Kitchen

[Carmie]

My younger sister lives in a limestone "mansion."  Her house has winding staircases and pocket doors between the rooms and fireplaces on each floor.

It is an old house that must have been pretty grand when it was built.  She moved in about 30 years ago and remodeled the old kitchen with state of the art appliances and custom cabinets.

One thing she kept intact was an ice box built into a wall.  The wood unit and fancy door is beautiful.  It was at one time used as a refrigerator.  You add block ice and store your milk and other food that must be kept cold.

She has never used it for it's intended purpose.  I never looked, but it is probably used for storage now.

[sunshine45]

we definitely had the tin lined bread box cabinet and the  pull out cutting board when i was growing up. my mom actually kept that cutting board from MANY years ago and still uses it today even though the kitchen was remodeled a couple of times since then. the bread box is long gone. linoleum floors, wallpaper, and formica countertops are also long gone. back then our "laundry area" with a utility sink was also connected to our kitchen.

thinking of things we currently have in our home, we do have an "appliance garage" that will probably be gone during the next renovation. i will also then like cabinets that go up to the ceiling rather than the empty space above our cabinets now.

[drizzellla]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

Remember those huge tin-lined drawers that were for bread storage and we're supposed to keep it fresh?

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My Mom's kitchen had a large drawer like that. We never used it to store bread. She stored baking supplies in it. And since she very rarely baked, you forgot the drawer was even there.

But it really would have worked well. Because there was a tight fitting top that slid and closed. There was a small design to let a small amount of air in. But I bet it would have kept breads and rolls fresh - if you used it.

When we bought our house there was a trash compactor in the kitchen. We had it taken out. I wanted another cabinet rather than a trash compactor.

[on the bay]

My grandmother had one of those! I don't remember what she put in  it.

Maybe bread?

She also had a double sink and the hose from the washer would pour into one of them. There was a heavy metal cover on it that could be removed when not doing laundry.

It all seemed normal then.

I don't know why to this day there are cabinets in the kitchen that are made for giraffes!

[ECBG]

One set of grand parents bought a rock house with plaster walls and several tin roofs.  The counter tops had square edged metal with a screw every inch or 2 around the counter top edge.  An older beach house we rented in the early 1980's had counter tops like that.

Not this:

My parents built a house about the time I turned 4.  My mother's stove had a drop in soup pot!

[LdyBugz]

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@ValuSkr wrote:

The house also incorporated a milk box (double-doored so the milkman could access it from outside and I could access it from inside), mail slot in the front door, and a laundry chute from the second floor to the basement.

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The house I grew up in had the milk, mail and laundry chutes.  It also had an incinerator for burning trash.  I remember my brother and I secretly throwing my Mom's wooden spoon into that incinerator so she couldn't threaten to use it on us when we were misbehaving.  LOL!  She never used it on us though.  She would just say "Do I have to get my wooden spoon out?".  That always made us settle right down!  

[RedTop]

Mom and both grandmothers had the Hoosier kitchen cabinet with flour bin; Moms cabinet is still in her basement along with her wood fired cook stove.   Besides the flour bin, the work surface on that cabinet extended farther out in order to have a larger area to roll out biscuit dough and pie crusts.  

Our cook stove had a raise up lid on the right side with a metal box inside for heating water.  Mom used a small handled pot to fill that water box from the bucket she used to draw water from the outside well.  

When we moved upstairs, Moms "modern" kitchen had metal wall and base cabinets, with a bread drawer.  She had a 40" electric stove with 3 drawers.  The top drawer on the left side was made for storing baking sheets, the drawer below that held her smaller pots and lids.  The long drawer under the oven held her iron skillets and dutch ovens.  That stove also had a florescent light and a plug in, which were very convenient.    

[rockygems123]

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@PA Mom-mom wrote:

@On It  My mom had a full-sized ironing board that folded into the woodwork of her kitchen, looking like a recessed kitchen cabinet when it was closed. That way she could iron and keep an eye on the stove at the same time. I enjoyed helping her iron there, because it was the best room in the house for friendly conversation and good smells. She kept her "sprinkled" cottons on a shelf of the utility closet in the kitchen. She used an old ginger ale bottle with a metal sprinkle top for the sprinkler.

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@PA Mom-mom   Pretty much everything you mentioned echoes what happened in our kitchen, brings back fond memories

[robbn99]

Lived in a house with a laundry shoot. LOVED it since the washer and dryer were in the basement. 

[judianne]

l have a laundry shoot , love it !  If something is not falling through we just poke it with a little stick we keep near it .