If you could bring back one old feature into modern homes, what would it be?

The concept behind Milk Doors could easily be updated for modern package delivery. Given the high rates of package theft in many areas, this seems like a feature that ought to make a comeback.

One of the things that disappeared was affordable housing prices.

The sleeping porch is one I'd bring back.

While sitting in a sweltering Chicago classroom, there was no better phrase to here than the teacher saying “Open the transom”! Small relief - but it was at least SOMETHING!!!

Many older homes in Denmark have a very small pre entry room called a “wind catch”. It’s usually no more than 4x4 ft. and functions like an airlock: When entering the home, you close the outer door before opening the inner one to avoid letting in too much cold air in the winter.

I'd love to see transom windows make a comeback. I think they look cool and they'd allow for light to pass thru into hallways.

Butlers Pantry and Transom Windows were super nice features

#11: A mother AND a father, in the same house, at the same time. I miss the good old days.

We live in a Victorian home and have transom windows and a parlor room. We also have a butlers pantry. I didn’t even know what it was when we moved in a year and a half ago. The detail in this house on the woodwork is amazing! I still can’t get over it. I sometimes have to stop and admire it still.

Fun Fact about Parlors: The reason why we call them "Living Rooms" now instead of just keeping the name "Parlor" was because the Parlor was often where wakes were held when someone passed away. But after the scarlet fever epidemic that took many children's lives, the term Parlor became synonymous with death, especially of children. So people stopped calling it something related to death, and started calling it the "Living Room." We also stopped holding wakes in houses about that same time.

I just learned about Chimney Cupboards when someone asked on Facebook “what’s this random framed out narrow hole in my wall”. Apparently it was common to have a small closet next to the chimney where the heat from the exposed bricks could keep things warm. Could be used for food, linens, etc

A butler's pantry sounds like a dream come true for those of us with limited storage.

Transom windows are seriously in need of a comeback. I owned a home from 1897 that had a butler's pantry. The craftsmanship on the wood was really nice and gave me extra storage places for dry food stuff.

You forgot the razor blade disposal slot, a slot in the ablutions room, which is basically a wall cavity you couldn't empty.

I’m 72 years old. When I was a small child, my family had an icebox. It never needed repair.

I’m in my sixties. My dad called the refrigerator “the icebox” till he died in 2011. When he was a kid in the 1920s and 30s, they had an icebox. We always had an ice pick in the house though when I was little we used it when “defrosting” the fridge as they were not self defrosting. The freezer would build up ice and you had to periodically thaw and chop it out. But in my dads day the ice pick was for the icebox. My elderly cousin (my dads first cousin) also told us about the death door. They used to play in it. But if was for removing a body after the wake (which would be in the home). We had a mailbox not a door but we had milk and bread delivered. So much of this stuff is only a few generations old. Talk to your elders people! They lived what is history to you

Fun fact related to coal chutes: A family in the 80s, if I recall, stared receiving a phone call every hour during the days to their home phone, for weeks on end, with always just static and silence on the other end. They wondered if it was some kind of harassment, but after a long investigation, it turned out some local fuel company staff had added an old auto-dial machine to a customer’s home fuel tank, set to dial the fuel company number when the fuel level ran low. It was eventually triggered, but by that time, the fuel company was no longer in business and the number had been reassigned to the family. So the calls were made by the machine when the level in someone’s basement became low.

What I miss is the formality of houses at that time. Homes are typically open concept now and many of these features would not fit modern houses. I still prefer houses where there were many rooms. They just lent themselves to more privacy and a more structured way of living. When dinner was in the dining room, the meal was an event.

My grandfather was a milkman, and my family continued to receive milk deliveries until I was about five (I'm 57 now). We did not have a "milk door," however; we had an insulated bin on the front porch. The milkman would deliver the milk in glass bottles and place them in the milk bin; we would leave the empty bottles in the bin for him to pick up.

I was born shortly after WWII and most of these shared items were part of my early childhood in the eastern United States.Thank you.

As a kid, the arrival of the milkman was always fun. The glass bottles were gold tops and blue tops, blue tops were standard milk, gold tops were extra creamy, the top inch or 2 was like cream. We fought over that one.

