7089 Bought my current house in 2005. Had some work done before moving in. That included adding two clothes chutes.
I grew up in a house with a clothes chute. All three houses I have owned have had a clothes chute. I like dirty laundry immediately leaving the bedroom.
@@ubermothman5584 I don't know what the percentages are compared to other areas, but here in the South, most homes since the 1980s are single-story, slab-on-grade construction, so it obviates the need for a laundry chute. Too bad.
My childhood home had a milk door. We covered it on the outside when my parents put vinyl siding on, but the inside was still accessible.
I once told my boss that I was installing a solar-powered clothes dryer. He was very excited to see it installed, but he seemed a little dismayed when I told him it was just a clothesline. However, it worked brilliantly, and I miss having space for one in my home now.
I am 70 years old an remember my mom doing that. Last year i started washing clothes outside an hanging them on the clothesline. Except in the winter when its to cold.
I've got a phone nook, iron board in the wall, laundry chute, pantry, Cold cellar, and laundry clothes line. lead glass Windows 1932 home. With a old ringer washing machine out in the backyard.
You are a very lucky person. Never let someone bring your house "up to date".
So very cool. I just love old homes because they have so much history and character unlike cookie cutter IKEA homes today
For the knob and tube wiring, couldn't you find an image of that? You showed mostly modern Romex in a junction with an older wiring system, but there wasn't a knob or tube to be seen.
Made it through less than half the video because I couldn't take any more of that infernal background music.
You missed home intercom systems.
Milk doors would be great for receiving packages
Commercial kitchens have 3 well sinks!! There are 5 steps to using it! The 3 wells are Wash, Rinse, and Sanitize!
Step #1 is scrape any food off the plate, next is the 3 wells and #5is Air-Dry the
Plates and items! Its more sanitary!!
An occasional feature not seen today was the built-in central vacuum system. When a home was built in the 1960's or 1970's, you could order an optional vacuum system, with tubes built in the walls and a central vacuum unit. You only carried a short hose from room-to-room and plugged it into a tube connector in the wall. Another common sight were TV antennas. Every house had one. Many homes also had a den, which was a quiet enclosed room which contained books, a record player, radio, small TV and a few pieces of casual furniture, for quiet relaxation and entertainment. Finally, most older homes had an incinerator in the back yard for their garbage.
Central vacuums are still around and companies designing and making modern systems for installation in new and existing homes. TV antennas are making a comeback as many people are fed up with paying high prices for cable or streaming services. I remember seeing the den as room on 1950s and 1960s TV shows but never actually knew anyone who was wealthy enough to have one. However, after I moved out of my parents' house, my father converted my bedroom into a small den for himself. My grandparents had an incinerator in their basement for the burnable trash. As I recall, they stopped because it became illegal to use in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Our house has one, but step dad broke one of the pipes in the basement, plus I felt like an astronaut attatched to a spaceship so I would rather use a regular vacuum cleaner
90% of the pictures of knob and tube wiring wasn't. It was Romex, which is still used today.
My grandmother had a clothesline till 2016 So that if I got into some thing she could just wash it and dry it on a whim
I would love ❤ a rotary clothesline like my grandmother had!!! 😊 Clothes came down the chute into a basket in the basement. After being washed in her wringer washing machine, we carried the wrung out clothes outside to the rotary clothesline. That was the coolest clothesline I ever saw!!! I've never seen one since!
If you live in Canada they are still available at Home Hardware, and I expect Lowes and Home Depot elsewhere in the US.
Amazon sells them
I have one in my back yard right now.
I live in Arizona and everyone I know uses clotheslines!
Further south of the United States we still use many of these things, largely because they are easy to use, environmentally friendly, and do not require egregious energy consumption.
I think some of these features would be useful to have back in order to take better care of our planet.
2:30 FWIW, I live in a "tri-level" condo, and it seems to me the dumbwaiter is STILL a good idea.
