My parents included a laundry chute in their 1970 build...only problem was, it works in just one direction: down!

My grandma's house had a root cellar under the caretaker's cottage. No one lived there till various grandchildren grew up and stayed in it during area internships. Anyway, one finally ventured down there and found still-viable geraniums, hung upside down for years.

How about actual chimes for the doorbell added to the list? Nothing beats the tone!

The mail slot is a "good riddance". While it's nice not to have to step outside on rainy days to get your mail, they are an air conduit! The heat flows out, the cold blows in. My aunt and I both caulked ours shut.

Great article! I never actually knew what the purpose of the high rail was even though we have one in our living room. I've been trying to design a simple gallery wall above our couch and now I might have to pick up a few picture rail hooks :) Thanks for sharing!

Laundry shoots are a better idea than the hamper in bedrooms, but unless there is one in every room mine would opt for the floor vs walking down the hall to deposit dirty clothes. The cell phone has removed any reason for the 'phone nook' and intercom. Anyone with a smart phone never puts theirs down and they are used as personal pagers, intercoms etc. all day long. Whose phone would be nooked? No one I know would volunteer to have it out of their hands!! I have often wanted a boot scraper as I come in from the garden..I am just not sure where I would put one! The mud collected underneath them would be one more thing to clean around. Mail slot REALLY!? I would settle for door to door mail service-a thing of the past in most neighborhoods. My father, however installed one in the side of his garage wall. This way when they are gone on vacation the mail collects inside the garage and no one is alerted to their absence. Also I suppose the draft bpathome spoke of was in the garage not the house. Centrally located mail box condos are the norm in my world. I would NEVER trade in my central air for a sleeping porch. Transoms; love the pretty glass, again the ceiling height they beg makes them impossible in most homes. Fun look into days gone by, but just not seeing the resurgence of most of the ideas offered.

The laundry chute brought back a memory. We had one cut out in the floor in the linen closet in the bathroom of our first home. It had a hinged door you lifted to toss laundry down to a basket in the basement laundry area. Pretty basic, and scarily dangerous now that I think of it!

I've had houses with all those features. I currently have a mail slot that I just love, especially here in MN. It doesn't leak air at all--very well built. In a previous house I had a laundry chute and loved it. I also grew up with one in the upstairs hallway and kitchen. I've never seen an opening for it in the kitchen after that house, but it was totally practical. Many houses around here also have phone nooks, usually turned into plant stands or a niche for a statue or piece of art. A couple other built ins frequently seen around here: original breakfast nooks, folding ironing boards, breadboards, murphy beds.

Phone nooks? Totally! People install charging stations in their new kitchens or mudrooms, it's just another take on a phone nook.

And I think transoms would work in new homes, because the standard ceiling height seems to be increasing from 8' to 9' or 10'.

Our last house was a standard, 1957-1960-built development tri level, with no interesting design features whatsoever (unless you count the iron railing between the front door and living room). There was a small, trimmed, rectangular hole in the ceiling above the laundry room sink. By small, I mean smaller than 8x10". After we moved out, we stopped by and the new owners showed us where they pulled up the carpet in the master bedroom, and there under where you would put the bed or the dresser, was the top of the hole (had a piece of wood plugging it) Laundry chute? It was probably the worst place ever for the top of a chute, and where it came out was over the sink faucet handles. Still can't figure it out.

My college dorm had picture rails, they were about 6" below the ceiling. The building dated before the invention of scotch tape or poster stick-um, and the rails were never used.

My childhood homes had boot scrapers, one at the service door and one at the back door, so useful! The mud dried and you just swept it away when you swept the porch, no prob.

My childhood home was not an old house but we had a laundry chute in a linen closet. It was no big deal to walk down the hall and throw the clothes down. My brother often practiced gallows humor and tied strings around my favorite dolls and threw them down the chute.

I think many things on the list are charming. Homes can have modern conveniences and have old house features. They aren't mutually exclusive.

"bpathome

My parents included a laundry chute in their 1970 build...only problem was, it works in just one direction: down!"

Ah, that's what the dumbwaiters were for!