Another thing that could've been mentioned is built-in laundry chutes. As a youngster, the neighborhood I lived in was all homes built from around 1920 through the '40s. My house (and most of my friends') had a little door in a hallway on each level that opened to a sheet-metal shaft, probably around 16 x 16 inches in size, built into the wall and dropping straight down into the basement where the washing and drying machines were. They weren't dumb waiters because there was no lift system, just an empty, open-bottomed, vertical shaft. We kids couldn't be made to stop using the laundry chute as a play thing (dropping army men and who knows what else down it) and, afraid for our safety, my parents ended up nailing the doors shut. ☹ That house also had picture rails and many in that neighborhood had the built-in milk delivery boxes. By my time, though, they were no longer in use and had been sealed up.

The house I grew up in was an old Victorian mansion built in 1899, and I remember it still having most of these features, plus some that weren't covered here. Our house had a laundry chute that was really handy, and it also had the remains of an old servant call system, called an annunciator. The panel and all the call buttons were still there, but it didn't function. I believe it was originally connected to an old battery that was long gone. My favorite thing, though, and I don't know if these were actually original to the house or not, were these spare beds that lowered down out of the ceiling via a crank on the wall. I have never seen anything like them in another house. Mine and my 3 siblings' bedrooms all had them, and we used them when we had friends over to spend the night. When I was in high school, I would use the one in my room to hide things I wasn't supposed to have, like cigarettes, pot, nudie magazines, etc. 😅

Parlors were used for wakes and home funerals, and it changed how people viewed the room. The term “living room” changed the view of that room.

My home was built in 1890 and i still have knob and tube wiring, a milk door, coal chute and all kind of yesteryear crap. Love it

We had transom windows in school. I spent my entire school days in schools without AC, and didn't notice. The combination of high ceillings, transom windows, and open outside windows kept the rooms comfortable. Even today the proper use of double hung windows can keep our houses cool, but the lower ceiling height negates the effect quite a bit.

Could you imagine being the young generation that grew up when pluming and drainage in homes was the newest thing. That was probably more life changing for society than the internet was.

My grandparent's home in central PA had a coal chute, a shower head and simple toilet in their basement, with no walls for privacy. There was a sun porch with radiant flooring underneath. There were 2 sleeping porches on the back of the house on the 2nd floor. And the attic was reached with a stairway inside a closet, not a drop-down ladder or trap door entry. I think it was built in the 1880s or 1890s. It was a well loved home!

My grandfather was one of those "milk thieves". At the age of eight, he was orphaned when his last parent passed away. Forced to live on the streets because nobody would take him in, he resorted to stealing milk and other food items in order to survive. An aunt who lived on the mountain in the next county eventually took him in and raised him.

Can you imagine how handy it would be as a renter to have a picture rail? I feel that if we all could hang wall art without worrying about damaging property, we'd be more likely to stay in the same place because it would feel like home.

When my Grandfather began work, he did carving and styling of iceboxes. I have an oak one in my bedroom, used for sweaters and fragile items. Lovely pieces of furniture, some kept in parlors to be admired.

i have 3 of these old home features in my apartment, a milk door, knob and tube wiring, and picture rail. the apartment was built in 1924, and i chose it for its charming elegance, although it’s a bit of a fixer upper. i could never fathom living in a modern box house 😢

My mother, born in 1913, used the term icebox and refrigerator interchangeably. When I went to college, the dorm rooms all had picture rails so that we students wouldn't damage the walls by making holes.

I owned a 1905 Sears and Roebuck home in Iowa that had the original milk door still intact in the back on the summer porch. When we remodeled the outside, we made sure to keep the milk door intact. I’m so glad we decide to save that little piece of history.

There were 11 children in mom’s family and my auntie inherited the house. There was a parlor that we kids called “The Quiet Room.” It was usually closed up but she would let us go in there and play. Beautiful hardwood floors and beautiful furniture plus an old record player that played 78 records. We grew up with Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, the Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis etc. great upbringing. Good memories 😢

The dumbwaiter and milk doors are awesome. Dumbwaiters were used not only to transport meals, but also for moving furniture and for laundry. Up until the 1950's, the laundry, especially in large homes, was washed in the basement and dried in the attic, then ironed and taken and put away. It was major work. And it all had to stay hidden from prying eyes if you lived in a city or a big home. :) You can learn a lot by touring old homes! When I was a child, we lived in a few very old homes that had clothes chutes that went to the basement for laundry, butler's pantries, servant's bathrooms, coal chutes. They're still around. :) Great video.

