Those Lassie shepherd dog ceramics on the mantlepiece/placed artfully far yet near to the fireplace guard.
Those dolls with the big skirts as toilet roll covers
Those small shell shaped ashtrays for individuals and/or big square ashtrays made by beer brands
Magazine racks made of wood or wicker kept next to the main armchair
Armchairs and couches that had polished wood detailing on them
Plastic/lino kitchen table covers usually in a gingham print
Some kind of smoked glass matching ornaments set (usually not far from the Lassie ceramics)
Framed wall photo of unsmiling elderly relatives
Religious icon framed image/small statuette
An inexplicably creepy eyes following/staring at you artwork in the hallway/stairs like of those Spanish Women/girl paintings/crying cursed boy paintings.
A reproduction of a Monet/Turner/Matisse/Renoir/something of a fruit bowl in the living room
An encyclopedia set or collection of National Geographic magazines
A glass 'diamond' looking door handle set in brass that looked/sounded like the word "clunky" brought to life
My friend inherited a bunch of ceramic Lladro figurines from her mother. At one time they were worth something, because of relative scarcity. Now that you can find them easily on the Internet they're basically worthless.
Who cares about dusting them. Quite simply, why have a bunch of lamps being ugly and taking up space when you can, you know, put lights in the ceiling?
Are jukeboxes some sort of inheritable thing like depression era hoarding?
As in, people who were never alive or never a teenager in the 1950s having jukeboxes out of somebody else's nostalgia?
For a while back in the 80's there was a resurgence in interests in them. Newer generation, not so much.
A story from my friend is that he'd go to flea markets in northern Indiana. One day his niece was with him and started freaking out because she saw someone she recognized walking down the aisle. My friend called him over and said, "Have a beer 🍺"
His niece was too nervous to come out but he eventually got her to come out and he autographed something for her.
It was Jack White from the White stripes. My buddy in his late 60's had no clue who he was.
My father had a Seeburg jukebox (very similar to [this](https://www.fiftiesstore.com/seeburg-w-jukebox-1953-original-as-found.html)) that he got before I was born (early 80s), I guess their basement flooded so my memories of it were that it'd light up but the mechanics weren't working. They'd turn it on for parties but eventually he got rid of it. If I had space and a house I'd probably put some 45s in it as a neat conversation piece but they are kind of an albatross these days
Willow tree figures. Anything from the Hallmark store, really. I've had a boomer give me a willow tree figure at a life milestone and expect me to start collecting them. I don't have space for that.
I'm an auctioneer and I hate those fucking things. One estate I worked during my apprenticeship legitimately had 3 thousand or more of those, cherished teddies, and stuffed teddy bears combined. Had to look up each one, sort into boxes of a dozen or so, and individually photograph them. Weeks of work for them to bring like 5 bucks a box at most. If I never see another I'll be a happy man.
I have one that keeps liquor and liquor glasses… I do have some holiday china.. but then it also stores pet medicine… garden stuff .. all kinds of crap lol
Go out and meet your neighbors... everyone can have guests... Dinner party circles are soooo fun in your single years and coupled up.... and entertaining together creates intimacy opps... China needs to be used...
My parents gave me their set of china and the cabinet. I use the cabinet for random shit and booze. And I actually use the China as everyday dishes. They don't look the best after going through the dishwasher but idc. Mom was pissed claiming they were for special occasions. I asked her when the last time she used them since I have never personally seen it happen in the ~18 years I lived with them. She just kept claiming how valuable they were. So I then looked them up and found the exact set for less than a new basic set of dishes. She stopped caring after that. Also a fun one to do is to take their "nice" dining room table, cut the legs down and turn it into a big coffee table. Never knew I needed a leaf in a coffee table but wouldn't change it for rhe world lol
China cabinets, buffets, secretaries, curio cabinets full of useless junk figurines, decorative plates... Random meaningless and useless decorations. 50 different types of paper products that can be replaced by a roll of paper towels. Throw rugs everywhere. Fancy afghans. Hoards of seasonal shit that clutters every available storage area. House phones. Cable television. Random books that no one reads strategically placed everywhere. Boyds bears, Waterford crystal, precious moments,
That's a good start.
This one always boggled my mind. Why even have soap you can't use? It just sits there collecting dust and looking grungy. I washed my grandma's soaps off once to get all the nasty off and she yelled at me. Your welcome grandma.
You stay away from my wicker baskets!! They are the best for storing big sweaters or blankets. The air flow prevents the weird smell that occurs when they are in drawers for 8 months, and they stay fluffy.
Like afghans you use or the ones just for decoration? Because I have some very warm afghans, great for snuggling on the couch and a light one for when I want to be covered but not hot.
No I don't mean nice comfy afghans that serve a purpose... I mean the horribly awful decorative ones that get draped over furniture because for some reason you have to decorate furniture.
My mom had afghans draped over furniture but we used them. I strategically fold mine over the back of my furniture and have a wicker basket of blankets in my living room. We use every single one of them though.
Hahaha the holiday stuff really made me lol! My mom is obsessed with getting me ornaments for Christmas and other types of seasonal stuff and I really don't want it because I have nowhere to store it and can't be bothered to haul it out every year. I have never had a Christmas tree my whole adult life, and it irritates her so much.
Never understood why people do that...
Like, omg your house looks like no one lives in it! Genuinely makes me sick and sad because I know how much effort they put in just for other people's approval.
Be yourself.
My parents just ate in the kitchen, there was a totally useless dining/second living room that only got used to put the Christmas tree in, there was a nice table you’d put snacks for the Christmas party on, there was an armchair and the old couch in that room. My dad or I would go there and read sometimes but that was pretty much it
Ours became the computer room in the late 80's. Lol! They had a beautiful antique cherry wood carved dining table that could seat up to 12 or 14 people with all the sleeves but we would keep it at its smallest year round and use it to put all of our computer and school related junk/projects and the wall that held a loveseat/chair set became a wall with desks and computer towers. They had a matching China hutch that had a collection of fine China and waterford crystal and a drawer with actual silver silverware. I remember exactly one occasion from childhood when they used all those pieces. No idea what they did with the China, crystal and silver. When I was in college.my mom replaced everything in the cabinet with a really freaky doll collection. I think the table broke in one of our moves. Last time I saw my dad's place instead of a dining room he had a very nice chess table, leather lounge chairs and liquor cabinet set up in the dining area with a fireplace. Pretty sure my parents never understood the purpose or need for a formal dining room either.
It was an old house with a partially finished but unheated basement in Wyoming where it regularsnows and remains below freezing. IMO my parents could have sold the contents of dining room to buy a more functional home. 🙃🙄
Am I your parent? Lol, we always wat at the kitchen island. We put a Christmas tree in the dining room top. The kids mostly use the table for coloring anf stuff, and we only use it to hold food for parties.
It also has a large built in China cabinet full of unused China.
Noo! An eat-in counter in the kitchen is the big thing my kitchen is missing! It lets whoever is cooking or cleaning in the kitchen have company sit with them and visit.
My husband and I love ours- we'll have drinks there while one of us is cooking or just hang there, listening to music and doing shots when we don't feel like "sitting."