I think it's that people got poorer so they decided to not have to spend money on a parlor room. 10:51
I dont have to imagine home delivery of milk. I lived it. Maple Grove dairy.
should be titled, 22 things that existed in a high trust society but can't today
Dumbwaiters would be wonderful in homes today that have basement garages.
I like dumbwaiters that are manual instead of automated. Much safer than carrying stuff up and down stairs that blocks your view. Nicer to have one's hand's free for grabbing the rail...
Is it just me or did this video forget to cover the very thing they put in the Thumbnail?
I've never seen those weirdly small doors in a home but I do recall seeing some in the School Library of a School I once went to in the 90s, I never asked about them at the time.
My cousin and I used to take turns going down our grandparents laundry chute. I miss those days.
My family home was built in the early 70’s and has a laundry chute. I’ve always loved it.
I have radiators in all my rooms
Isn't that "central heating?"
We got milk delivered into metal, insulated boxes! Mmmmm
Like the video, but the music is too loud and distracting. Please at least lower the volume.
here in France i have a 4 line line i love it
Wood paneling was popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. When I was a child, both houses were lived in had rooms that were covered in paneling. Both were built in the early 1960s. It was an upgrade when you bought a house. My mother painted over them, in the early 1980s. The same with rotary clothes lines. 1960s gone by the 80s.
Paneling was a 60's and 70's decorative thing, our rowhome in Philly the downstairs had paneling, parents bought it in the 60's, my mom bought a house late 70's downstairs living room and dining room was paneled plus upstairs. My mom bought a built in Singer sewing machine at a thrift store 35 years ago. We hung clothes out in the spring and summer, loved the smell. People still hang clothes out.
Loved the history lesson! Thank you for that! But why did you torture your viewers with that eternal 10-second loop that substitutes for actual music?
We had a laundry chute growing up. Great idea, thinking about installing one😂😂😂
My dad made a laundry chute between the bathroom and laundry room. The laundry room has a built-in ironing board (built in 1931).
I'm 65 and I remember a lot of these things from the 60s and 70s. We had some of them in our house.
Pantries are trendy again now as they are so useful.
We had a milk door AND a laundry chute in the bathroom. Ranch house built in the late fifties, but with a full basement.
I grew up with a lot of these items in our home. My house now is over 100 years old and has a boiler-hot-water-radiator heating system, never got replaced with gas because no duct work for forced air. Also advent of poly-ester fabrics made ironing unnecessary. Not only did we get coal and milk delivered, but I had to help my Dad haul coal ash from the basement out to the curb for garbage pickup. So many things that were essential then are obsolete now, thx for the walk back on memory lane, and above all, love the smell of sun dried laundry!
In 1965, my dad removed the knob and tube wiring in our "new" 1912 house. Oh, and there is a root cellar.
Transoms are still around, but they're mostly decorative now, or installed for extra natural light or to make a doorway look taller. I love using transoms in The Sims 4. A lot of doors in that game have them.
I hope the built in ironing boards come back! They should’ve never been done away with.
As a child of the 50's, it was normal for all of this.
Memoriiiiiiies, I recall them all here. I'm a geezer now but this was nice bringing back times with my grandmother. :-) I still have some of these items. Handy stuff.
Music makes this unwatchable. So unnecessary.
The music is extremely loud. It makes it difficult to enjoy the video and to hear the narrator.
9:41 and I just had to stop. that music is way too loud and is fighting the narration. that's unfortunate as I would love to see the last 10 mins.
My first home had many of these features. It was built around 1900. I got a great education in dealing with all of it’s problems. From lead plumbing to knob and tube wiring. But I did used the clothes chute and telephone nook.
I remember working in old houses with wall radios and calls throughout the house
I wish I had a built in ironing board. Instead, I just don't iron. And now, we're going back to 100% cotton.
Thank God, I love the cotton well made clothes of the 50-60s I bought at K Mart. Remember ShipnShore, Bobbie Brooks? Lasted for years.