Dumbwaiters, even if mechanical, are still as practical today as then. It's a lot safer than trying to carry something large or heavy up a flight (or more) of stairs, so I think they should be brought back as a standard feature in homes with multiple stories.

I remember being a kid growing up in the suburbs of Denver (early ‘80s) and I had some cousins who lived downtown in an old Victorian. It had all of the features mentioned herein, plus a bunch of secret staircases between the walls that we kids would often use to sneak up on the grownups and each other. I suppose those were originally intended for the servants.

My house was built as a school in 1870 and converted to a Craftsman style home in 1915. I have the transoms, picture rails, butler's pantry and parlor. I love it all!

I love how elegant and cozy those old homes are. There are separate rooms with doors, and each room has a distinct purpose. I am not a fan of the currently popular "open floor" concept in home architecture. It feels like living in a large warehouse.

There is still a functioning dumbwaiter in the apartment where my mom grew up, which was probably built in the 1920s. Don't recall if it was manual or electric. My mom told me she grew up on the fourth floor and the building didn't have elevators, so when my grandmother went grocery shopping, the dumbwaiter was a big relief; she wouldn't have to lug all those bags up four flights of stairs.

I really like the transom windows, dumb waiters, picture rails, and the butler's pantry. I'd like to see those in newly built homes.

I grew up in a Chicago apartment building with a coal chute door that opened on the alley for deliveries. Coal was used for the furnace into the Sixties! I remember the fine ash it left on my face and how that dirtied the snow.

The house across the street from me has a coal chute. My nephew once owned a house that had knob & tube wiring in the basement. There was also a basement joist that still had bark on the narrow length.

My sister's house, built in the 40s on the side of Mt. Davidson in San Francisco, had an interesting feature. Because it was 4 levels, it had a central vacuum cleaner on one floor, and air vents to each room in the house. All you had to lug around was the brush and suction hose, which was plugged into the vent in the wall. Made cleaning much more convenient.

I live in the most common British housing stock, Victorian terrace, but have kept all original features; that means I don’t need air conditioning even in the hottest summer, and in the winter we light the fires in our bedrooms. I love my home; it’s perfect.

My house was built in 1920 and has a coal chute and the remnants of a transom window. The window was filled in and painted over when an addition was built onto the house in 1935. That door, which was the back door to the house, is now the doorway from the kitchen to the mud room

Very educational video! As someone who loves architecture and history, this was very fascinating! And know I know what that large sqaure metal cast iron door I discovered on an house we painted was used for. It was an coal shoot and makes sense as the house was built in the time period coal was commonly used to heat homes.

When my grandmother was a small child, her parents operated a speak easy in Chicago. Whenever the police would show up, my grandmother would get into the dumbwaiter with the booze, someone would lift it up so it was in between floors then my grandmother would wedge it so it wouldn't budge. If they asked, the police were told that it was broken and didn't work. When they would try to lower or raise it, it be firmly stuck.

The change from parlor to livingroom also has roots in the change of the funeral industry. When it cost more money to have hour loved one laid out in a funeral parlor, that became a status symbol. You could afford someone else to take care of it and hold viewings there and so the room was only used for living people, hence the living room.

My apartment building was built in 1927 and has milk doors, picture rails, and built-in ironing boards. I love living here.

We had transom windows at school. We had a living room at home that functioned like a parlor with no tv. We had a piano and pump organ with a sofa and chairs. This room was usually used on Sunday and special occasions and holidays. I also remember coal furnaces until Highschool. We like to watch it being shoveled before school. I really enjoyed this . Thank you.

My first home was large 2 story with a basement that was built in the 1880s in Colorado Springs and we paid the princely sum of $16,000 in 1975. We had the parlor that could be closed off by a set of pocket doors. All windows in the house were leaded glass. All the rooms had ridiculously high ceilings with the picture rails.The wiring was still the knob and tube style. We not only had the coal chute, but still had the "iron octopus" furnace, but that had been converted to natural gas. There was a formal dining room separated from the kitchen by a pass thru butlers pantry and could be closed off by french doors. The single bathroom upstairs had the original clawfoot bathtub and the wooden high tank with pull chain toilet. It was definitely an upper class home of it's day and sometimes it felt like living in a museum. The icing on the cake was that the home was in perfect condition and needed no repairs when we moved in.