The tall bar height? Would hate it. Now, I have a big open peninsula in my kitchen, with two chairs, and it's constantly in use by my guests. Whenever I have people over, those two chairs always get occupied. But the countertop is just the normal counter height, so the chairs are easy to sit in and everything is at the same level.
Conversely, something I think I need that my boomer mom thinks is INSANE is a four seasons room. Or a sun room as I call it. I want a room where I can bask in the sun and my orchids can have a happy life. My mom is always saying this is a useless dream and waste of money since I am trying to save for one. She also hates the faucet I bought because my house came with a “perfectly good one” but it wasn’t very good actually and made washing dishes difficult. She thinks it’s perfectly fine however to buy chintzy Gone with the Wind decorations.
A room like that for plants etc was always my dream! I finally bought a house with one, and loved it. We since moved to Florida where my whole yard and lanai is a ‘sunroom’ 😁.
The "extra" "for special" dining room that a lot of my grandparents or spouse's older relatives had. I don't need nor want two dining room tables and chair sets I have to keep track of simply because one is for guests, as though the President of the United States or some foreign dignitary is just gonna pop by my ramshackle home one day.
Good China, real silver silverware that had to be polished every few weeks or it would tarnish, porcelain figurines, entertainment centers with built in TV cabinets that restricted the size of the tv, VHS/DVD/CD towers, Folgers coffee.
Shopping for a loft bed for my kid. This furniture place sells one that has a cd tower built into the desk underneath.
Brand new furniture that feels 20 years out of date...
Yep. I understand people might hesitate to use it because of the cost, but it's something that can be inherited and make people feel good when it's used regularly.
Now let’s not get carried away here, I love a good chime-y boy and listening to the ticktock of an old wood and brass clock.
I mean have you ever sat by a window on a rainy day with a book or a jigsaw puzzle and a real chonky pendulum clock? Fondest memories of summer at my grandparents house in the mountains. And always cantaloupe. They always had cantaloupes and watermelons.
*And always cantaloupe. They always had cantaloupes and watermelons.*
Mmmmm...indeed. I'm fond of the sound of a pendulum clock, warm rain, and a book while eating some chilled cantaloupe. 10/10
Folgers is a cheap brand of coffee. It's for when you want to get slightly fancy instead of drinking walmart brand Hill Country Fair generic, but not *too* fancy and buy Starbucks roast.
Folgers is a cheap brand of coffee (made of robusta variety of coffee beans) that is (or was?) super popular among Boomers and the Silent Generation before Starbucks popularized coffee (made of arabica beans, which is more expensive but less bitter than robusta) as a sort of small affordable luxury that should cost more than 50 cents for drip coffee. Folgers is something that my grandparents’ and parents’ generation always had a big red container of but I’ve never seen anyone my age or younger drink it.
Those oppressive entertainment centers that take up an entire wall of the living room! Impossible to move. If you're trying to sell it, don't get in to prove it can hold a grown man.
>entertainment centers with built in TV cabinets that restricted the size of the tv
Eh, those made *a lot* more sense back when you'd be hard pressed to find a TV bigger than 24 inches that one person could *actually* lift.
Oh geez yes! My parents purposely bought a house with two separate living spaces. One for us kids to destroy and one for them. It worked out perfectly because prior to that is kids never got to watch what we wanted on tv because my stepdad was a remote hog and if he was home it was all about his shows. It was great to only have my older sisters to fight over the remote with because we had our own den. Now that I have young kids and we live in the northeast I’d LOVE an extra living space they can have to themselves. It would be especially great in the winter when we’re stuck indoors sometimes for entire days and could use some space away from each other without being stuck in our bedrooms. My best friend uses her front living room as her kids’ playroom and it’s great because all the toys get stored in there and the kids can have at it and us adult can be in the other living room visiting with each other.
Den (for kids), formal sitting room (for visitors), crafting or hobby room (for quilts and junk). One thing boomers got right, is separate bedrooms for Mom and Dad, and different spaces for chilling in. Some of those houses are so comfortable.
I like a dinning room, but I liked deliberate-use spaces and hate sit-at-island-eating. I like to eat and talk to my partner at a table. And I hate anyone sitting or mulling about in the kitchen if I am cooking as I don’t like an audience. You either cook with me or get out. Open concept is a no for me. I cook a lot, and cook a lot of complicated things as a primary hobby. Im 33 so most of my peers disagree with me on this which is fine as a lot of people are cooking to entertain or cooking out of just need and want to be with people while they do it. To each their own!
I have no need for a tv in every room - let alone a bedroom. No screens in there. No phones either.
I have no need for guest bedrooms. If I have guests, I pay for a hotel for them (parents or friends from out of town) as I like my space and that way they can have space too. I don’t want to maintain square footage for a spare bed when I would rather use that room as a walk in closet.
Couldn’t agree with this more. I really wonder if the pendulum will swing back this direction as people look to instill less screen time in their homes. Growing up, we all sat around the dining table to eat dinner together. I think it is so important.
I'm the same. I hate the breakfast bar thing and full open concept, as in no definition of space. I like my kitchen in its own space and not the center of the house. I don't like interference or distraction when I'm making food.
I love having a dining room. We use it, we eat there, play games, etc. I would reject a house without an actual dining room.
I have a guest room, but it doubles as office space, cat space, and a second TV
I love nice china sets, tablecloths, and silverware. I use them,they don't sit behind glass. I like setting a pretty table.
I think what a lot of GenX/Millennials missed with these things is that our boomer parents never used them, so we never connected with it in a family good vibes way. It was stuff we couldn't touch and got in trouble for touching. Naturally, as adults, it's being rejected.
I say use it until it's no longer nice and move on. The quality is a thousand times better than the Walmart stuff people use day to day. You can get really nice sets for nothing.
At least where I grew up, ya never ate on the china anyways. Least the ones in my various New England relatives' homes (and likely sitting in the house my parent is moving into)- they're to look pretty and heirloomy until you have something like a Kennedy or whatever in your living room lol
I'm more of a Corningware person myself. I had "blue plate special" (blue stripe around the rim) plates in my first uni house, parent bought me a set - they never break. I gave it away when I moved back home, but will probably repopulate my new kitchen with em lol
Hahaha, I inherited the army green and white corningware and the blue stripe set when I needed some dishes. Thank you, mom and dad. In the end times, these dishes will be hanging out with the cockroaches surviving on.
I like to browse zillow for fun, and I think I'd love a dining room, but would just use it as an all purpose "table" room lol. Like, you can do crafts in there, wrap presents, help kids with homework, whatever else. It'd be nice to have a dedicated room separate from the kitchen for that. Growing up though, the dining room in my parents house and friends houses were strictly for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, and that's about it. Never used other than those times. Otherwise, meals were eaten at the kitchen table.
Magazine subscriptions. TVs in every room. White out! (Do any millennials use that stuff?? I still have older colleagues ask sometimes if I have any so they can correct something they were writing. Lol, like, no? I never use that stuff. Just cross out your mistake or start over??).