I still say the folding ironing board would still be totally practical today. I've seen a lot of these features in homes at the Los Angeles Heritage park and the Pasadena Gamble house where a lot of historical houses were moved to. I'm surprised Murphy beds were not mentioned, to me they still could be pretty practical. My 100 year old home had one, but the previous owner removed the bed and turned it into a regular closet. My neighbor and I still regularly use my clothes line, it's the only home chore I don't mind doing and in the summer my clothes can be dry in one hour.
We had a milk door. We used it as our mail box. We also had a laundry chute that was under the bathroom sink to the basement. When my sister buil t her house about 25-30 yrs. ago she had a laundry chute but in her new house. So convenient. We even had wood panneling in the 1960's. We hung our clothes outside to dry until my sister and I bought my mom a dryer.
I have fond childhood memories of my sister and I both lying on the first floor of the house while our mom threw down unwashed clothes on us from the upstairs clothes hamper.
We’d actually look forward to being bombarded with dirty clothes as we lye on our backs on the floor laughing. 😄😊
The music is so annoying!
It was a PHONE BOOK, listing every phone number in your area. All businesses in same area listed their services in the YELLOW PAGES. Both were organized alphabetically.
When I was a kid, born in '56, our phone number was PA-####. 5 digits!
My 1953 bungalow has a Milk door, laundry chute, mail slot by the front door and a backyard clothesline.
Wood paneling was mid-1950s to mid-1970s. It had gone well out of style by the 1980s. Most people got rid of it or painted over it in the 1980s. Though some homes still have it today.
I have that sewing machine that they showed. It has all the gadgets with it and everything. It Runs nice and smooth to!
I was told that nothing sews a better straight stitch than an old Singer.
At first I found the music annoying but once I started singing along I got to digging it. Cool stuff!!
10:05 talking about refrigeration in supermarkets and produce, it shows a cooler full of beer..
No one is going to mention the space helmet wearing woman?
Sewing machines were not built in they came in their own cabinet.
It was pretty obvious by all the references to the '80's that this historian is a tad out of touch with what happened when.
The house I grew up in from age 8 onwards had the push-button light switches, the laundry chute, the milk box/hatch, the tiles in the bathroom, a pedestal sink (rather than wall-hung), the ironing board in the cabinet, but no transoms over doors. It was built in the early 1930's and our family moved in in 1960.
You are correct on the sewing machine too. I have one just like the photos and another half dozen too.
My grandmother’s house was a colonial built around 1800. Among many unusual features it had a doorbell consisting of a crank on the outside of the door and about a 6” domed bell on the inside. The sound was more of a clank-clank-clank, maybe because of all the coats of paint put on it over the years.
I wish clotheslines would come back. I still remember snuggling down into clean sheets at night that were fresh off the clothesline and still had the fresh smell of outdoors on them. I’d also like wallpaper to come back although I know it’s awfully expensive.
I still use a clothesline.
We, My family, had a clothesline on our house. My Dad installed it. He bolted a piece of wood to the outside cellar wall, from there it went about 60 feet to a pole which was half an old telephone pole he got somewhere, and drove it into the ground which had a horizontal piece of wood fastened to it and a pulley so you could move the clothes along the way. There was a pulley on the house wall as well. We used white clothesline rope that you could buy in a hardware store or similar place.
People still hang clothes out, just that people are lazy now. I don't have the time, plus have a zillion birds in my rurual home or I would use a clothes line. Mom during the spring and summer or on warm fall days always used clothes lines to dry her clothes.
@ Once most women were leaving home during the day to work it was no longer possible to hang clothes out during the day and HOAs forbid clotheslines now. It’s all part of the changing society. So sad.😔
Clotheslines didn't disappear. Just industrialism and patience. I love the romanticism of a parlor and butler's pantry.
Nice video. If they ever invent a time machine, you can drop me off in 1955.
I would miss the microwave, color TV (only for rich people) and VCRs (I still use them).
We had milk delivered to our home when our kids were young. This was 15/20 years ago. It was nice having it delivered. The milk man would come twice a week. Leave new bottles and take the empties.
Radiators were awesome to hang out on after a day of play out in the snow