Memory Lane: 15 Household Items From Your Childhood That New Houses Will Never See

Before cell phones, before cordless phones, before touch-tone phones, we had the rotary phone—either desk style or wall-mounted. Most often found in the kitchen, the phone typically had a very long, twisted cord attached to the receiver—long enough to make the stretch from the fridge, to the stove, to anywhere else. In many houses, it was the only phone—and it didn't have call waiting.

Old television technology involved big tubes that required a lot of space. TVs were often housed in cabinets and were intended to be a piece of furniture, not just a screen for viewing. In those days prior to remotes, the youngest kid in the house was usually tasked with changing the channel.

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Before microwave ovens, you popped your popcorn in a pot on the stove—or, if you got fancy, you had an electric popcorn maker like this one. Before too long, its interior became perfectly seasoned—you’d be hard-pressed now to get better snack food than what these beauties produced.

Most every home used to have a burn barrel in the backyard for getting rid of brush, leaves, and other refuse. The practice has been banned in many states and counties. The low temperature of open fires like the ones in burn barrels can release toxic substances from plastics, foils, and and other household waste—not to mention the smelly black smoke that irritates the neighbors.

A record player was standard entertainment equipment in any house from the late 1940s to the early '80s, alongside shelves and shelves of vinyl LPs. Thanks to the blur of technological advances since, you can now keep your entire music collection on a device that fits in the palm of your hand. If you’re a vinyl enthusiast, however, you can still enjoy dropping a needle on a beautiful portable player like this one.

The tension rod pole lamp was a staple in the 1970s home. It usually had three individual lamps on it, stationed at different heights, focused in different directions. With the current trend toward great rooms with cathedral ceilings, it’s hard to find a place to put a pole lamp these days.

A traditional windup alarm clock is completely mechanical, driven by springs. The double-bell model has a gear-driven hammer that oscillates back and forth between the bells to wake you at the time you set it to go off. As an added benefit, the clock's monotonous tick-tick-tick might just put you to sleep at night.

When cable television was new, the wireless technology we have today was still a dream. To change the channel, you used a device that was wired to the cable set-top box. You simply selected a position on the wheel on the right, then pressed the button corresponding to the channel you wanted. Despite the convenience, you could still argue that there was nothing good to watch on TV.

The Polaroid Instant Camera was the most popular of its kind, using self-developing film to produce finished photos in about a minute. In the age of digital cameras, “instant” means something totally different and photography is even quicker and cheaper than a Polaroid. With sales declining, the company stopped manufacturing and selling instant film in 2008.

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