If you’d asked what the largest thing anywhere on the property is that’s not in use –
Two very large pontoons, WWII surplus I’m pretty sure, next to the hedgerow in the upper field. The man I bought the place from told me that his son had gotten them intending to build a boat on top of them. Any such resulting construction would have been a doozy of a job to get down to the lake, and would then have needed to be stored somewhere with lake frontage (which this place doesn’t have, by close to a mile); I don’t know whether that’s why the boat never got built, or whether it would have been too big for him to have any use for, or whether he just never got around to it. At some point between the pontoons’ arrival here and my arrival here, somebody (presumably a bored hunter) had shot the things full of holes; so they wouldn’t float anyway. From the look of them they’re going to take a couple of thousand years to disintegrate into rust, though.
I don’t think of them as being “in my household”, though. I didn’t count a couple of pieces of old farm equipment out in the fields, either.
A dining room table in our basement. It came with the house, and I arranged chairs around it and put all of my D&D stuff on it. I figured we’d use it to play D&D and for my weekly Saturday night Texas Hold 'Em game. It’s been a decade and I haven’t been able to put together a weekly poker game and we played D&D there twice, last time was five years ago, and my DM has since given up the game.
My dishwasher. Besides the fact that I’m perfectly fine washing my dishes by had, I couldn’t use it even if I wanted to because I can’t open it. When I had to replace my refrigerator a number of years ago the one I ended up buying is deeper than the old one. The alcove where it sits is at right angles to the the dishwasher, and the new refrigerator sticks out just far enough that it blocks the dishwasher door.
Technically, I also have a lift chair that I don’t use. When I bought my sofa Ashley’s was having a sale and a friend suggested that, considering my knee problems, it might be a good idea to get a lift chair. It currently sits next to the sofa with the bin for my recyclables on the seat, which is convenient for me to toss things into from where I sit on the sofa.
A few months ago I’d have said our spa, which was 25 years old and too expensive to run. Haven’t been in it for years, and I hate to think about the bacteria and mold. But we got someone to cut it in pieces and cart it away.
Now our piano. I don’t play, my wife can but doesn’t, and the thing is probably so out of tune that even I would notice. My understanding is that with the move to electronic keyboards for students you can’t give the things away.
Second is our pellet stove/fireplace. The pellet stove is in the living room we use. It was here when we moved in. We tried it but it never really worked. The fireplace is in the dining room (it shares the chimney with the pellet stove) does work, but takes wood or fake logs, and it is in a room we seldom use. Also, it seldom gets cold enough to use it, and when it does it is a spare the air day when you are not allowed to use it.
When I drive by a field with a pickup truck, tine harrow, or something similar rusting away in it for at least a generation I wonder if when it was parked there, they knew it would never move again.
When we moved where I am now, the former owners left a 40,000 lb. non-functioning bulldozer in the paddock furthest from the house (and mercifully out of sight). They promised to remove it. It was in an area where new trees were growing. We were mostly worried about tree damage the longer they waited.
It took a couple of years and finally a threat that we would sell it for scrap if they didn’t take it away within 60 days. It had to be transported on the back of a trailer over a land bridge/culvert, through two other paddocks and finally out our long, hilly driveway.
So it did finally go and doesn’t qualify for this thread. But I was worried we’d be stuck with it forever.
For this thread: Probably my beloved purple sofa. This silly house has what amounts to 2 living rooms side by side. Both are furnished, but I only use the extremely cozy one where the wood burner and tee vee live. The second one is more formal, if that can be said about a room that sports a purple sofa. I rarely use it but I’ll keep it until I leave this place, because it may well be the sofa I prefer for a smaller space and it is wonderfully comfortable.
Second runner up is an old oak armoire I refinished 40 years ago and that once housed our electronics components back when such things fit inside an armoire. It keeps the purple sofa company.
Oh, we can’t start talking about farm equipment. Although we do use most of ours …there’s a cart that the previous owner used to haul maple sap drums with a team of oxen (a tax write off hobby if there ever was one) that we imagine we’re going to use for something at some point. But it’s always easier to hook up the horse trailer for hauling, than to get that thing usable.
Considering the price of maple syrup, and the agritourism possibilities of hauling the sap around with oxen, I think you might well make money even now. And oxen can go more places in the woods while doing less damage than tractors can; so it might work out well even without the agritourism.
Still possible it was a tax writeoff in that particular case, though.
I’ve never turned on the built-in baseboard heaters in my apartment. (The one in my living room is behind my home theater setup and the one in my bedroom is behind a set of bookcases.)
My wife bought a piano from a friend who had to move, altho my wife paid a pittance for it, ever since we moved here it has never been played- it is out of key. It is a cool place to put knick-knacks on. So we join the unused paina party here.
We also have a espresso maker used once and a breadmaker used twice. Both were gifts or free, so not so bad.
I guess probably the central vac. Bought a house with one last year and never used it. We ended up getting Roombas for both floors, so there’s not a lot of cause to drag all the tubing and vacuum head in from the garage.
We have two pianos (one acoustic, one electric). Both are used frequently.
I’d have to say a coffee table, it’s in a room (and my house is small) that we thought we’d set up as a quiet reading room. No, we are just in the tv room (don’t even watch a lot) and the kitchen. We just never really set it up many moons later, it’s a lovely table,
Nah, I just never buy food that requires cooking in anything but a microwave. Breakfast is a bowl of cereal or instant oatmeal. Lunch is a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. I prefer Jiff creamy (Natural or Simply Jiff) and potato bread. Dinner is almost always Tyson chicken nuggets (I don’t mix meat and dairy. Tyson is one of the few brands not to use milk in their breading) topped with some kind of sauce for flavor (Thai peanut sauce, Hoisin sauce, or just honey mustard).
I only cooked potato kugel, and brownies from kosher for Passover mixes. My beloved is happy to cook those at her place. She usually cooks some kind of chicken for the main course at the seder as well. She is a maestro in the kitchen.
You would be surprised how many people live on microwaved frozen stuff and yes- takeout.
Myself- i was a line cook once upon a time, and i am not a bad cook at all (not a chef- just a cook) and so I cook quite a bit- altho those quickie nuked meals are a staple.
Today I panfried a steak for late lunch, then baked some quesadillas for dinner. Rainer cherries for dessert.
I do know several people personally who live in senior housing where meals are provided and “cooking” is not allowed in their rooms, although they do allow microwaves, and hot plates are not confiscated if they are found, but their use is discouraged.
Not agrotourism. It’s a thing around here – boiling down the sap in February. You and your friends sit around the big fire in the sugar house in the snow-, drinking beer and watching the sap boil down. It’s kind of a guy thing, like ice fishing but warmer.