Over the years I've lived in several older homes that had bulk bins in the kitchens. Generally, they would hold about 50 lbs. These bins were built into the kitchen cabinets and usually lined with tin (to keep rats and mice away). They were meant to store flour, sugar, cornmeal, beans, or any other dry goods the family used a lot of.

I own the home I grew up in, which belonged to my great-grandparents. It has a parlor, complete with the original furniture and piano, and is off the living room. We also have a walled off space next to the furnace which my mom always called the cistern. There was never any water in it, though. Now I am wondering if it was for coal, since I know there used to be a coal burning furnace in the cellar. This was very interesting!

The best feature that we don't have today is actually being able to buy a home.

My daughter lives in a old apartment building in Michigan. The central hallways still have the milk doors, but plastered over on the inside of the apartment. Her unit still has picture rails in her living and dining room, a phone niche, and a built in ironing board.

Growing up in older homes in Detroit, we always had a milk door. We’d use it to store our spare key, and there were times we’d just slide ourselves through it if we got locked out. I can definitely see the benefit of it now with the amount of deliveries we receive. We also had foyers that had double doors and would block the outside cold from getting to the rest of the house

My old house has a spot for an old Murphy bed. I saw one old house with picture rails at the Heritage Park in Pasadena, CA. Another old feature I remember at my grandfathers place was a hand lever at the top of the stairs you could pull that opened the front door by cable. Worked great.

My cousin used to own a house filled with crawlspaces and weird two foot tall rooms with windows in them. We called them Monster Houses, because most of them were very dark service or storage spots, but the two rooms with actual windows became our little hidey-holes as kids. I miss those so much, and I’m putting monster houses in my dream house for my kids to enjoy :)

Parlors also had beautiful double pocket doors that operated as smooth as silk and were fine grained lumber.

One cool thing I discovered in an old home (I’m a plumber) is one of the first natural gas clothes dryer. It wasn’t a tumble dryer like today, you actually hung your clothes in a gas fired ‘closet’!

My family’s lived in what used to be an old farmhouse for three generations now (over 50 years)! We have SO many old things. A lot of our furniture belonged to my grandpa’s parents and are at least 80+ years old at this point. We have an ice box by our entryway, and since it’s always been there, I didn’t think anything of it as a kid; I always thought it was a cabinet. When I found out it was an old ice box I thought it was so cool! After that I began to notice the other antiques we have even more. My grandparents used these old-fashioned potbelly stoves for bedside tables, and I never even noticed before that! Point is, antiquities like these are awesome! It’s sad that so many things have been lost to time or replaced with something better, but it just makes looking back on what used to be standard even better! It’s amazing seeing how far we’ve come!

My friends moms Victorian home had lots of cool historic features. Both he and his mom were really into the history of it. I thought it was pretty amazing myself. Even though it had been renovated, and modernized they kept everything original and utilized it if possible. The garage was originally a stable and had 2 horse stalls, and even some equipment for a horse drawn carriage, that was 100 years old. The doors were the original doors. The home had the largest fireplace in the kitchen I have ever seen. 3 adults could sit inside. It was not functioning and held plants, and the dogs bed. There were 3 other working fireplaces in the home. In the parlor/living room, and one in each of the 2 bedrooms. There had been more but they were filled in. Every doorway had the window above, for light and air. There were places designated for lanterns or candles in the walls. There was an oil lantern, original to the house still in its place on the fancy staircase. It was decor and did not work. It had milk doors, both in the front and the back. 2 staircases, one hidden, very basic and one fancy with a beautiful iron and oak railing. The hidden stair case was behind the built in ice box; it led to the servants quarters on the 3rd floor, it was the only way to get to those rooms. We were allowed to smoke in those rooms, because the smell stayed in that area, and didn’t permeate the rest of the house. Nice in winter, to not have to go outside. They used it for medicine that needed to be stored in a cool dry place. All the rooms had a window over the doors. Lots of stained lead glass. All original. The pocket doors made the rooms twice as big or smaller. The music room was originally a conservatory off the kitchen, with planters that still grew mint and parsley.. my friends said the plants were really old and they always forgot about them but they always grew in every Spring. We had a lot of fun in that house. There were so many details I don’t remember. I don’t even know if he still lives there. He loved the home and so did his mom so I cant imagine they would sell it.