My childhood home had a dumbwaiter. I have a client whose old house still has the "Downton Abbey" type of servant caller, with the bells that chime in specific rooms.

OMG, laundry chutes! That brings back memories. We had one in the house I grew up in. It went from the bathroom closest to the kitchen, down to our finished basement below. we kids used to love luring someone to step under the chute on the pretense that we need to talk with them . . . and then dropping a wad of dripping wet tissue paper on their head.

I didn't read the article, but did they mention milk chutes? We had one of those, too, for our milkman, Jim (I still remember his name) to pick up our empty milk bottles and drop off replacements, plus cream, eggs and juice, etc.

We had a milk chute! Actually a little door on our back porch with a shelf inside where our milk was dropped off. This really brought back some memories.

We had the phone nook, which was actually a tiny closet-like nook in the hall with the phone on a table. We lived in a rambling ranch so no laundry chute. My good friend's 2-story house had one and we really pulled some pranks with it when we had sleep-overs there.

Our first house had a deep metal-lined bread drawer that I thought was cool.

Mail slots? Not so popular around the south where I grew up. Maybe because of too many critters. I don't know.

Oh, the milk chute! Had one of those, too, but it was caulked shut on the inside by a PO. The outside was handy to store my patio candles, bug repellant, and a little watering can; it was a rowhouse so there wasn't a lot of storage. (That rowhouse also had an outdoor garbage can sunk down into the ground. Seemed like a good idea, especially to the raccoons lol! No latches, concrete blocks, or dirty diapers on top deterred them.)

My grandparents' house had one of those holes in the ground in the backyard, and you'd step on a pedal to open the metal lid, and you dumped food waste in there. I'd forgotten about that until this thread.

It was fun to recall the home features from days past. While some have gone by the wayside; others are still appreciated today and variations have developed. The picture rail has me thinking of using one in the family room. Yes our communication centers have been nooked in our kitchen. Medallions are still used in dining rooms. I think many of us long for laundry chutes. When we purchased the river house which was originally built in 1935 and added on to in the 50's and 90's by previous owners, we loved that it had retained some old features. We have 3 dutch doors- 2 we use, one is stored in shed.

I grew up in a house with a milk, and laundry chute. We never locked doors though, and since my mother worked, the milkman brought the milk and cottage cheese in the back door and put in the refrigerator! This sprawled out single level wouldn't lend itself to a laundry chute, but I've thought more than once that a laundry room at each end (which it does not have) would be ideal ;)

I have and love my mail slot. It's in the attached garage, and mail falls into a sturdy wooden open wall-mounted box inside. I charm, thank often, and go out of my way to be nice to my carrier, making sure no one ever blocks his mail trucks path through my circular drive because he isn't required to bring the mail to the house, he has only graciously agreed to do that. He could just have easily asked us to install a box at the street, anyone moving in this town after 2005 isn't automatically gifted with mail right to their door.

The difference between today and yesteryear on the "phone nook" is that today we might need one in every room! If you had an old one it could be converted to a charging station, or used for any number of useful or decorative items.

powermuffin, do you have any pictures of your picture rails with art hung from it? I love the idea and would love to use it on the living room gallery wall I've been "working on" (i.e. fantasizing about), at least for some of the items, but the hubs wasn't in love with the idea when I showed him the example on the TOH site :( I just found this luscious example as well, but our rail is just a simple wooden board like the one on TOH.

I never saw a boot scraper before (or if I did I had no idea what it was), but what a cool idea. I'm always using the side of our stoop to scrape my shoes on muddy gardening days.

We have one transom and wish we'd thought to do more. I just love how they look.

I'd also love a simple dining room ceiling medallion, but before embellishing the ceiling we really need to upholster our dining room chairs (which currently have their springs exposed). Someday...

Laundry shoots are cool, but I feel spoiled now with an upstairs laundry room. I love not having to carry loads of laundry up and down stairs.

I guess my parents liked the dutch door idea because they did it to my childhood bedroom door. It was cute when I was little, not so cute as I got older and wanted more privacy (anyone could open the top part), so they finally switched it back out for a full door.

