Travel and Lifestyle

The outdated things we still love for our houses

There are timeless designs and then there are trends that come and go in a flash, but somewhere in between these two you get classics that can seem a little outdated but still hold their charm. They’re rife around our houses, things that we might have bought in a heady moment and simply stopped looking at, something we picked up as the zeitgest told us to which now dates our house or technology that was once cutting edge and now a dusty relic in fast-paced times. All that said, these outdated items retain some sense of nostalgia and we all have things that we know other people might think are naff and weird, but we love. Below are those belonging to the House & Garden team, and why they love them.

Virginia Clark, Digital Director

When I first started at House & Garden seven years ago I bought a coffee table that felt all the rage at the time. It’s a circular affair in ebonised wood, with trapezium-shaped legs with cane inserts. Everything had cane inserts back then, which now seem to have quietly disappeared. I don’t care – cane is one of those things that will come and go over the years again and again, a timeless design that just happens to be trendy every now and again. I also went full white metro tile in my bathroom, and I don’t hate it, but I wonder if we’ll all look at that as very 2010s/2020s in decades to come. I did keep the grout a light grey rather than that dark grey you see in a lot of houses, which helps prolong its life (I think).

Thomas Barrie, contributor

Is a bonsai tree outdated? I’ve certainly never seen one in person in any of the houses I’ve shot, nor in any of the shoots online or in the magazine. If you told me they were too studied, too explicitly associated with a Japanese tradition – it’s a bit like hanging garlic everywhere to show your admiration for the French – then I would be hard-pressed to disagree. And yet. Living in a small ex-council on a postwar estate, there’s something delicate and self-contained about a bonsai that goes really well with a modernist scheme. In a restricted space, you don’t want too many large objects, obviously. I have normal houseplants like everyone else, of course, but the bonsai sits on a mid-century sideboard, beside a relatively small television and nothing else, and looks surprisingly elegant. I think it’s a little cheesy, but it works.

Christabel Chubb, News Editor

I love it when I see a boot jack outside a garden door. I think I’ve used one maybe once or twice in my life but I love them so much, they remind me of being a child. Something else is a stovetop kettle – they are completely unnecessary in an age when you can literally have boiling water on tap. But the ritual of lighting the flame under the kettle (at my dad’s house his ignition doesn’t work so we even need to use matches for this – so old school) and waiting to hear the whistle makes me feel like I live in another, simpler time.

Elizabeth Metcalfe, Features Editor

We have a friend who inherited a dumb waiter in their house that takes plates and food up from basement kitchen to first floor dining room and it may be retro but it is totally genius. On a similar note, a landline is about as retro as it gets, but so civilised. In a world where we’re all so connected all the time, there is something special about a landline. Personally, I miss having a separate dining space to my kitchen in the form of a self-contained dining room. Our kitchen table takes all the chaos of life with a toddler and I find myself stepping on squished banana when we’re laying the table for dinner in the evening – how nice it would be step into a grown up, smushed banana-free zone. I fantasise about what the room might look like – a round table, a nice pendant, some nice old Swedish chairs.

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Caroline Bullough, Chief Sub-Editor

A kettle: Quooker hot taps make vile tea. Tea pots, even when I am making tea just for me (tea may be a theme here). I love a wooden concertina clothes horses and there should be more space for non-digital radios – reception is awful in our house for DAB ones and I don’t always want to have to use my laptop.

Tilly Wheeler, Commerce Writer

I love a kitschy souvenir and a retro tea towel, especially in a rental, I find it adds fun and personality to a kitchen. Similarly, I have a very 70s tablecloth that I got from my grandparents’ house, with a brown, green and orange pattern – some people would consider it hideous, but I like the boldness and the history of it. Would we say a valance is outdated? In a more traditional room where they make sense, they work so well.

Rose Washbourn, Sub-Editor

I am a fan of proper bedding – old school sheets and blankets instead of duvets. Barely anyone uses them anymore but they’re just better and the same goes for an iron and ironing board rather than today’s tiny handheld steamers. Hot water bottles are never outdated for me and I’ll stand by bone-handled cutlery – it may not be able to go in the dishwasher but it’s just so nice.

Jenny Lister, Creative Director

I simply won’t be without my Breville toastie machine or Roberts Radio.

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