Pity these aren't around today! Makes life easier

My childhood home didn't just have a phone nook, it was almost a phone booth inset into the hallway with its own built in seat. All it lacked was a door. I absolutely loved it and used it for hours on end after school.

The house my grandad built had one like in the picture but it was open on the back side and had a door on the front, so you could either use it in the kitchen, or in the study, which was quieter.

I installed quarter-round shelves at the end of my kitchen cabinets, to create the effect. Now, it's used with an old fashioned, early 1900's phone, just as decoration. Cute.

The one in the picture needs to cleaned and fixed. Couldn't BP find a better one to represent the phone nook?

My house has one, I have an antique phone replica sitting in it.

I want one!

I had one of these.... until my phone fell into the washing machine.

We had a phone nooks and the phone had an extra-long cord (curled it was at least 6 feet long) because it was the only phone in the house and you might want to go around the corner for a little privacy

paddy whack give a dog a bone....

Now aren’t you glad you didn’t rip out the quality hardwood and replace it with the pressed sawdust s**t they call doors nowadays?

The attic fans should still be a thing, especially in really hot, humid areas. Depending on the particular shade of pink or green, as well as the contrasting color(s) of the tiles and porcelain, it might look kinda preppy, but it’s it really an eyesore. Some of it might be a b***h to find replacements for, though.

When I was a kid in the 50s we had a box on the front porch. One for milk and one for bread. Yes, the baker also delivered fresh bread every day.

My parents still have one full of porcelain, glass and crystal items. I had to dust them every week, and I hated it. :))

I will take a sunken living room any time. No carpet however.

Awesome!

Sunken living rooms were considered chic back in the day.

Pre-A/C and central heating, they had to be clever to stay cool. They’d design houses with great airflow, like the front and back doors lined up so upending them would allow air flow through, and make sure to plant shade trees near them, so they’d be cooler in the summer, but let a lot of sunlight—-aka solar heat—-in autumn when the leaves fell off and the colder weather rolled in. Upstairs they had screened-in sleeping porches to catch some of the cooler outside air on hot nights. If you move into an older house with these features, make use of them. It just might keep your heating and cooling bills low until the weather gets too unbearable.

Trash compactors always seemed like a waste to me. you had to buy special bags to go in them and once the trash gets to the garbage truck it gets compressed anyway.

Thought that was making a comeback.

Our family farm house had one of these as well. PROS: A lot less noise because the actual vacuum was in the basement. Better for allergy people because the outlet air is also going to the basement plus there is room down there to install some sort of HEPA filter if you want. CON: More expensive, need to be installed during house build (much easier anyway). The hose you plug into the wall is rather long since you typically had about one suction point per room. This meant the hose was kind of a PITA to roll back up and store.

I would much rather have one of these than the freestanding one I have now.

TBH, there are other ways to use them—-and I don’t mean riding in them like we did when we were dumb kids (I’m amazed I have lived to tell about all the dumb s**t we did when we were kids back in the day). If there’s no actual laundry chute, you could send your hamper down in it. If someone in the family is sick in bed on the upper floor of the house, you can send their dinner up—-and back down—-without having to balance it to avoid spilling anything while going up and down the stairs. Lots of things can be moved between floors in old dumb waiters without anyone having to negotiate the stairs. Think outside the box, folks!

Those finished basements WERE the rec rooms! Absolutely perfect for kids’ sleepovers too. They have some privacy, but you’re still in the house to intervene if something happens. Just get your a*s up and go check on them to be sure they’re OK, ffs.

Cedar closets are supposed to be moth-proof. They also smell nice. So please don’t rip the cedar linings out.

As well as whole house intercom systems.

Eh, if you have the room, I don’t see a problem with this still being a thing.

Agreed. So this one really depends on the room.

You mean for dough rising?

Pro tip, if you have a decent amount of piercings water beds are NOT your friend

Apartment buildings used to have these too, for burnable trash, along with a garbage chute for the other trash. Thing is, a lot of what we throw out, like plastic, ended up in the incinerators, and created toxic smoke. So we don’t incinerate trash anymore.

And may they STAY gone too.

My dad bought wireless intercoms when I was a kid so he wouldn’t have to yell or figure out what room everyone was in when dinner was ready.

Imagine if you pulled up the metal plate there and be able to witness 70 years of different meals and things 😳

Not a bad thing, and as long as there are people who are well-read, and have any sense of romance, canopy beds should never completely go away.

Good place for cookbooks or knick-knacks, or your nicer mixing bowls.

I always liked the look of these. Very 60s.

Omg, my mom even had dishware sets that matched the wallpaper

If you have the space and don't need it for anything else, why not.

Your dad lived in a house that was in what used to be a very wealthy neighborhood.

That typo really brought me to the brink.

I had no idea what a 'double-hung window' was. It appears to be a sash window where both the top and bottom sashes move. This is the only type of sash windows I have encouncountered. They are incredibly common in Scottish houses built before 1930.

It's just that in the past, appliances really lasted a lifetime and it was possible to repair them without spending more than the purchase price (as happens today), so the practicality of replacing or dismantling them was put on the back burner.

Or the awful flock wall paper. Generally seen in Indian restaurants here in England.

My home from 1935 has a detached garage and we can JUST fit our 2023 tacoma in it. They aren't meant for modern sized cars at all.

I hated them back in the day,. I thought they were tacky and looked like the walls of a bordello. I would not have them in my house now, even if they become the height of chic. I will take my regular non-reflective walls any day, and choose to put up A mirror in one spot on one wall, not the entire circumference of the damned room, thank you very much.

Sixties to seventies. Considered really cool and sexy, but a b-i-t-c-h to make and to even find sheets for. Ditto for the water bed, which followed it. Water beds were actually rather comfortable, plus they were normal bed-shaped and you could get sheets for them, but they were highly impractical, especially if you had pets with claws. Not to mention children. As people found out the hard way.

Some of them were light wood, so not dark and depressing. Have yours sanded and stained lighter, if you can, and maybe they won’t be so bad.

To the extent that tube TVs in general are obsolete. But having a small flat display in the kitchen isn't height of luxury and some folks even have one built into their fridge (which I think is dumb).

Nowadays, attic ventilation is typically covered by proper venting.

How are they an easy way in? they are supposed to be in the middle of buildings. Maybe a US atrium is different to what I think of as an atrium.

There’s a joke there, but it’s been a long time since I was 9 years old, so I’m not saying a word.