Mysterious Home Features No Longer Used

48 thoughts on “Mysterious Home Features No Longer Used”

1. The reason the laundry chute is no longer a thing is because it's illegal in many jurisdictions as it is a fire hazard. You will note that most homes now (with the exception of the stairwell) try to block air from moving from floor to floor except in fireproof ducts. In the event of a fire of the house would catch fire very quickly from floor to floor with a laundry chute

2. 😎

3. My front door has a turnkey in the middle of the door that rings the doorbell.

4. Thank you. Very interesting and nostalgic video. Yes, we can surely learn lessons from the past.

   in the UK we had fire insurance marks or plaques on the outside of houses which were metal plaques marked with the emblem of the insurance company which were affixed to the front of insured buildings as a guide to the insurance company's fire brigade. These identification marks were used in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in the days before municipal fire services were formed. if you didn't have one of these, your fire would not be attended.

5. Dude, dumb waiters could still be a “thing”, if someone takes the trouble to wake up early and cook super tasty breakfasts…. 😁😁😁😁

6. Great video! I grew up in a house from 1909 and had every one of those! One other would be sash chains or cords with the weight behind in the moulding to hold the windows open. ✌️

7. If you currently live on a homestead, a root cellar is very handy to store your root vegetables. People are actually building root cellars much like the one showed in the video. Someday soon, we may be regretting how dependent we’ve become on the grocery store

8. Yes people still like Transoms and sidelights for doors

9. Im going to need boot scrapers at the homestead. We live in the desert and between caked sand, cow pies, and cacti, you’ve gotta clean your shoes before you go inside.

10. Heres a feature thats gone: an affordable house 🏠

11. A few of these features are actually still used today..

12. 2:58 I have one in my home, which was built in 1973. I almost never use it.

13. We just bought a home that was built the 1960 and only had one owner. We actually have a laundry shoot in our bedroom. I think the room was originally supposed to be a dining room because it has two doors, and before we remodeled it had a chandelier. I love my old house and the random features like that. The laundry shoot is one of my most favorite things about this house when we put in new floors we actually got a handle for it and everything. It’s incredibly convenient. I actually love doing laundry now.

14. The home we currently own was built in 1920. It is a lovely spacious beast and has many of the features highlighted in this video. When we initially toured the house prior to buying it I distinctly remember the youngish agent commenting that "you can always paint all that wood" Beautiful oak trim and stairs etc. Needless to say it is still original oak. The agent also pointed out that the wall between the kitchen could be torn out for a more open concept. Again, nope! The kitchen comes with an original swing door (similar to a restaurant) it's a keeper. Mostly it stays open but it's just cool. To have. No laundry chute. Small second floor bedroom converted to a laundry room so no need.

15. What about a video about things not longer seen in apartment buildings? One thing would be a mail chuter or a cooper mailbox.

16. I love different rooms. I hate open concept. Love pocket doors. Great video.

17. Do people still have a staircase that they could full down from the ceiling and unfold to get into that attic? Do they still have attics?

18. My Aunt has a laundry chute in her house. I always thought it was the coolest thing.

19. Laundry chutes are still being made in new houses

20. Lmao landlines

21. grandmothers house in pittsburgh had one of those but I don't remember a door to the basement from outside. The toilet was just at the bottom of the stairs from the upper level along with a shower which was just cement all around

22. We have an intercom system in our house! It even works, though not very well. I always thought it was odd because the house is fairly small and you can definitely shout at one end of the house and have someone on the other end hear you. It was probably only there because it was supposed to be the "all-electric house of the future" and the builders wanted to cram as much unnecessary but cool stuff into it as they could so that it would sell…

23. Ice doors were used for other deliveries like milk when ice was no longer delivered with the invention of electric ice boxes.

24. In older homes I see windows that go all the way down to the floor.

25. You could use the milk door for Amazon delivery put a lock on it

26. Thanks!

27. We had milk delivered until the 1990s! One time my
    parents couldn’t find anyone to stay with us while they took a brief vacation, so the milkman and his wife babysat! There were rumours later on that he was a pedophile, but I remember him as a gentle giant who doted on my sister and me.

28. The house I bought in 1993, was built in 1905. It started out as a single floor structure, with a small bedroom in the pitched roof, second story. Then is was added on to,…a whole 2nd floor, and even a fairly roomy third floor, and a new stairway,…this was in 1927. In 1927, the plumbing came indoors, as there had been an outhouse, back in 1905. In 1927, they added a huge living room, that spanned the whole front of the house. Then in around 1930 to 1940, the basement was dug out, and the stone block foundation was replaced with cement blocks. In 1993, there was still a coal room, and an outside coal chute. Though the furnace was a modern forced air model, the original one had been a coal burning, "gravity" (convection) furnace. By 1950, the coal room had been converted into a vegetable canning room. Other rooms had been built to store the cans & mason jars of food to be preserved. By 1960, those other rooms had been turned into a "dark room", for photo development. Houses from the 1900s also had small gas stoves in them, for heating up water to make "starch", which was used to stiffen collars & dress vests, for mens clothing. There was a hinged ironing board, in its own wall mounted cabinet, that flipped out, when it was needed. And an old cement lined, double sink was there also. The cement could handle the strong lye based cleaning detergents. In 1995, my neighbor removed a 1940s Ringer-washer, a very primitive washing machine, from his basement. A simple machine with ringer rollers, that one manually operated via a hand crank, to squeeze excess water from ones clothing. I took it and turned it into a backyard planter, as an artsy, retro, decor item.