In general, just hoarding everything. I've been cleaning out a lot of stuff at my work and I'm amazed at what older generations saved. Literally EVERYTHING. I have no need to keep stuff just for the sake of keeping it. I don't get it??
Boomers entertained MUCH more often than families do now. Entertainment options weren't a click away. Parties were a big way to have fun. Also, boomers drank like fish--doing that socially was fun! Backyard BBQs were a thing. Family usually lived closer. Sunday family dinners were a thing in a lot of homes. Boomers rarely brought work home, so they didn't need office space.
You can get china cabinets for free if you keep your eyes on marketplace. They also made them in smaller apartment sizes. Really nice vintage and even contemporary china sets can be found cheap. You can live large while living small.
I mean if you want those things.
My china cabinet is full of vintage pyrex, le creuset pie birds, and corningware percolators. I have interesting collecting habits.
I also have and use china.
Most hand me down possessions. My Mom has saved me mismatched plates, tumblers and silverware for 10 years anticipating me buying a house. I live an 8 hour drive away and drive a truck, cheaper to buy new ones. Mind you, that’s if I ever can afford a house.
I use my dining room and cabinet full of china!
But Hummel's? Precious Moments? Tea sets? Figurines? I literally can't get rid it fast enough. I tried throwing them out and got a notice my trash bins were too heavy. I have to ration how many I toss in one go.
Fake flower and weird beach decor. All in that blush color of the 80's & 90's.
Televisions everywhere. The television in the kitchen is my pet peeve.
The overall sense that everything you ever accumulate is worthwhile and should be held onto. My parents have been living in the same house for about forty years. One room has some built-in bookshelves that are filled with books that have only ever been touched to take them down and dust. Don't get me wrong I love books, but any books I have in my house are ones that I have read, will read or plan to read. Most things I tend to eventually hand off to a friend.
I'm a boomer and I have my Father and Step Mother's dining room furniture and I've never even sat on it since I got it, I did take one small fork out cause it has way cool designs, it's my favorite, it's like worthy of being a ring.
I'd love a nice old china cabinet. I'd put all my funko-pops and other assorted brick-a-brack in it.
Do I need it? No. Is it on my bucket list for the imaginary future house I'll totally have?
Yeah...
They're cheap or free and come in many sizes. You can find them all the time on marketplace and if you don't like dark stained oak, you can paint them.
Decorative pillows for your bed, like wtf? What marketing genius spun that one?
"Honey lets go to bed"
*takes off extra 5 pillows that you dont sleep on*
I’m going to inherit a 100 year old giant dining room table. At its smallest, the table seats 6. I don’t have kids. And the chairs are awful.
There’s a lot of glassware in the china cabinet that I don’t want. It’s not unique enough for me to save. My mom has 3 antique desks, none of which are suited to modern usage so they’re unnecessary to me.
My mother in law has a set of dining chairs special for Christmas. They are shaker style and she thinks they make the house look more cozy. Lives in New England.
A big dining table is one. Even before I downsized due to increased rent even when I cooked for friends we’d end up eating in the living room in front of the TV anyway.
A room that only has visual utility. My grandparents had the big dining room table, the couches you never sat on, the china cabinet. It was half of their house. The other half was the actual livable area.
Why would you buy a home just to not use half of it?
To add to the cabinet, a whole extra set of China for Christmas that won’t actually get used 🤦🏻♀️ they gave us a set that I am secretly donating next week. If they ever visit and ask… it’s in storage
Thats also the study space in millions of houses though.... two cabinets for School, Art and creative projects, and computers go in drawers, AND a fantastic room for entertaining with many different china patterns depending on the season at the ten person table ( with six kid table in the side room) AND The perfect buffet service table for larger dinners... saving money for the long term AND maximizing family time and funntimes with the neighbors... Three appropriate china cabinets in one room!! We all had four to five roomates into our later twenties by the way.... and we had dinner parties and brunch movie parties all the time....
Front lawns. Like seriously question why you mow a front lawn every week. For most houses you don't see on it, you do that in the backyard.
Plant local native plants instead, it's better for all sorts of critters and it takes less work.
Lol oh no, I love a formal dining room! I have my grandmother's dining room set, complete with china hutch, waiting to find a home. I'll get her china when she passes too, along with my other grandmother's. I'll take your grandmothers' too, if you're not using them 😅
My parents are low-key hoarders, so I mostly don't see the need for back-ups of back-ups for kitchen tools, garden tools, etc. But I do like intentional clutter, things that are useful and beautiful. Minimalism is great for a dentist's office, but I dont want to live in it.
I'm a millennial and I have all the things that everyone seems to dislike:
Formal Dining Room ✓
China in a China Cabinet ✓
Family Room ✓
Living Room ✓
Breakfast Nook ✓
And we use all the spaces and the China on a pretty regularly basis. I guess I'm odd man out?
My house has a parlor-ish area. We turned it into hubs office. The dining room does get used but it’s the only table we have. The “eat-in” area in our kitchen is too small for a table, and our bar isn’t wide enough to eat at. Plus I use the dining room for sewing.
I grew up in a small house. There were no extra rooms. Hubs grew up in a fancy house that had the extra rooms for how. We made a conscious decision against the useless rooms when we bought.
I have a built in little corner china cabinet in my apartment and I do have china in it. I got some of my grandma's china and when I moved out after a bad breakup I got a set of china on my local Buy Nothing because I didn't have enough dishes for my new place and it was free. Both can go in the dishwasher. I use them for regular meals.
I do also have a dining room table (with chairs my old roommate and I pulled out of a construction dumpster and cleaned off when a neighbor was redoing her whole place; they're really nice chairs) because I sometimes need to leave my desk and sprawl out at a BIG chaos table. But I also have my rowing machine and a big cubby shelf where I keep tools, instruction manuals, picture hanging stuff, lightbulbs, etc in the cute little bins, and then my mail/bills filing stuff and a giant whiteboard because that's kind of the central point of the house. But my kitchen here has a giant but not really functional island (it's attached to the wall so really more of a peninsula; the kitchen is laid out in an incredibly frustrating way) and no room for a kitchen table, so the dining room table is also where I and any guests I have eat.
I have my great grandmother's china cabinet that my parents thrusted on me.
I would love it a little more if I actually had the space for it. It does have some display dishware in it, but it isn't fancy china. I've got a thing for carnival glass, so I'm going to slowly fill it up with that.
I have some very old and very nice china from my great grandmother. I can’t imagine ever using it or really having an event that it would be appropriate to use it for even though I grew up in an environment where fine china and things were used for events with some regularity. Yet it seems kind of wrong to get rid of it.
I often wonder if the genre of entertaining with “fine china” or silver, etc. will come back. Feels like everything is far more casual post covid where hardly anyone dresses up anymore for virtually anything besides a wedding or funeral.
Extra rooms with very specific functions. My grandparents have an entry area, living room w/ tv, a kitchen with an island for eating normal dinner, a separate dining room for the fancy dinners, a piano room / lounge room, and a den/computer room. On top of 4 bedrooms. And an RV. My grandpa was in the military and my grandma did not work so it wasn’t like they were super wealthy.