We had a mail slot in my childhood house. No phone nook, tho, as the house phone was in the kitchen. I had a friend with a phone nook in the hallway. That was back when most homes had only one phone. My first house as an adult was a mid-century ranch (before MCM was cool), and had a mail slot next to the front door, but it was angled down so no one could stick their hand in and unlock the door.

My current house has ceiling medallions; one in the dining room, foyer and master bedroom. They're plaster and I would never dream of removing them.

My grandparents' house in central FL had a sleeping porch. A door from the kitchen and from one bedroom led out to it. They also had a large walk-through closet between two bedrooms that we loved to hide in! You could go in a circle through the porch, kitchen, dining room, bedroom, closet, and next bedroom. We did that a lot (until we got yelled at LOL).

Donna

You could go in a circle through the porch, kitchen, dining room, bedroom, closet, and next bedroom. We did that a lot

The folks over at antiquhomestyle.com always give bonus points to old house plans with a circular flow, pointing out that your kids are likely to take nice long naps after enough running around through the rooms.

I just recently looked at an old cottage that had almost everything in the article except a dutch door, but alas it was in an awful location.

I have an old house, though it doesn't have most of these features (only one floor eliminates the need for a dumbwaiter or laundry chute). I do have piture rails in the living room and both bedrooms, which I use liberally for their intended purpose. I also have a clawfoot tub. Can't imagine any other kind in this vintage home. I have thought about installing a ceiling medallion in the living room.

Our cordless phone can be used as an intercom from handset to handset, which is very handy. But in this day of wireless tech, I don't see how an old school intercom makes sense.

My 1939 small colonial has crown molding that serves as picture railing, but only upstairs. There was a phone nook that I saved when we widened the dining room doorway. Still undecided how to use it, but I've got it. There are plaster (not applied) ceiling medallions in the foyer and the dining room. I have a basement with a big concrete sink (not in the slideshow), but there is what reminds me of a root cellar in my basement. Half of it is a full basement, then there's a brick wall supporting the dirt in the rest of the house. My grandmother would put newspaper down, then store her potatoes and onions in such a space.

Oh, dyhgarden, you have the concrete sink, don't ever get rid of it. I had a double one in the last house. It was fabulous. But I wanted to "improve" the laundry room, especially since in that split level you could see the sink from the LR if the door was open, and I wanted counterspace and storage. One handyman flat out refused to take it out, saying I'd regret it later. He was right, on a way. Another handyman did take it out, and I got a nice base cabinet with a single laundry sink. Looked great. Now in this house, a farmhouse style though not farmhouse era at early 1960s, it is crying, as am I, for a double concrete sink instead of a single utility sink.

eastautumn, here is the picture rail shown in the dining room and sitting room. It is about 14" from the ceiling, which is the original position. I also have the picture rail in the family room where I have an art wall, but I don't have a picture on that.

Diane

I actually contemplated adding a laundry chute in my house. But then I remembered as a child how we would stand in the basement and try to unclog the chute with a broom handle. Lol. Still...it was a great feature most of the time.

The claw foot tub- IMHO mine never really was that much bigger or better than a standard tub. But it looked beautiful IMHO.

Had a laundry chute in 2 of out custom.builds. One was in a hallway right next to the laundry roo. It was nothing more than a very narrow closet. The cecond one was also in a hallway, but in a sliding door type closet used for other things, and not just as a chute. The first one I found to be more apt as a chute since I didn't need a bin to 'catch' the clothes. The one with sliding doors was insane! When the door was opened, the clothes overflowed from the tall container, not an ideal situation. Although I still have a 2 story home, no chute is necessary since I don't have 5 kids at home any lomger. Makes it easy for them to keep clothes off the bedroom floor.

I love my laundry chute, and miss my mail slot like crazy. (We moved.)

The thing about the mail slot... Years ago our next door neighbor died in her chair while watching TV. Since her mail was dropped inside, the letter carrier didn't notice. But my son was a paperboy, and he did.Though he wasn't the neighbor's paperboy, he noticed that she hadn't picked up her papers for a couple days and mentioned it to me. Hmm, strange, we thought. Mentioned it to another neighbor.

