Home Essentials

Fun Facts About Home Essentials

• Cabinet is a word that comes from a 16th century French term meaning a small, private room. Early cabinets were actually tiny private chambers before becoming pieces of furniture used for storage.
• The world's oldest surviving carpet was discovered in 1949 in a Siberian tomb. This hand-knotted pile carpet measures 6 feet square and dates back over 2,500 years.
• Heavy curtains were used in medieval castles not just for privacy but to help keep rooms warm. They served as wall insulation, reducing drafts from windows and doors.
• Washing machines in the 19th century were labor-intensive devices, powered by hand cranks, before electricity first made them automatic starting in 1908.
• The pedal-operated trash can was first designed in the 1920s. Early models were made of galvanized metal, with plastic alternatives appearing in the 1950s.
• The word stove originally meant "a heated room" in Middle Dutch. The usage shifted around the 15th–16th century from describing the room itself to the device heating the room.
• Refrigerators only became common in the 1930s–1950s. Prior to that time, households used insulated wood or metal iceboxes to keep food cold. Large blocks of ice would be delivered weekly by professional icemen and placed in an upper compartment in the icebox so that cold air would circulated downwards to preserve food.
• Early clothes dryers originated around 1800 in France. They were essentially metal drums with holes and rotated by hand over an open fire. These rudimentary devices would usually leave clothes scorched, covered in soot, and smelling of smoke