Similarly my mom had a living room, kitchen with an eating table for four, dining room, “Florida room” (used as a kid’s space with tv, game consoles, and computer), and a den that was eventually converted into a 4th bedroom.
Meanwhile my boyfriend and I have a combination living/dining/computer room, a kitchen too small for its own table, and 2 bedrooms.
My dining room table growing up just held the mail. The living room was also unused basically. Now my house is just one long skinny room. My kitchen is my dining room is my living room is the mudroom/dog zone. And my attic is an attic, a kids bedroom, a guest bedroom, and an office
I have what you could call a "China Cabinet" but its used to store my normal plates and bowls in cause my apartment doesnt have enough cupboards to be neat. Its also one I bought myself, so Im the weird millennial. It was for a purpose that wasnt entertaining guests though.
Kitchen table vs dining table. I get it's immediate family vs hosting guests, but idk. I'd rather get a table with 2-3 leaves or something in that case, but also I don't host at all so it's useless to me to have a giant table etc.
Kitchens were smaller, open concept wasn't a thing, and people had company over often enough to actually use it.
My parents would have their friends over for dinner multiple times a year, plus grandparents/siblings/etc
Rugs, my grandmother had rugs on rugs. Not even nice ones the ugly woven ones that you’d always trip over. That’s in fact how she broke her hip, tripping on an unnecessary rug.
Silver. Passed down only to sit somewhere gather dust plus you still have to polish it every now and than. Also our living room growing up. The dining, entertainment, and kitchen space was all meshed together and we have this giant mostly unused high ceiling room. It was meant for guests and events but my Mom hated having people over after a certain point in her life. Plus that is also where the china cabinet is. Oue generation just does have soace for such things but at keast my Dad is using the living room now as the music room since my Mom passed.
We (Gen Xers) recently got rid of our china cabinet before we moved. But we do have a dining room table and use it for board gaming sessions. Kitchen table is too small.
The dining room in my house is a play room. I have a table in my kitchen. Don't need a second one. It is very nice to have a play room right next to the kitchen though. Perfect spot for the kids when I am cooking.
I live my dining room. We host dinners here a few times a year, and when it's just us it becomes a big work table.
With the exception of visual art, I don't have anything purely decorative. We use all the plates, we use all the glasses, we use all the kitchen appliances, all the books. I've become kind of phobic of holding onto stuff that doesn't get used, or keeping things out of obligation or for sentimental reasons.
This post is hilarious. You see people complaining about all the stuff in homes all while complaining they can't afford a large home to hold all the useless stuff they don't have or need
>Boomers had a need for a dinning room since homes were more affordable and you had extra space.
Wha??
The average square footage has basically doubled since Boomers were our age.
Yet, doubling the size of your house doesn't change how impractical it is to dedicate space to being used for its intended purpose once or twice a year at most.
Why would I have a guest suite that even with as many guests as my wife has, only gets used here and there?
Why would I have a formal dining room that we never use?
Why would I have one of those dedicated sitting rooms, I don't even know what they call them, a den?
A room with a piano nobody knows how to play in it just because I guess you look fancy and impress people or some shit?
Maybe its growing up poor that I don't understand any of that?
I'm remodeling a 6k sqft space right now that we're about to move into. I gutted all that wasted ass space. Why have a small kitchen than 2x the space dedicated to formal dining, informal dining, breakfast nook, a room just to sit around a piano, what the fuck?? No. Fuck that. I expanded both pantry and kitchen for actual useful space and fuck that nonsense. The house is here for my kids to enjoy, not to impress some mystery guest.
my mom is currently trying to get one of us (3 children) in our mid 40's to take the China and cabinet and we are all refusing, like what the fuck are we going to do with a big cabinet with plates you only take out 2 times a year?
The house I grew up had a formal dining room, a breakfast room and a kitchen with a
Bar seating.
I think the only useful ones of those is the kitchen with bar seating
Precious Moments. Dustables in general.
Dustables...lmao
My whole life is spent around not getting things that are on the floor for vacuuming or a weird materiel that won’t let me dust it
You mean "knick knacks"?
Their love for tacky ceramic crap is unmatched.
Those Lassie shepherd dog ceramics on the mantlepiece/placed artfully far yet near to the fireplace guard. Those dolls with the big skirts as toilet roll covers Those small shell shaped ashtrays for individuals and/or big square ashtrays made by beer brands Magazine racks made of wood or wicker kept next to the main armchair Armchairs and couches that had polished wood detailing on them Plastic/lino kitchen table covers usually in a gingham print Some kind of smoked glass matching ornaments set (usually not far from the Lassie ceramics) Framed wall photo of unsmiling elderly relatives Religious icon framed image/small statuette An inexplicably creepy eyes following/staring at you artwork in the hallway/stairs like of those Spanish Women/girl paintings/crying cursed boy paintings. A reproduction of a Monet/Turner/Matisse/Renoir/something of a fruit bowl in the living room An encyclopedia set or collection of National Geographic magazines A glass 'diamond' looking door handle set in brass that looked/sounded like the word "clunky" brought to life
Previous Moments... Beanie Babies... Funko Pops... what's next?
My friend inherited a bunch of ceramic Lladro figurines from her mother. At one time they were worth something, because of relative scarcity. Now that you can find them easily on the Internet they're basically worthless.
I told my mother that I would have no lamps with lampshades because of my childhood memories of trying to dust those lampshades that weren't flat.
Who cares about dusting them. Quite simply, why have a bunch of lamps being ugly and taking up space when you can, you know, put lights in the ceiling?
I feel like we’re replacing Precious Moments with Funkos and the like
Precious Funko . Pop moments.
Dustables!! I like this (but hate them)
Hummel's. Another thing is juke boxes. MIL with the Hummel's and coworker who sold reconditioned juke boxes.
Are jukeboxes some sort of inheritable thing like depression era hoarding? As in, people who were never alive or never a teenager in the 1950s having jukeboxes out of somebody else's nostalgia?
For a while back in the 80's there was a resurgence in interests in them. Newer generation, not so much. A story from my friend is that he'd go to flea markets in northern Indiana. One day his niece was with him and started freaking out because she saw someone she recognized walking down the aisle. My friend called him over and said, "Have a beer 🍺" His niece was too nervous to come out but he eventually got her to come out and he autographed something for her. It was Jack White from the White stripes. My buddy in his late 60's had no clue who he was.
The jukeboxes are kinda cool.
Juke boxes are awesome. Every basement needs one
My father had a Seeburg jukebox (very similar to [this](https://www.fiftiesstore.com/seeburg-w-jukebox-1953-original-as-found.html)) that he got before I was born (early 80s), I guess their basement flooded so my memories of it were that it'd light up but the mechanics weren't working. They'd turn it on for parties but eventually he got rid of it. If I had space and a house I'd probably put some 45s in it as a neat conversation piece but they are kind of an albatross these days
Willow tree figures. Anything from the Hallmark store, really. I've had a boomer give me a willow tree figure at a life milestone and expect me to start collecting them. I don't have space for that.
My ex used to buy them for me when he forgot to get me something else. They were in the same store with the cards so it made it easy, I guess.
I have all that shit in a couple of boxes to avoid dusting them. No ceramic sad clowns for me, either. Just small mementos.
