SHOULD ROCKING CHAIRS MAKE A COMEBACK?
Laundry Chutes And 9 Other Ingenious Home Hacks That Are No Longer In Use
Published on November 13, 2024
Image: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Many technological solutions of the past that have been replaced by newer inventions still linger in old houses. Some of them, you might even have seen in your grandparent’s home or somewhere else. A number of these old features, like the laundry chute, are quite handy even in this day and age. Take a look at the following ten items and see if you can recognize some of them.
Phone Niche
Image: Quino Al
Until a couple of decades ago, landline telephones were an essential means of communication. Every place had one and it was a communal device for every person in that location. Telephones were big, sturdy, and quite elegant, actually. But they weren’t always so compact.
Because of their big, heavy stature, they required quite a bit of space. Homes used to have niches in walls for this purpose. These phones had cords, so people had to stand around to talk. Hence, phone niches often appeared in hallways, kitchens, and bedrooms.
Small Iron Door At Street Level
Image: Marcos Assis
It might seem odd today but, up until around 1940, most families heated their homes by burning coal. Coal delivery men traveled door-to-door to provide people with the fuel to power their furnaces.
These men shoveled coal through a small door and down the chute into the basement. Once in the basement, homeowners could shovel the coal directly into the furnace. Today most of these chutes have been sealed, though you will often still see the iron doors on older homes.
Ceiling Bed
Image: Grant Durr
Not to be confused with the famous Murphy bed, which folds into a closet or wall to save floor space when not in use, the Sorlien ceiling bed was stowed in the ceiling. This device was lowered from the ceiling via a crank, with hidden weights in the wall working to counterbalance the bed.
The obvious advantage of this bed was that it took up no closet or wall space, with floor space used only when in service. The ceiling bed only worked for houses with an attic above.
Push-Button Light Switch
Image: Stefan Steinbauer
Even basic things like light switches evolve. There was a time when those humble but useful devices had not one but two buttons for each light. One to turn on the light, one to turn it off.
The button you pushed, stayed down. And, when you pushed a button, the one that was down, popped right up. Neat, right?
Boot Scraper
Image: Melanie Kreutz
It seems like a quite useful thing to have if your shoes are dirty and you need to scrape them off before entering a place, right? If you’ve ever walked up to someone’s front door and seen a strange ground-level cast-iron contraption, that is it: it’s a boot scraper.
In some homes, these tiny iron ornaments still stick out in front of the door. Many include ornate spirals and designs, including animals. Usually, two boot scrapers would border the door at the end of a walkway.
Root Cellar
Image: Ray Shrewsberry
Root cellars were used to store vegetables, fruits, nuts, and other things for long periods. Some were simply an unfinished room in the basement while others were built into the ground a short distance from the house.
Modern refrigeration has rendered root cellars unnecessary for most people. But if you have one, you can certainly still put it to good use and store foods that maybe don’t need to be frozen but are best kept at a cooler temperature than that room.
Razor Slit in Medicine Cabinet
Image: Nacho Fernández
If the idea of a dark space full of rusty razor blades right in your bathroom gives you the chills, you are not alone. But there was a time when that was a real thing. A couple of decades ago, medicine cabinets had a tiny slit to dispose of old razor blades. Where might those dirty razors go? Nowhere, really. They merely went into the wall.
If someone were to remove the medicine cabinet, they’d likely see all the discarded razors. Keep that in mind if you plan to have someone replace your old cabinet.
Milk Door
Image: Jason Murphy
Once upon a time, milk was delivered door to door in the early morning hours by milkmen dressed in white overalls. That is why having a milk door was standard in many homes. The small door was situated on the outside of the house and was used by the milkman to pick up empty bottles and leave fresh ones.
Milkmen usually delivered the drinks early in the morning so families could drink milk with breakfast. Sometimes, milkmen would deliver other products such as eggs, cheese, butter, and soft drinks.
Picture Hanging Molding
Image: Kaylah Matthews
Imagine not having to drive a nail through your walls to hang a picture. It would be convenient, right? Well, until some decades ago, that was the norm. Enter picture hanging molding.
The whole contraption looked like, well, a molding design in the upper segment of the interior walls. Movable hooks were hung from such rails and, in turn, pictures were suspended from those hooks.
Laundry chute
Image: engin akyurt
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a little door on your bathroom wall where you could simply toss your laundry and have it fall right next to the washing machine? Well, there was a time when that was the case in many homes with more than one story.
Laundry chutes were designed to relieve the burden of carrying laundry. They're so handy that many people still install them today. No one knows who invented the first laundry chute, or when. Newspaper articles describing early linen chutes date back to the 1890s.