My Grandmother's house was a 3 story Victorian house of clapboard painted exterior built in the late 1800s. It had all the features in this video except a dumb waiter. Every room originally had a small fireplace that had been sealed with bricks that were faced with decorative tiles once central coal heating was installed. She had 11 children and 20 grandchildren. We all met there on Christmas night for cookies and hot chocolate. It had a front stairway and a rear stairway to the second floor, which had a single stairway to the 3rd floor. After her death @89 yro, a wonderful family bought it and maintained it with improvements like insulation. The 3 car garage had formerly been a carriage house.

My grandparents' circa 1900 home in Pittsburgh PA had an item not mentioned here: An instantaneous central hot water heater. It was made by Ruud, had a cast iron housing, and held a large copper coil inside. That coil had about 50 turns and was about 24" in diameter. A natural gas burner with a large round nozzle sat in the bottom center of the copper coil. There was no storage tank. When you opened a hot water tap, a water pressure switch on the heater activated the gas burner. Very hot water arrived upstairs within less than a minute.

Very interesting and well-presented, well organized bit of history!

Milk delivery is amazing, I'm in the UK and it's still a thing here. LOVE IT. Had to make a little box to keep the milk that sits outside as we don't live in a home with a milk door, would be an amazing feature. Dumbwaiters, laundry shoots, butler's pantries and milk doors should all come back!

I wonder if the milk door is ready for an updated revival, maybe call it an Amazon Door? Useful way to get packages delivered without risking porch thieves. Also, I'd love to see picture rails make a comeback--damned useful in my opinion. I've still got framed art we haven't hung because it's tough to find a spot that isn't just drywall, that also looks good.

I grew up in a large house. The basement contained the boiler for the steam radiators, had a coal door with a chute, and a bomb shelter which was added during WWII. Our garage was originally a carriage house, and still had stables. The first two floors of the house were for the family, complete with a dumbwaiter and laundry chutes, and the uppermost floor contained the servants' quarters.

Bring back transoms (they're pretty, let in light, and could lower the AC usage), milk doors (package delivery), and dumbwaiters (very useful! We use Dad's stair lift as one to help with laundry and heavy items), and making fridges look like old ice boxes. Mom's childhood home had a coal shed and she and her siblings loved it (it wasn't necessary for coal anymore, so it was something to play with).

I still call it an ice box. Loved the ice man truck with beautiful ice. Transoms are still effective used along with AC and can save you money on your utility bill.

Knob and post wiring, to the best of my knowledge, was not a "less expensive" alternative, but the standard of the industry at the time. I have never seen any other method used from that period whether more expensive or otherwise.

I found out that the recessed area in the hallway wall wasn’t intended as a bookshelf, but was the space for the phone! Maybe you can include that if you choose to do a follow-up video on this topic 😊

The house we lived in when I was a teen had a milk chute, coal chute, butlers pantry and a laundry chute. It also had stamped brick and a huge cedar closet in the attic as well as lead glass windows. Definitely my most favorite home.

Just like the picture rail, chair rails were also common. They also prevented damage to the walls from the top of a chair rubbing against it. They were also a beautiful decorative touch as you could split the color and/ or wallpaper between top and bottom.

The house I grew up in was built in 1902 .. Laundry chute was strategically placed so that it had a door in the attic (for the butler's apartment), the 2nd floor (for family use), the kitchen on the 1st floor (for the maid's use) and then finally in the basement in the laundry room. Our butler's pantry also had a cabinet with a radiator in it, for warming plates. All the bedrooms had dressers built into the closets. The house had a front door, a back door and a service entrance with a tiled foyer for catering, that opened into the dining room. Each of these doors and the master bedroom had doorbells that rang in the kitchen, with a dial indicating which room or door required attention. There was also a brass tube about 2" diameter between all the floors that worked as an intercom, each with a little door that would whistle when you blew into it. Both front and back doors had tiled foyers to take off snow covered boots and both had coat closets with windows, allowing you a view to see what the weather was like.

