jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

These were standard at one time. Now they're just outdated.

https://www.familyhandyman.com/smart-homeowner/mysterious-old-home-features-that-arent-useful-anymore/view-all/?_cmp=diytipshintsnl&_ebid=diytipshintsnl1082018&_mid=246938&ehid=73A5119F6D6B55A335D41D8BD7D8D335A74FB2CE

EdJ0307 Loc: out west someplace

As I was scrolling down the list just past the one about the root cellar there was a picture of a pretty young woman. I thought "what, wives and mothers aren't useful anymore?" Turned out to be an ad stuck in the middle of the post.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I had a Hoosier cabinet at home and used it until I moved. It held kitchen stuff and mail and had our primary junk drawer.
We didn't have a cast iron boot scraper, but we got a "Scrusher" which was a metal frame holding stiff brushes that you could run your boots through before entering the house (if you knew what was good for you). Working on a farm still produces unwanted substances attached to boots. Mud, yes, but other materials as well. We used it as fertilizer.

georgeretired Loc: Manitoba Canada

Remember all but one....the floor button to get the servants. Really neat collection.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

My grandmother's house had one of those. They didn't have any servants, but the kids loved to annoy my grandmother when she was in the kitchen.
(I was one of the kids then)

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

They missed the Coal Shoot door to the basement and the coal bin in the basement.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

We moved away from the coal heated house in 1947. New house was heated with oil.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Funny

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Another one I just remembered - wall mounted crank phones with a hinged mic and ear piece on a cord. In the 50s many of the people in my hometown still had them (my great Aunt and Uncle included) when the phone company got around to replacing them all with desk or table top dial phones they let anyone who wanted their's as a decorator item keep them so the company didn't have to pay to scrape/recycle them.
I am sure there must be a few older houses that still have one - in 2005 my kids and wife were fascinated by one hanging in a restaurant we visited in Missouri in 2005 when we went back to see my Dad in Missouri and my Aunt in Kentucky for Christmas. The restaurant had steps so kids could get high enough to try it, a bell hooked up to the crank and a recording you could listen to through the ear piece that explained about operators, switch boards and other facts about old fashioned phones.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Back in the '40s I lived about a block away from the switch house. It looked like all the other houses except that it was full of women sitting at patch boards. When a call came in they would ask who the caller wanted and plug the call into the appropriate jack. A call to another town meant patching to another switchboard and they would patch you in. A long distance call (more than about 3 towns away) was a Big Deal. They might have to call you back when the call was connected.

We were in the 'burbs. Didn't have crank phones (but we did have crank calls). The phone was a vertical stick with a large base and a mouthpiece at the top. The earpiece was hanging on the side.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Very small home town for me, under 1000. Phone company was is a house and the family who lived there plus some high school girls ran the whole thing. Mother, daughter and classmates of the daughter hired to help out at times on the two person (could be run by one person) switch board. Father was the repair department with line crews on call from the nearest city (25 miles away) and also helped with the switch board-he had a very deep voice and first timers got a shock when he was the operator. On slow days they would talk with people, pass on messages and news, help make appointments etc. The daughter (friend and classmate of my youngest aunt) would do her homework while working the switch board.
Around 65 or early 66 when the new central electronic switch center for the whole county took over the parents sold the house and moved to Florida where their daughter and son-in-law lived. The father bought a boat became a fishing guide or just fished himself, sometimes with friends from town who went down to visit. The local contractor who bought it converted the switch board room and small living room into one room and the electrical room became a large walk in closet. He sold it to my Grandmother who sold the family farm and bought that particular house because it was next door to one of her brothers and across the street from one of her sisters. That was in 66, my first year in the Army.

sct198 Loc: West of Nathrop, Co

I to was one of those, but grandma put an end by saying "Go fetch me a switch" and we all stopped playing with the switch.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

Maybe it was more of a rural thing but we and our neighbors had a "milk box" attached to the outside of the house near the kitchen door. This was a wooden, hinged-lid box about 2 feet by 2 feet where "Don the milkman" would drop off a couple quarts of milk and pick up the empty glass bottles for reuse, every week. If we also wanted butter or cream, my mother would leave a note in the box for Don. The milk and service was provided by the Sealtest company whose chief competitor, was Borden.

Haymaker

How about the cistern for collecting rain water?

1963mca

This wasn't just a rural thing. In 1963 we still had a wood lined tin box with a hinged tin lid sitting on the front porch where the milkman delivered the milk and picked up the empties. I remember the year as I was going in the army then and it was there when I left, but gone when I got home on my first leave. My mom asked me to pick up a quart of milk at the store and it was in some kind of waxed cardboard box instead of a glass bottle.