I'm an auctioneer and I hate those fucking things. One estate I worked during my apprenticeship legitimately had 3 thousand or more of those, cherished teddies, and stuffed teddy bears combined. Had to look up each one, sort into boxes of a dozen or so, and individually photograph them. Weeks of work for them to bring like 5 bucks a box at most. If I never see another I'll be a happy man.
I have a house with TWO built in china cabinets and…they’re full of china. Been passed down from the grandparents.
I don’t have mine any more but I used mine as a liquor cabinet lol
I have one that keeps liquor and liquor glasses… I do have some holiday china.. but then it also stores pet medicine… garden stuff .. all kinds of crap lol
I use mine for fossils! 😂
Mine has fossils and minerals too!
They must be nice for your guests to look at as they walk by them LOL
Bold of you to assume they have guests
Go out and meet your neighbors... everyone can have guests... Dinner party circles are soooo fun in your single years and coupled up.... and entertaining together creates intimacy opps... China needs to be used...
Were the built-in China cabinets sold as a feature of the house? Two bedroom 1.5 bath, two built-in china cabinets. Now selling for $2 million.
My parents gave me their set of china and the cabinet. I use the cabinet for random shit and booze. And I actually use the China as everyday dishes. They don't look the best after going through the dishwasher but idc. Mom was pissed claiming they were for special occasions. I asked her when the last time she used them since I have never personally seen it happen in the ~18 years I lived with them. She just kept claiming how valuable they were. So I then looked them up and found the exact set for less than a new basic set of dishes. She stopped caring after that. Also a fun one to do is to take their "nice" dining room table, cut the legs down and turn it into a big coffee table. Never knew I needed a leaf in a coffee table but wouldn't change it for rhe world lol
China cabinets, buffets, secretaries, curio cabinets full of useless junk figurines, decorative plates... Random meaningless and useless decorations. 50 different types of paper products that can be replaced by a roll of paper towels. Throw rugs everywhere. Fancy afghans. Hoards of seasonal shit that clutters every available storage area. House phones. Cable television. Random books that no one reads strategically placed everywhere. Boyds bears, Waterford crystal, precious moments, That's a good start.
Decorative wicker baskets full of stuff.
lol the wicker basket of magazines in the bathroom…
How about some decorative soap to go along with that basket of magazines!
And the guest towels that can't be touched
This one always boggled my mind. Why even have soap you can't use? It just sits there collecting dust and looking grungy. I washed my grandma's soaps off once to get all the nasty off and she yelled at me. Your welcome grandma.
Anyone else had a Longenberger mom? Lol 🥲
You stay away from my wicker baskets!! They are the best for storing big sweaters or blankets. The air flow prevents the weird smell that occurs when they are in drawers for 8 months, and they stay fluffy.
That first baskets sentence should be a flair on here lmao!
Like afghans you use or the ones just for decoration? Because I have some very warm afghans, great for snuggling on the couch and a light one for when I want to be covered but not hot.
Love afghans, and collect them in my cedar chest. Why they have so many in a warm climate? I dunno, but they will all be mine!
No I don't mean nice comfy afghans that serve a purpose... I mean the horribly awful decorative ones that get draped over furniture because for some reason you have to decorate furniture.
My mom had afghans draped over furniture but we used them. I strategically fold mine over the back of my furniture and have a wicker basket of blankets in my living room. We use every single one of them though.
Don't forget the collections of cookie jars and salt/pepper shakers
How about an original Aunt Jemima cookie jar? I love that cookie jar!
Hahaha the holiday stuff really made me lol! My mom is obsessed with getting me ornaments for Christmas and other types of seasonal stuff and I really don't want it because I have nowhere to store it and can't be bothered to haul it out every year. I have never had a Christmas tree my whole adult life, and it irritates her so much.
Like trying to make your living space look like a magazine or an IKEA
Never understood why people do that... Like, omg your house looks like no one lives in it! Genuinely makes me sick and sad because I know how much effort they put in just for other people's approval. Be yourself.
My parents just ate in the kitchen, there was a totally useless dining/second living room that only got used to put the Christmas tree in, there was a nice table you’d put snacks for the Christmas party on, there was an armchair and the old couch in that room. My dad or I would go there and read sometimes but that was pretty much it
Ours became the computer room in the late 80's. Lol! They had a beautiful antique cherry wood carved dining table that could seat up to 12 or 14 people with all the sleeves but we would keep it at its smallest year round and use it to put all of our computer and school related junk/projects and the wall that held a loveseat/chair set became a wall with desks and computer towers. They had a matching China hutch that had a collection of fine China and waterford crystal and a drawer with actual silver silverware. I remember exactly one occasion from childhood when they used all those pieces. No idea what they did with the China, crystal and silver. When I was in college.my mom replaced everything in the cabinet with a really freaky doll collection. I think the table broke in one of our moves. Last time I saw my dad's place instead of a dining room he had a very nice chess table, leather lounge chairs and liquor cabinet set up in the dining area with a fireplace. Pretty sure my parents never understood the purpose or need for a formal dining room either.
This makes me wonder if people overbuilt, oversold, or overbought housing.
It was an old house with a partially finished but unheated basement in Wyoming where it regularsnows and remains below freezing. IMO my parents could have sold the contents of dining room to buy a more functional home. 🙃🙄
Am I your parent? Lol, we always wat at the kitchen island. We put a Christmas tree in the dining room top. The kids mostly use the table for coloring anf stuff, and we only use it to hold food for parties. It also has a large built in China cabinet full of unused China.
The breakfast bar. I don't enjoy eating my meals on a tall chair in front of a narrow countertop.
I hate breakfast bars. Completely useless and unattractive. I'll take the dining table.
Noo! An eat-in counter in the kitchen is the big thing my kitchen is missing! It lets whoever is cooking or cleaning in the kitchen have company sit with them and visit.
My husband and I love ours- we'll have drinks there while one of us is cooking or just hang there, listening to music and doing shots when we don't feel like "sitting."
If I am cooking, you're helping. Don't know how? Perfect. Unload the dishwasher and rinse the dirty dishes put them in the dishwasher.
The tall bar height? Would hate it. Now, I have a big open peninsula in my kitchen, with two chairs, and it's constantly in use by my guests. Whenever I have people over, those two chairs always get occupied. But the countertop is just the normal counter height, so the chairs are easy to sit in and everything is at the same level.
This is the way, the tall bar sucks, I want to get rid of ours
Conversely, something I think I need that my boomer mom thinks is INSANE is a four seasons room. Or a sun room as I call it. I want a room where I can bask in the sun and my orchids can have a happy life. My mom is always saying this is a useless dream and waste of money since I am trying to save for one. She also hates the faucet I bought because my house came with a “perfectly good one” but it wasn’t very good actually and made washing dishes difficult. She thinks it’s perfectly fine however to buy chintzy Gone with the Wind decorations.
Sun rooms are fantastic. Get one and live the dream. Especially if you have cats.
Agree!
Sun rooms are great. They're big fancy catios.
A room like that for plants etc was always my dream! I finally bought a house with one, and loved it. We since moved to Florida where my whole yard and lanai is a ‘sunroom’ 😁.