The home theater room going to be part of this list pretty soon. I first learned about it from my father's magazines from the late 70s and 80s. There are new homes which still build theater rooms but I reckon it is more like a childhood dream/want than something really useful. By the way, the library already gone.

We lived in an old farmhouse that had the transom windows, the milk doors and a dumbwaiter. I will have them built into my house when I have one built. Our upstairs also had ‘milk doors‘ that were for storing items. They were under the roof, so the area was large enough, and my children loved playing in those areas, and we actually put beds in them for the kids to use when family with children came to visit and stay for a while. I miss that old farmhouse, but it burned to the ground in 1985.

Not shown in the video, but I really liked the fold-down ironing board which was in the kitchen of an apartment that I rented. Was in it's own little built in cabinet with a shelf for the iron. Sounds like a weird location, but the kitchen was huge and had a counter which separate the cooking area from what was obviously the original location for the washer/dryer. A second counter was along the wall in the laundry area, apparently for folding clothes.

When I was about 9, my parents purchased the home of my grandparents where my mom lived as a teenager. As our family grew, they eventually renovated the servants quarters into a bedroom/suite for me, as I was the eldest. This meant adding hallway access along the second story as originally you had to go to the basement and through a hallway, the basement rooms (3 plus a well room) then up 4 flights of stairs. We had the coolest house.

My house was built in 1960. It has a milk door and laundry shute. I lived in some of those 0ld Victorian mansions as a child. Love them!

My house was built in 1901. I was looking behind a cabinet in the basement and I saw it had a coal chute in the front of the house. Also it still has some of the knob and wires in the attic.

I've seen older homes with huge internal sliding double doors between rooms. They can be opened when there are a lot of guests coming and going or closed to seal off parts of the house. That would was nice to have in a home -- open and closed concepts at the same time.

I used to own a 100-year-old home with a milk door - so interesting! I thought it was a useful mail door where the post carrier could put smaller packages as needed (that's what we used it for).

My first house was built in 1925, I lived there from 2019 to 2023. It had a coal shoot (which had been welded shut) and knob & tube wiring. It was a beautiful first home and I loved it so much, but was very tired of living in town and being terrorized by a disturbed teenage neighbor.

My mum used to work in an office attached to a large house which had servants’ bells. The master or mistress would pull a cord near to the door and in the kitchen was a large wooden framed metal panel showing from which room the bell had been rung. I think it had six different rooms on it, each indicated by a small window which would change colour.

My grandparents bought their home in 1930 for $1,600. It was heated w coal. I loved the coal chute, can see it to this day. The coal room, in the basement, was fascinating. I recall it was quite a big deal when they paid to install central heating -- I believe it was gas? As their stove was? They had a creamy-white 1920's refrigerator, with the classic cream white, ribbed cylinder on top -- what was that, the motor? They also had an icebox in the basement. The entire basement was as spotless as the house above. Spotless and perfectly enamelled, also wallpapered, w crystal chandeliers. Wide, mahogany? door trim, casings, doors, huge, 10?"11"? mahogany baseboards. "Oriental" rugs on the wood-planked, stained & waxed floors. Linoleum in the bath (clawfoot tub) + kitchen. Oh, my, a laundry chute in a pantry right off the kitchen, with the closed-in outside porch room, THEN back door + screen door (always, in those days) and outside porch & steps. Glorious ornamental + edible huge garden. Queen Anne's Lace, a huge lilac, roses. Peonies were Grandma's favorite flower. Peaches, apples, apricots, nectarines, cherries, strawberries, every kind of veg -- peas, radishes, cukes, beans, carrots, lettuces, green onion, peppers, zucchini, celery, edamame (?), rhubarb (rhubarb pie!). Grandpa churned homemade ice cream on the back stoop.

Fun to see so many of the features that my 1908 house had. My mom used to talk about forgetting to empty the drip pan under the icebox & flooding the kitchen floor. What a pain! But the picture rail is a GREAT feature---the plaster in my walls was so hard you couldn't pound a nail thru, had to use a screw to hang anything, but w/ picture rail, easy-peasy. Another old feature is the "California" cooler---not only found in CA. It was a narrow cupboard w/ a slatted floor open to the basement to draw cool air up. It kept vegetables & butter cool but not cold.

