Basement encounters of the antique kind

We bought a home in my husband’s hometown. The town where we first met way back in high school. It’s a beautiful old town.

The house was built in 1908. We’ve got cast iron radiators, arched entryways, and rounded corners in most of the rooms. There’s also a couple of relics down in the basement.

Vintage laundry sink

Back in the back of our basement, past the boiler and the water heater, you find a little corner that used to be the laundry area. There are two sinks. One is just a single basin sink. Nothing impressive. It drains like crap.

But there’s another sink. A vintage porcelain laundry sink. It has double basins. Inside one of those basins are ridges for scrubbing laundry clean.

Our home inspector said that he knows a couple of guys who would be interested in buying our antique sink especially in the great condition it’s in, but I think we’re going to keep it right where it is.

antique porcelain toilet with wooden tank

There’s an old water closet in the basement. A water closet contains nothing but a toilet. They were often put into basements likely because of the backflow from the over strained municipal plumbing system.

I absolutely love our water closet, though I will never spend any time in there. It’s just a little box of a room. There’s a small shelf beside the toilet. And there’s the toilet.

This little beauty has a porcelain throne and a wooden tank. Before finding this little antique in the basement while we were touring the home, I hadn’t realized that wooden toilet tanks were a thing.

While it looks really neat, this toilet is actually out of commision. It’s hooked up to the plumbing, but the water is turned off. The plunger does depress, so it is entirely possible that it does work. Maybe one day we’ll get somebody in here to take a peek.

a little bit of architecture

The last little bit of the past that we found in our basement is a bit of the architecture itself. I don’t know much about architecture, but the home inspector said these logs might be original to the home. They certainly don’t use real logs for basement rafters anymore.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these basement encounters of the antique kind.