29. My childhood house, had a "milk bottle" delivery door, near our side door. It was a cork lined box, where the Milkman could make his delivery to. It had a secure latch, but was not locked, on the inside or outside. When crime began to rise in the late 1970s, teenaged criminals, would enter people's home, through that door, which was too small for a full-sized adult, to enter.

30. I'm not sure if this old memory was covered, but in houses that were called Bungalows, most were built in the 1920s, had a special bed, that was concealed into a bench, usually in a large hallway. The bed could be cranked outside. The bench on the inside, had cushions on it. To sleep on it, the cushions would be removed, and the whole bed could be rolled out of the side of the house, on its own platform, through a special door, or drop down panel. When it was drawn back into the house, a door or panel closed, hiding it from view outside. I read about this, in a book about Bungalows.

31. Still have my landline. My dad refuses to get a cellphone so my parents still have their's too, with each room having a phone plugged in the wall.

32. You brought back so many memories of my best friend's house when I was a kid! She lived in a beautiful old Victorian home that had a lot of these features. We loved to play around with the intercoms and take rides in the dumb waiter, and I remember those push button light switches, and thought they were really cool. She even had a servant's stairway which came in handy when we played hide and seek in that giant 3 story house. I wish I could go back and see it today 😪

33. Thank you. Philadelphia USA

34. I grew up on a farm and we had a root cellar that was hand-dug by my great grandfather. We would store our potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage heads, onions, apples, pears, canned vegetables and fruits. It was built into an embankment behind the old farmhouse. When we moved into our grandparents house built in the 30's we lost our root cellar, but used the basement of the house as a cellar and pantry. Our newer 1930's era farmhouse had a laundry shoot in it. I would throw clothes from the upstairs bathroom into it, and it would go into a laundry bin in the downstairs bathroom where we did our laundry. We also had a clothes line in the kitchen. These were round metal devices that had a certain amount of feet of cord in them. Y ou pulled on the end of it and the line would come out and you ran it to a hook on the other side of the room.

35. We built a house in 2019 and we have 3 pocket doors.
    I love 'em!

36. I love your videos. I was born in 2001

37. Speaking of toilets in random places, my great-great aunt and her daughter somehow installed a toilet in their garage. They somehow managed to hook it up to the the water line that she used for her washing machine. Eventually they got rid of it. But my mother had told me years ago that her (late) oldest sister owned a home that had a bathroom in the kitchen. I found that really strange of having a small bathroom so near to the kitchen.

    The house my (late) great-great aunt and he daughter owned which went up for sale a couple of years ago after being renovated was supposedly a house built in 1925. The house still possess the fireplace and area to clean out ashes. The crystal doorknobs with the skull key holes. Built in cabinets that were set into the walkway. These cabinets were located on each side of the walk way. You could store brick a brack inside. When I saw the renovation for the house they mentioned that build in cabinets retained the doors with the little latch nobs. I was surprised, because when houses are renovated sometimes they get rid of stuff if it's warped or broken. There was even a window rest. It was both a storage and seating area set into the wall under the windows. I never knew what it was because it was always occupied with stuff. Or as my great-great aunt used to say, "junk". But a lot of people down south in Florida included my great-great aunt had or lived in older homes during the 70's contained inside porches.

38. Great video! Great content! Thanks 😊

39. My wife loves open floor plans! Honestly I can't stand them! Yes open floor plans make a home look bigger! But I prefer every room more or less closed off!

40. I learned a lot from the video well done 👏 x

41. The access to some of these rooms, through a closet or concealed wall panel, is intrigueing and trying to discern the presence of these rooms from the outside is near impossible. Smaller homes may have them, too. Narrow, discreet passageways makes it fun to 'magically' appear in different rooms and surprise your guests, even though the original intent was for servants. Homes SHOULD be fun!

42. Hah, I have that exact Nutone intercom system in my house… 🙂 House built right around 1960. Still works too! AM/FM radio as well. In living room, with speaker/mic in each of 3 bedrooms, plus one outside by front door.

43. Our house has a laundry chute.

44. Pittsburgh potty!?! I had no idea they were called that! I had one in my house and in a rental house. I have had push button light switches, boot scrapers, razor blade slots, coal hoppers, plaster ceilings and walls in my current 98 year old home. My friend had a secret passage in her home on the Ohio River Blvd. It opened up from a secret compartment in the house and had stairs going down to the Ohio River. This area was the end of the line for the Underground Railroad. Pretty cool!

45. I learned that here,in Worcester Massachusetts we are known for Triple Deckers. The Main Staircase that connected all 3 floors was guite wide. That was so Caskets could be carried into the home….where Wakes and Funerals were held.

46. 1:50 Thanks for making me feel super old. I remember when these phone jacks were introduced.

47. My grandparents had those porcelain insulators in their home into the 1960s. Electricity was added to the house after it was built in the 1920s.

    My bedroom in that house had a roll around chest with a mirror and a place to hang shirts and pants.

    The windows had sash weights to help raising and lowering them.

48. i love my old apartment's Transom window.

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