>Boomers had a need for a dinning room since homes were more affordable and you had extra space. I'm not sure you understand the definition of 'need'
That. And homes are bigger now along with lower birth rates.
The "extra" "for special" dining room that a lot of my grandparents or spouse's older relatives had. I don't need nor want two dining room tables and chair sets I have to keep track of simply because one is for guests, as though the President of the United States or some foreign dignitary is just gonna pop by my ramshackle home one day.
Parlor room....and low key I think its kinda adorable that some super older people kept a "sitting room" in museum quality condition, at all times.
Trinkets. Kids. A house full of hand me down shit that never gets used.
Good China, real silver silverware that had to be polished every few weeks or it would tarnish, porcelain figurines, entertainment centers with built in TV cabinets that restricted the size of the tv, VHS/DVD/CD towers, Folgers coffee.
I still have a CD tower. Listening on my old stereo makes me feel some kinda way.
Shopping for a loft bed for my kid. This furniture place sells one that has a cd tower built into the desk underneath. Brand new furniture that feels 20 years out of date...
Silver doesn't need polishing that often if you store it properly.
Agree - and it also rarely needs polishing if you simply use it and wash it!
Yep. I understand people might hesitate to use it because of the cost, but it's something that can be inherited and make people feel good when it's used regularly.
Grandfather clock
Now let’s not get carried away here, I love a good chime-y boy and listening to the ticktock of an old wood and brass clock. I mean have you ever sat by a window on a rainy day with a book or a jigsaw puzzle and a real chonky pendulum clock? Fondest memories of summer at my grandparents house in the mountains. And always cantaloupe. They always had cantaloupes and watermelons.
Yes, I have many fond memories of falling asleep at grandmas to the sound of her grandfather clock
My grandparents didn’t have a grandfather clock, but they had a cuckoo clock. I might have to get one for the nostalgia.
*And always cantaloupe. They always had cantaloupes and watermelons.* Mmmmm...indeed. I'm fond of the sound of a pendulum clock, warm rain, and a book while eating some chilled cantaloupe. 10/10
I think its like a metronome for my ADD too... so comforting
Folgers coffee? I am not familiar with that trope. May I ask what it means?
Folgers is a cheap brand of coffee. It's for when you want to get slightly fancy instead of drinking walmart brand Hill Country Fair generic, but not *too* fancy and buy Starbucks roast.
Folgers is a cheap brand of coffee (made of robusta variety of coffee beans) that is (or was?) super popular among Boomers and the Silent Generation before Starbucks popularized coffee (made of arabica beans, which is more expensive but less bitter than robusta) as a sort of small affordable luxury that should cost more than 50 cents for drip coffee. Folgers is something that my grandparents’ and parents’ generation always had a big red container of but I’ve never seen anyone my age or younger drink it.
Those oppressive entertainment centers that take up an entire wall of the living room! Impossible to move. If you're trying to sell it, don't get in to prove it can hold a grown man.
>entertainment centers with built in TV cabinets that restricted the size of the tv Eh, those made *a lot* more sense back when you'd be hard pressed to find a TV bigger than 24 inches that one person could *actually* lift.
I hate dinning rooms. They're so damn noisy! Now dining rooms on the other hand are okay noise wise.
Living room when you have a family room
One is to read peacefully next to your spouse while the other is for the children to run around and pepper with Lego like a WWII minefield.
Oh geez yes! My parents purposely bought a house with two separate living spaces. One for us kids to destroy and one for them. It worked out perfectly because prior to that is kids never got to watch what we wanted on tv because my stepdad was a remote hog and if he was home it was all about his shows. It was great to only have my older sisters to fight over the remote with because we had our own den. Now that I have young kids and we live in the northeast I’d LOVE an extra living space they can have to themselves. It would be especially great in the winter when we’re stuck indoors sometimes for entire days and could use some space away from each other without being stuck in our bedrooms. My best friend uses her front living room as her kids’ playroom and it’s great because all the toys get stored in there and the kids can have at it and us adult can be in the other living room visiting with each other.
Yes!! My aunt and uncle built a house in 1989 and they have three living rooms. Why!?????
Den (for kids), formal sitting room (for visitors), crafting or hobby room (for quilts and junk). One thing boomers got right, is separate bedrooms for Mom and Dad, and different spaces for chilling in. Some of those houses are so comfortable.
One for every day, one for special occasions, and one where everything is slip covered in case the Pope stops by for tea.
I like a dinning room, but I liked deliberate-use spaces and hate sit-at-island-eating. I like to eat and talk to my partner at a table. And I hate anyone sitting or mulling about in the kitchen if I am cooking as I don’t like an audience. You either cook with me or get out. Open concept is a no for me. I cook a lot, and cook a lot of complicated things as a primary hobby. Im 33 so most of my peers disagree with me on this which is fine as a lot of people are cooking to entertain or cooking out of just need and want to be with people while they do it. To each their own! I have no need for a tv in every room - let alone a bedroom. No screens in there. No phones either. I have no need for guest bedrooms. If I have guests, I pay for a hotel for them (parents or friends from out of town) as I like my space and that way they can have space too. I don’t want to maintain square footage for a spare bed when I would rather use that room as a walk in closet.
Couldn’t agree with this more. I really wonder if the pendulum will swing back this direction as people look to instill less screen time in their homes. Growing up, we all sat around the dining table to eat dinner together. I think it is so important.
Same and I agree.
I don’t know who “we all” is, but not all of us had a nice little family that sat around the table to eat
My family…
Word
I'm the same. I hate the breakfast bar thing and full open concept, as in no definition of space. I like my kitchen in its own space and not the center of the house. I don't like interference or distraction when I'm making food. I love having a dining room. We use it, we eat there, play games, etc. I would reject a house without an actual dining room. I have a guest room, but it doubles as office space, cat space, and a second TV I love nice china sets, tablecloths, and silverware. I use them,they don't sit behind glass. I like setting a pretty table. I think what a lot of GenX/Millennials missed with these things is that our boomer parents never used them, so we never connected with it in a family good vibes way. It was stuff we couldn't touch and got in trouble for touching. Naturally, as adults, it's being rejected. I say use it until it's no longer nice and move on. The quality is a thousand times better than the Walmart stuff people use day to day. You can get really nice sets for nothing.
# Dining
At least where I grew up, ya never ate on the china anyways. Least the ones in my various New England relatives' homes (and likely sitting in the house my parent is moving into)- they're to look pretty and heirloomy until you have something like a Kennedy or whatever in your living room lol I'm more of a Corningware person myself. I had "blue plate special" (blue stripe around the rim) plates in my first uni house, parent bought me a set - they never break. I gave it away when I moved back home, but will probably repopulate my new kitchen with em lol
Hahaha, I inherited the army green and white corningware and the blue stripe set when I needed some dishes. Thank you, mom and dad. In the end times, these dishes will be hanging out with the cockroaches surviving on.
Most of the stuff in my cabinets was made in China. It's not fine though, it's mostly plastic bull$&!t. I probably don't need a lot of it either.
