Trends in technology and home decor are always changing, so it’s not uncommon for some items to fall by the wayside over the years. Beloved appliances and electronics can quickly become obsolete. Here are 20 items that you probably don’t have in your house anymore.
Rotary Phones
As Forbes states, “only about 37% of American households still have landlines,” so it’s no surprise that older rotary model phones have all but disappeared from our homes. Although they have a cool retro aesthetic, you can’t deny that the long cords, manual dialing, and lack of caller ID are pretty serious drawbacks.
VHS Tapes
Many Americans will certainly remember having to rewind VHS tapes back to the beginning after watching them, but we usually opt for streaming services or DVDs nowadays. They’ve got better video quality, and skipping back and forth isn’t such a hassle!
Typewriters
There are a number of websites and programs that will let you type on your computer keyboard and hear typewriter sounds. It seems that many of us experience nostalgia for the age of typewriters. But an actual typewriter is a rare sight in a house now, as computers have replaced them.
Rolodexes
When was the last time you received a business card? They might not be completely extinct, but they’re not as common as they used to be. An unfortunate consequence of this is that Rolodexes have become redundant, too, since digital address books are much more efficient.
Cassette Players
The days of making mixtapes for your friends and recording songs and shows off the radio have passed us by. Most people now use online music streaming services, so portable cassette players are a rarity. We can access a world of music in our pockets through our phones instead.
Film Cameras
Some photography enthusiasts may still have a film camera or two around the house, but in most households, they’re now a thing of the past. Having to wait for your photos to develop and manually loading and unloading film has been replaced by smartphones snapping pictures at the press of a button.
Floppy Disks
According to the BBC, “the last floppy disk was made over a decade ago and doesn’t even have enough capacity to store a modern smartphone picture.” Aside from some hobbyist collectors, there are few active users of floppy disks today. Digital storage has come along in leaps and bounds over the years.
Fax Machines
The times of waiting for slow faxes to transmit between offices are long gone. They would send scanned documents between fax machines over phone lines, but now we have emails that can do the same thing in practically an instant, making these items useless.
Manual Coffee Grinders
It seems like everyone who loves coffee now has a fancy, specialty machine in their kitchen, ready to make the perfect morning pick-me-up in minutes. Hand-cranked coffee grinders have become an artifact of the past, usually replaced by electric grinders, if not machines that take coffee pods or capsules.
Sewing Machines
Sewing machines were common sights in American households when clothing was more often fixed than replaced. However, manual sewing machines were replaced by electric ones and then pretty much disappeared altogether as clothes became cheaper and mass-produced. Of course, people who love sewing and mending may still have one!
Incandescent Light Bulbs
We have a lot to thank incandescent light bulbs for, even though LED bulbs are used much more now. Britannica suggests that “thanks to the incandescent lamp, electric lighting became an accepted part of urban life by 1900.” Despite this development, they’re now definitely an item of the past.
Record Players
Like with cassette players, record players aren’t a typical item in the modern American home. However, CNN suggests that “Vinyl records have had … a resurgence” and a spike in sales. They’re quite expensive, however, so they’re mostly bought by retro music buffs.
Iceboxes
Before we had modern refrigerators, we had iceboxes. They used blocks of ice to cool food, which might sound really interesting to you. However, they relied on frequent supplies of ice, making food preservation a time-intensive process. It’s probably for the best that they’ve been replaced by refrigerators.
Carpet Sweepers
Vacuuming might seem like a time-consuming chore at the best of times, but it used to be much more difficult to keep your floors clean. Carpet sweepers were manual cleaning devices that took much more effort than vacuums and weren’t as good at deep cleaning either.
Milk Churns
Milk churns used to be a common sight, especially on farms and in rural areas. Nowadays, they’ve been replaced by modern dairy processing and transporting methods. Glass milk bottles are also used less than the plastic cartons you buy in supermarkets.
Encyclopedia Sets
Researching facts for your homework used to be a task that required a trip to the library and probably browsing through some encyclopedias. Now, you can ask any question you think of on the internet, and the answers will be at your fingertips. As a result, encyclopedias aren’t often kept in modern homes.
Coal Scuttles
A roaring coal fire on a cold winter night is a beautiful picture of the past, but it has been mostly left behind. NPR found that “after decades of decline, fewer than 130,000 households use coal for heat today.” This is largely a good change: burning coal can contribute to climate change.
Answering Machines
Back when landlines were one of the most commonly used methods of communication, answering machines were crucial. If you missed someone at home, you could leave them a message for when they got back. But now, voicemail has replaced the answering machine and is available on every smartphone.
Hand-Wound Clocks
Old and antique clocks required manual winding to keep them in time and could stop working if they weren’t wound regularly. Battery-operated and digital clocks are a much more efficient modern option, even if they’re usually not as beautifully crafted as their older versions.
Ironing Boards with Built-in Iron Stands
The last item you don’t see in modern households in the U.S. anymore is ironing boards with built-in stands for irons. Modern ironing boards have more compact, space-saving designs, ideal for apartment life and smaller homes. However, iron stands can be useful for safely storing your iron in the middle of ironing.
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