# Cool old house features **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 7, 2014, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526 "2014-07-07T11:57:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/41 "2014-07-08T21:49:56Z")
My parents’ house has lots of cool features. A secret passage to the cellar, half a hidden staircase, panels that lift to reveal small hidden spaces. On the road leading to Delft, it has old Delftware tiles and one tile is a naughty tile. 😉 The corridor runs the length of the house, because it used to be an alley between two houses. There are still windows onto the corridor for that reason, and the corridor is paved with old paving stones. It’s on a dyke, so while it used to be above ground it is now sunk into the ground both with time and because the dyke was made higher. Upstairs was built larger than downstairs, because of the cost of the land, so it leans like the tower of Pisa. There is essentially nothing about it that is normal. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/42 "2014-07-08T22:00:27Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > It’s on a dyke, so while it used to be above ground it is now sunk into the ground both with time and because the dyke was made higher. I would love to live in this house! After the 1900 storm in Galveston, TX [the entire island was raised](http://www.1900storm.com/rebuilding/). When you walk down Broadway, you can see old ornate wrought-iron fences that are only 3’ tall. Houses were raised, but many fences were left in place when the dirt was dredged in. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/43 "2014-07-08T22:11:30Z")
the amusement park was never the same. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/44 "2014-07-08T22:15:21Z")
Not our house, but growing up I saw some cool things inside some cool houses that other people had: Milk-doors to kitchens, moldings with catch-releases that were perfect hiding places. Closets with small doors in the back leading to smaller closets (think “Coraline”), dining rooms with a trap door in the floor. One house had a room in the basement that hinged into the wall; one had a guest room that had its own attic above its closet. One place even had a false brick in the fireplace. Of course, the single coolest features were the garages. Sure, some where made into virtual second house carriage houses, but a few looked just like garages inside, but with ladder planks hammered into one wall. If you climbed up, there would be a finished ledge/floor at the top for storage (usually with some old furniture that had been carted up there). They were great places to read when you were supposed to be cutting the lawn… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/45 "2014-07-08T22:23:32Z")
My uncles home had a interior mailbox (beside the front door). It was abut 18 inches square with a tiny door. There was a mail slot. It wasn’t used anymore. The postman had stopped door to door delivery. My uncle had a mailbox on the road. I miss them. My uncle’s old house even had a slot for the phone book and a cubbyhole for a note pad and pens. > [@](#): > > (3) A telephone nook. This is a shallow recessed area in a central location for a candlestick telephone. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/46 "2014-07-08T22:27:02Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > Given the right circumstances, you could have had it… I’m halfway through selling it right now! > > If you’re interested, i managed to find [some pictures](https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=63300038D4FD08DE!10600&authkey=!AMr4n6RinVPoS6Y&ithint=folder%2c.JPG) of the 15c beams. > > You can see the taper marks in the fireplace beams in one of them. Wow. I don’t know how you manage to get anything done, living in that house; I’d spend half my day patting the beams with a glazed look on my face. Stuff like that does something complicated to my whole sense of time and where we fit into it. Thanks so much for posting those. And I hope the person buying the house appreciates it the way it deserves! ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/47 "2014-07-09T14:58:07Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > I own a cottage in Suffolk, England. It is one of three cottages built in the 17th century using timbers from a grander house that stood in its place in the 15th century. > > One of its features is a bressummer beam above the fireplace. This bears flame-shaped scorch marks where, according to our local archaeologist, people in the past inserted lit tapers… I have a timber ceiling and have noticed scorch marks on of the timbers. I always wondered how they got there, this may be the answer! ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/48 "2014-07-09T16:43:46Z")
> [@August\_West](#): > > I have a timber ceiling and have noticed scorch marks on of the timbers. I always wondered how they got there, this may be the answer! Because of where the scorch marks are, the archaeologist went for taper marks. However, she did say that if they were anywhere else, they could have been placed there deliberately as good luck signs (i.e. using fire to ward off fire), or to ward off evil spirits or witches. As yours are in ceiling beams that might be what they are. ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/49 "2014-07-09T16:53:54Z")
P.S. Have a really close look at your beams. If you can see any of the following carved or scratched into them: X’s V’s Concentric circles Overlapping circles (There’s a few others she mentioned, but I forget them now) Then they are very likely superstitious symbols. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/50 "2014-07-09T17:12:21Z")
> [@scootergirl](#): > > I’m not sure in what era laundry chutes were popular, but I would love to live in a house that has one. It makes so much sense. > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I have one (1969 house) but I think they’re a fire hazard? Easy lane for a fire to shoot up from one floor to another. It is very nice for disposing of my dirty towels, that’s for sure. The house we had for my first 11 years was built in 1960 and had a split laundry chute. The master bath and the kids’ bath faced each other and the chute was accessed by tilting out part of the cabinet in either one. Very useful with up to ten kids at home at any given time! The corner cabinets in the kitchen had lazy susans. I wonder if the chalk marks left by my siblings are still in them. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526/51 "2014-07-09T18:39:35Z")
When I bought a turn-of-the-century house, and restored (haphazardly) its features, I went around to demolition sites for two things in particular: White porcelain doorknobs, and wall light switches that consisted of two push-buttons. I was able to find quite a few of them in the '70s. I could get new brass switchplates with the double-hole configuration for about a buck apiece from a restoration mail order. When I bought the house, it already had a steel Youngstown kitchen, which I was OK with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-old-house-features/692526.md?page=2)