We had a new house in the 1990's that had a parlor, though we called it the living room. There was a separate family room, and the living room was only used on special occasions. It had the comfiest couches in the house, so I loved when we got to use it.

What beauty! Almost every one of these pictures of yesteryear is so easy on the eyes! We need to bring most of these back with similar or updated purposes to suit our current needs.

My great Uncle was 'the iceman' in his town. I still remember the truck he used with his name on the side. He delivered blocks of ice till the mid 60's for people's Ice Boxes ( mostly older persons living on remote farms). He stayed in the ice business till he retired in the mid 70's ; continuing to deliver ice to bars , restaurants and catering companies.

We could do with something like the milk door today for package deliveries.

My grandfather was born in 1895 and always called our refrigerator the “icebox”! He is no longer with us, of course, and I miss him!

My grandma and grandpa had an icebox. The iceman was an absolute giant of a man. He would walk through the house with a leather cape over one shoulder, holding the large block of ice with a pair of ice tongs. Grandma would open up the icebox, and he would swing the block of iceinto the icebox in one easy motion. As I call, I was four or five years old at the time. The iceman was a giant.

My childhood home was built around 1902, so it had a number of features mentioned in this video: - Butler's pantry - Dumbwaiter - Icebox - Attic servant bedrooms My parents kept the icebox; it was 6 feet wide, with 6 doors of varying sizes spread across two rows. It was awesome! And it was easy to find what you were looking for, because certain foods always went to certain doors. Unfortunately, the icebox broke down more and more frequently as the decades passed. My parents finally had to get rid of it because it was becoming too unreliable and expensive to keep repairing. We had to completely renovate the kitchen since it left such a large, gaping hole behind! And the icebox was so massive and heavy that the workmen had to shatter it into pieces just to remove it from the house (even though we had wide French doors leading straight out to the backyard). I also discovered extra support columns beneath the icebox, down in the basement, to support its one-ton weight. It turned out that the house was built AROUND the icebox!!!! We were sad that the icebox couldn't be saved. But incredibly, our new modern refrigerator held more food and kept it fresher longer. It's amazing how much technology improves over time. I'm happy to report that my sister purchased our family home a few years ago, so we get to enjoy it for another generation! She and her husband completed an enormous renovation to replace all the deteriorating pipes in the walls and raise/reinforce ceilings that were gradually sinking and collapsing. In their new kitchen, my sister added old-fashioned-looking metal hardware to her large fridge/freezer combo in tribute to our old icebox 🥰

My 1934 house had a strange feature that I didn't figure out until about 10 years ago. It was a pipe that led to the septic system, and it came from beneath the kitchen pantry. There was a covered-up hole in the pantry floor right above this pipe. It turns out that this was how all that melted ice from the ice box drained, and it was capped off when the house first got a refrigerator! And, yes, the kitchen had one of those swinging doors, which I loved! My grandparents had that house built, but they never told me about the ice box.

Parlor Room: I come from Germany, and relatives of my family had a living room for everyday life and a living room for special celebrations such as birthdays and Christmas. We always called the room "the cold splendour" because it was only heated for these special occasions. 😂

The first house my dad bought when he mustered out of the Navy was built in 1910. It had a coal furnace with a Riley stoker. The second year we were living there, Dad and his buddies tore it out and installed a gas furnace. We had the milk door but my dad had to put a lock on the inside door because my brother was a milk-drinking fiend. If he woke up before my parents he would make a bee-line for the milk door as soon as the milkman came by and drink all the milk. In the basement was what my grandmother called a root cellar - just a room that was not heated where fruit, veggies, and canned goods [as in home-canned in Mason jars] were kept. We also had a huge 2nd-floor summer porch over the back of the house. When my sister came along around 1960, my dad installed regular windows on the summer porch and it became the bedroom for my brother and me. The house had originally had the knob and post wiring but that had been replaced at some point by more modern wiring but the old knobs and some of the wiring was still in the basement. A few years ago I was back visiting the old neighborhood and drove by that house. Someone has done a pretty amazing job of restoring the exterior of the house, especially all the old exterior details. It was nice to see that someone lived there who loved the place.