After four days we called the police, who got in and found her peacefully dead in her chair. Her husband, an invalid, had crawled to her and was still alive. My twelve-year old's observation saved the man's life.

Wow! Sheesh! That's quite scary, but glad the man was saved.

My house was built in 1928. I still have picture rails, though they seem to be higher up than most I've seen. We have a root cellar and coal room in the basement. I never realized what those rooms were until the past few years LOL. There's a little ledge with a wooden top built into the wall next to the back door at my basement landing that Ive been wondering about. It's two narrow to sit on but I wonder if it's for placing shoes and stuff. I wish I had a laundry chute and claw foot tub.

I saved the picture molding and cove when fixing the ceiling in the living / dining rooms so now both bedrooms and the hall have it. I want to replace the first two rooms at some point. But I did add the medallions back. Transomes would be wonderful

and we do have the clawfoot

My parents had a mail shoot put in the wall of their garage. It was faster for the mail carrier and if hey left town their mail was safe inside the garage. Inside it opened to a box on a storage shelf, no draft and secure!! LOL on the phone nook. Does anyone actually put a cell phone down anywhere?? From what I see what is needed is a third appendage for carrying it. Laundry shoots have to be LARGE to be helpful. I got so tired of towels getting stuck in them!! The others are very region specific.

I've had the phone nooks, milk windows, windows in closets (for airing out your clothes), picture mounding and laundry chutes. Also, the coal chutes! Interesting Factoid: the coal chutes will often be stamped with a date, which will help you date the house.

Our house from 1968 has quite a few of these...

Mail slot - mail is still delivered this way in our neighborhood.

Large laundry chute - love it

Dumbwaiter - It's a hand pulley kind and I find it faster just to walk up or down the stairs. I've tossed around the idea of motorizing it.

Dutch door - great

Intercom - we actually removed the speakers upstairs before realizing that's where our doorbell came from. Now we can't hear it.

The earliest home that I can remember (my family moved there when I was 4-- about 1958) was built in 1914 and had been the house of a large farm -- that had been turned into a subdivision by the time we lived there. It had a laundry chute, a large screened in porch (that I remember my brothers sleeping there in summer), real brass doorbell chimes. There were transoms over the bedroom doors for air circulation. It still had a Downton Abbey style call system in the kitchen but I don't remember if it still worked. The electric switches were the push button type.

I don't remember picture rails or a phone nook, but it did have lots of built ins -- among them a tin-lined bread drawer. There was an entire cedar room with closets and drawers and a map closet in the upstairs hall (with lots of thin drawers built in).

I think houses without screened porches (and I live in one) are just sad.

Oh, I would love a sleeping porch, a clawfoot tub, and a laundry chute, please. My house was built in 1969 and there is nothing quaint (or convenient) about it. I slept on sleeping porches at summer camp as a kid and it was heavenly--especially when it rained. Deep eaves kept us dry, the rain on the metal roof was marvelous.

I'm putting in a root cellar in my current build, and really like the idea of picture rails. A mail slot wouldn't be useful as we don't have mail delivery in my future town - budget cuts mean we drive to the post office to collect our mail - but I remember them! I also remember one place growing up where we got milk delivery, and we had the box for that. My parents at their last house had a laundry chute.

We never lived in a home with a phone nook - phones were on tables, or the kitchen one would be directly on the wall. Likewise, I don't have any need for a charging nook - I charge my devices at my bedside table.

A boot scraper would be a great idea!

My childhood home had a laundry chute in the hallway, although it got covered over. I don't think it ended up in the right place in the basement. My parents' most recent house had one, and they found it quite useful in their later years, when mobility issues prevented them from carrying laundry down the steps. They called it the rabbit hole, as it was an opening in the linen closet in the bathroom.

I laughed at the intercom, where "the newest intercoms are capable of piping music throughout your home." My parents' 1963 house had that feature. It was fine as long as you all listened to the same music. It was rarely used.