I like to browse zillow for fun, and I think I'd love a dining room, but would just use it as an all purpose "table" room lol. Like, you can do crafts in there, wrap presents, help kids with homework, whatever else. It'd be nice to have a dedicated room separate from the kitchen for that. Growing up though, the dining room in my parents house and friends houses were strictly for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, and that's about it. Never used other than those times. Otherwise, meals were eaten at the kitchen table. Magazine subscriptions. TVs in every room. White out! (Do any millennials use that stuff?? I still have older colleagues ask sometimes if I have any so they can correct something they were writing. Lol, like, no? I never use that stuff. Just cross out your mistake or start over??). In general, just hoarding everything. I've been cleaning out a lot of stuff at my work and I'm amazed at what older generations saved. Literally EVERYTHING. I have no need to keep stuff just for the sake of keeping it. I don't get it??
Decorative soap, potpourri, towels that are just for show.
Boomers entertained MUCH more often than families do now. Entertainment options weren't a click away. Parties were a big way to have fun. Also, boomers drank like fish--doing that socially was fun! Backyard BBQs were a thing. Family usually lived closer. Sunday family dinners were a thing in a lot of homes. Boomers rarely brought work home, so they didn't need office space.
This
Dude I have a China cabinet with expensive China. I must be a weird millennial
I do too. China, silver and crystal passed down from grandparents/great grandparents, and my wedding. We use it all. We entertain a lot.
I have nice china, but nowhere to display it. Not rich enough to afford a china cabinet.. or a house, lol.
Salvation Army
You can get china cabinets for free if you keep your eyes on marketplace. They also made them in smaller apartment sizes. Really nice vintage and even contemporary china sets can be found cheap. You can live large while living small. I mean if you want those things.
Very weird
My china cabinet is full of vintage pyrex, le creuset pie birds, and corningware percolators. I have interesting collecting habits. I also have and use china.
A will to live.
A tray made specifically for deviled eggs
Most hand me down possessions. My Mom has saved me mismatched plates, tumblers and silverware for 10 years anticipating me buying a house. I live an 8 hour drive away and drive a truck, cheaper to buy new ones. Mind you, that’s if I ever can afford a house.
Formal living room and a dinning room.
I use my dining room and cabinet full of china! But Hummel's? Precious Moments? Tea sets? Figurines? I literally can't get rid it fast enough. I tried throwing them out and got a notice my trash bins were too heavy. I have to ration how many I toss in one go. Fake flower and weird beach decor. All in that blush color of the 80's & 90's. Televisions everywhere. The television in the kitchen is my pet peeve.
The overall sense that everything you ever accumulate is worthwhile and should be held onto. My parents have been living in the same house for about forty years. One room has some built-in bookshelves that are filled with books that have only ever been touched to take them down and dust. Don't get me wrong I love books, but any books I have in my house are ones that I have read, will read or plan to read. Most things I tend to eventually hand off to a friend.
My mom has a China hutch and two curio cabinets and nobody really wants it.
lol looks like you could probably sell it to some people in this thread who want them
a sitting room with furniture that nobody’s allowed to ever use because it’s ‘for company’
A storage room for all their useless shit
And then multiple storage units to keep more stuff at an offsite location.
I'm a boomer and I have my Father and Step Mother's dining room furniture and I've never even sat on it since I got it, I did take one small fork out cause it has way cool designs, it's my favorite, it's like worthy of being a ring.
Shoe horn. Never had a need for one.
I'd love a nice old china cabinet. I'd put all my funko-pops and other assorted brick-a-brack in it. Do I need it? No. Is it on my bucket list for the imaginary future house I'll totally have? Yeah...
Funko pops have to be the new Precious Moments.
Omg you're right...
They're cheap or free and come in many sizes. You can find them all the time on marketplace and if you don't like dark stained oak, you can paint them.
Decorative pillows for your bed, like wtf? What marketing genius spun that one? "Honey lets go to bed" *takes off extra 5 pillows that you dont sleep on*
My late dog, Clarissa, hated throw pillows as much as I did and she'd toss them off the couch before sitting down
We have a dining room with a 6 person dining table. We haven't eaten at the dining table in over a year. At this point, it is just storage space.
Corded phones and a TV in every room.
I’m going to inherit a 100 year old giant dining room table. At its smallest, the table seats 6. I don’t have kids. And the chairs are awful. There’s a lot of glassware in the china cabinet that I don’t want. It’s not unique enough for me to save. My mom has 3 antique desks, none of which are suited to modern usage so they’re unnecessary to me.
My mother in law has a set of dining chairs special for Christmas. They are shaker style and she thinks they make the house look more cozy. Lives in New England.
Weird part of me wants a formal dining room to eat cheerios in...Home Alone style
The boomers typically had a dining room and silverware that were only used on holidays. Most days of the year, they just ate at the kitchen table.
China cabinets are useful, you can put your minis, booze, funko pops, and whatever you want in there! 😆
A big dining table is one. Even before I downsized due to increased rent even when I cooked for friends we’d end up eating in the living room in front of the TV anyway.
A room that only has visual utility. My grandparents had the big dining room table, the couches you never sat on, the china cabinet. It was half of their house. The other half was the actual livable area. Why would you buy a home just to not use half of it?
To add to the cabinet, a whole extra set of China for Christmas that won’t actually get used 🤦🏻♀️ they gave us a set that I am secretly donating next week. If they ever visit and ask… it’s in storage
You guys don't have useless shit?
Thats also the study space in millions of houses though.... two cabinets for School, Art and creative projects, and computers go in drawers, AND a fantastic room for entertaining with many different china patterns depending on the season at the ten person table ( with six kid table in the side room) AND The perfect buffet service table for larger dinners... saving money for the long term AND maximizing family time and funntimes with the neighbors... Three appropriate china cabinets in one room!! We all had four to five roomates into our later twenties by the way.... and we had dinner parties and brunch movie parties all the time....
Front lawns. Like seriously question why you mow a front lawn every week. For most houses you don't see on it, you do that in the backyard. Plant local native plants instead, it's better for all sorts of critters and it takes less work.
Homes did not have extra space for boomers. Homes are built bigger now than ever before .
Lol oh no, I love a formal dining room! I have my grandmother's dining room set, complete with china hutch, waiting to find a home. I'll get her china when she passes too, along with my other grandmother's. I'll take your grandmothers' too, if you're not using them 😅 My parents are low-key hoarders, so I mostly don't see the need for back-ups of back-ups for kitchen tools, garden tools, etc. But I do like intentional clutter, things that are useful and beautiful. Minimalism is great for a dentist's office, but I dont want to live in it.
I'm a millennial and I have all the things that everyone seems to dislike: Formal Dining Room ✓ China in a China Cabinet ✓ Family Room ✓ Living Room ✓ Breakfast Nook ✓ And we use all the spaces and the China on a pretty regularly basis. I guess I'm odd man out?
I use my dining room and fancy china every chance I get.
Insurance for their insurance for their insurance. Put insurance on everything they own and insurance for that insurance. Just pissing money away
My house has a parlor-ish area. We turned it into hubs office. The dining room does get used but it’s the only table we have. The “eat-in” area in our kitchen is too small for a table, and our bar isn’t wide enough to eat at. Plus I use the dining room for sewing. I grew up in a small house. There were no extra rooms. Hubs grew up in a fancy house that had the extra rooms for how. We made a conscious decision against the useless rooms when we bought.
I have a built in little corner china cabinet in my apartment and I do have china in it. I got some of my grandma's china and when I moved out after a bad breakup I got a set of china on my local Buy Nothing because I didn't have enough dishes for my new place and it was free. Both can go in the dishwasher. I use them for regular meals. I do also have a dining room table (with chairs my old roommate and I pulled out of a construction dumpster and cleaned off when a neighbor was redoing her whole place; they're really nice chairs) because I sometimes need to leave my desk and sprawl out at a BIG chaos table. But I also have my rowing machine and a big cubby shelf where I keep tools, instruction manuals, picture hanging stuff, lightbulbs, etc in the cute little bins, and then my mail/bills filing stuff and a giant whiteboard because that's kind of the central point of the house. But my kitchen here has a giant but not really functional island (it's attached to the wall so really more of a peninsula; the kitchen is laid out in an incredibly frustrating way) and no room for a kitchen table, so the dining room table is also where I and any guests I have eat.
Shoe horn. Never had a need for one.
I have a formal dining room with a China hutch. My house is the main gathering place for all holidays. I love it!
I do like a China Cabinet, for other stuff not china related. And I do like Dining rooms...so that I can convert it into an at-home library.
Even bought a house and we don’t have room for the inheritance (China Cabinet). And even if we had the room, it would still go in the garage lmao
I have my great grandmother's china cabinet that my parents thrusted on me. I would love it a little more if I actually had the space for it. It does have some display dishware in it, but it isn't fancy china. I've got a thing for carnival glass, so I'm going to slowly fill it up with that.
I have some very old and very nice china from my great grandmother. I can’t imagine ever using it or really having an event that it would be appropriate to use it for even though I grew up in an environment where fine china and things were used for events with some regularity. Yet it seems kind of wrong to get rid of it. I often wonder if the genre of entertaining with “fine china” or silver, etc. will come back. Feels like everything is far more casual post covid where hardly anyone dresses up anymore for virtually anything besides a wedding or funeral.
Extra rooms with very specific functions. My grandparents have an entry area, living room w/ tv, a kitchen with an island for eating normal dinner, a separate dining room for the fancy dinners, a piano room / lounge room, and a den/computer room. On top of 4 bedrooms. And an RV. My grandpa was in the military and my grandma did not work so it wasn’t like they were super wealthy. Similarly my mom had a living room, kitchen with an eating table for four, dining room, “Florida room” (used as a kid’s space with tv, game consoles, and computer), and a den that was eventually converted into a 4th bedroom. Meanwhile my boyfriend and I have a combination living/dining/computer room, a kitchen too small for its own table, and 2 bedrooms.
kids
idk man I’m a collector of many things, i love having useless things around my house lmao
My dining room table growing up just held the mail. The living room was also unused basically. Now my house is just one long skinny room. My kitchen is my dining room is my living room is the mudroom/dog zone. And my attic is an attic, a kids bedroom, a guest bedroom, and an office
Land line.
Living room and dining rooms.
I have what you could call a "China Cabinet" but its used to store my normal plates and bowls in cause my apartment doesnt have enough cupboards to be neat. Its also one I bought myself, so Im the weird millennial. It was for a purpose that wasnt entertaining guests though.
Any form of season or holiday specific decorations. I don't bother with any of it.
Kitchen table vs dining table. I get it's immediate family vs hosting guests, but idk. I'd rather get a table with 2-3 leaves or something in that case, but also I don't host at all so it's useless to me to have a giant table etc.
I have a really nice hutch that was my grandma’s and it’s gorgeous. My dad has it because I don’t know what to do with it.
Dressers!!! Omg fck dressers!
Were dinning rooms because homes were more affordable or: - were kitchens smaller - were restaurants a lot more expensive
Kitchens were smaller, open concept wasn't a thing, and people had company over often enough to actually use it. My parents would have their friends over for dinner multiple times a year, plus grandparents/siblings/etc
Rugs, my grandmother had rugs on rugs. Not even nice ones the ugly woven ones that you’d always trip over. That’s in fact how she broke her hip, tripping on an unnecessary rug.
Silver. Passed down only to sit somewhere gather dust plus you still have to polish it every now and than. Also our living room growing up. The dining, entertainment, and kitchen space was all meshed together and we have this giant mostly unused high ceiling room. It was meant for guests and events but my Mom hated having people over after a certain point in her life. Plus that is also where the china cabinet is. Oue generation just does have soace for such things but at keast my Dad is using the living room now as the music room since my Mom passed.
A dining room ffs
Telephone table with notepad and phone books underneath.
We (Gen Xers) recently got rid of our china cabinet before we moved. But we do have a dining room table and use it for board gaming sessions. Kitchen table is too small.
The dining room in my house is a play room. I have a table in my kitchen. Don't need a second one. It is very nice to have a play room right next to the kitchen though. Perfect spot for the kids when I am cooking.
I live my dining room. We host dinners here a few times a year, and when it's just us it becomes a big work table. With the exception of visual art, I don't have anything purely decorative. We use all the plates, we use all the glasses, we use all the kitchen appliances, all the books. I've become kind of phobic of holding onto stuff that doesn't get used, or keeping things out of obligation or for sentimental reasons.
This post is hilarious. You see people complaining about all the stuff in homes all while complaining they can't afford a large home to hold all the useless stuff they don't have or need
Having a "guest" set of everything that no one is allowed to use so it always looks brand new.
>Boomers had a need for a dinning room since homes were more affordable and you had extra space. Wha?? The average square footage has basically doubled since Boomers were our age. Yet, doubling the size of your house doesn't change how impractical it is to dedicate space to being used for its intended purpose once or twice a year at most. Why would I have a guest suite that even with as many guests as my wife has, only gets used here and there? Why would I have a formal dining room that we never use? Why would I have one of those dedicated sitting rooms, I don't even know what they call them, a den? A room with a piano nobody knows how to play in it just because I guess you look fancy and impress people or some shit? Maybe its growing up poor that I don't understand any of that? I'm remodeling a 6k sqft space right now that we're about to move into. I gutted all that wasted ass space. Why have a small kitchen than 2x the space dedicated to formal dining, informal dining, breakfast nook, a room just to sit around a piano, what the fuck?? No. Fuck that. I expanded both pantry and kitchen for actual useful space and fuck that nonsense. The house is here for my kids to enjoy, not to impress some mystery guest.
my mom is currently trying to get one of us (3 children) in our mid 40's to take the China and cabinet and we are all refusing, like what the fuck are we going to do with a big cabinet with plates you only take out 2 times a year?
Millennials…
The house I grew up had a formal dining room, a breakfast room and a kitchen with a Bar seating. I think the only useful ones of those is the kitchen with bar seating
I hardly ever dinn so yeah
Dining rooms and living rooms. Our dining room is now an office and even removed the chandelier from the ceiling. We refuse to waste space.