Once common 'domestic' skills that are dying out

[RubyToogood]

Hotwiring cars doesn't seem to be a thing these days.

Car owners will be able to confirm /deny but I suspect people don't work on their own cars much any more as they're too complex and computery.

 

[bellaozzydog]

I could clear, set and light a coal fire by the time I was eight or nine. My children wouldn't have the first clue.

Drawing a chimney with a copy of grandads Sun is one of my favourite childhood tasks

 

[Oriole]

Something that also never gets done these days is darn the holes in socks, it's easier to just throw them away.

Darning is making tiny niche comeback in some "slow fashion" circles. Someone brought back speedweve darning looms ( you can buy knock offs / unbranded ones on ebay and amazon) and there are workshops for visible mending and videos all over youtube.

So while most people will just buy a new pair the skill isn't dying.

I will throw "changing a car wheel at the roadside" in the dying skills ring (most new cars don't even have a spare) and making a sand pit to store vegetables in the garden over winter.

 

[og ogilby]

I bet kids these days wouldn’t have a clue if the toilet was blocked and you told them to go and get a coat hanger.

 

[MickiQ]

I bet kids these days wouldn’t have a clue if the toilet was blocked and you told them to go and get a coat hanger.

Neither would I to be truthful, I've always used a latex glove and my hand followed by chucking away the glove and vigorously washing the hand.
Before my son's now fiance moved in with him, she shared a house with three other nurses and their (only) toilet blocked (the landlord told them he would come the week after) so Son Q faced with the possibility of looking wimpy before the woman he loved took my box of latex gloves and rose to the challenge of proving his manliness to her by unblocking it.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Based on this thread, I feel a veritable alpha given that I can:

• Light a fire
• Damp down a fire
• Sew on a button
• Stitch up a rip
• Polish a pair of shoes
• Unblock a toilet
• Descale a kettle
• Defrost a freezer
• Cook from scratch
• Carve a roast bird
• Turn a carcass into stock
• Gut a fish
• Brew tea from leaves
• Write a letter
• Make and receive phone calls
• Change a car tyre
• Repair a puncture on a bike
• Change a plug
• Replace a lightbulb
• Solder in a battery

I make no claims about the quality of my abilities in any of these areas.

 

[rubbershoes]

Neither would I to be truthful, I've always used a latex glove and my hand followed by chucking away the glove and vigorously washing the hand.
Before my son's now fiance moved in with him, she shared a house with three other nurses and their (only) toilet blocked (the landlord told them he would come the week after) so Son Q faced with the possibility of looking wimpy before the woman he loved took my box of latex gloves and rose to the challenge of proving his manliness to her by unblocking it.

Does no one have a plunger?

 

[Cloo]

Forgot polishing shoes - it's getting harder to find shoe shine as people do use it less these days it seems. I remember polishing shoes quite a lot as a kid, but only do it now and then these days.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Does no one have a plunger?

I don't know what your kids' shit is like, but mine manage to squeeze out enormous expanding logs with the density of a black hole and the properties of Roman cement

 

[BigMoaner]

Milking a cow.

 

[scifisam]

Opening tins with a tin open opener

Sides to middling sheets.

What?

 

[weepiper]

Opening tins with a tin open opener



What?

When you cut a bedsheet in half and sew the two bits back together so the seam is made of the original outside edges. Means if it's getting worn in the middle it lasts a bit longer. I remember my Nan doing it.

 

[ouirdeaux]

(New) Plugs are all sealed now though, aren’t they? I think there’s been a deliberate move away from letting people wire plugs. Probably to make them buy a new one rather than rewire an old one.

Well, the UK was the only place I knew of where this was a thing. Presumably due to the fact that round-pin plugs were a thing long after square-pin came in, so you might not have the right one. Eventually modernisation took over completely. I assume.

 

[Dystopiary]

Carpet beating.

 

[petee]

Based on this thread, I feel a veritable alpha given that I can:

• Light a fire
• Damp down a fire
• Sew on a button
• Stitch up a rip
• Polish a pair of shoes
• Unblock a toilet
• Descale a kettle
• Defrost a freezer
• Cook from scratch
• Carve a roast bird
• Turn a carcass into stock
• Gut a fish
• Brew tea from leaves
• Write a letter
• Make and receive phone calls
• Change a car tyre
• Repair a puncture on a bike
• Change a plug
• Replace a lightbulb

very handy list.
i can also tie both a four-in-hand and a bowtie (which is the same knot as a shoelace).

 

[mrsfran]

My daughter just tore a massive rip in her jeans today, I'm going to have a go at mending them.

 

[Raheem]

Spooling a cassette with a pencil.

 

[Aladdin]

Getting up to change the TV channel.

Youngest used sit by the telly to do that job.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Does no one have a plunger?

My Christmas gift from a boss one year was a toilet plunger - I'm not sure what he was implying

 

[Saffy]

I'm not sure it's seen as domestic skill as such now but wallpapering. Everyone I know gets someone in to do it now.
My Mum did all the painting and decorating in our home and taught me how to wallpaper.
All my textbooks were covered in old wallpaper too.

Taking up trousers. One of the first things I was taught (coming from a family of short arses.)

 

[scifisam]

When you cut a bedsheet in half and sew the two bits back together so the seam is made of the original outside edges. Means if it's getting worn in the middle it lasts a bit longer. I remember my Nan doing it.

Never heard of that! It sounds uncomfortable.

 

[Mumbles274]

Polishing shoes is a good one. I have proper shoe brushes, and shoe polish for the rare times I need to polish my shoes

 

[DaveCinzano]

Polishing shoes is a good one. I have proper shoe brushes, and shoe polish for the rare times I need to polish my shoes

I still have the shoe cleaning kit I put together in primary school, which I used then and through secondary and beyond. Still in the blue sponge bag bought from Woolies to keep all the tins and rags and brushes together. I vainly try to get my eldest to clean and polish his school shoes so they don't completely fall apart prematurely from neglect, but inevitably end up doing it myself.

ETA:



The Readywax is not mine

 

[Saffy]

My Nanna taught me how to measure, cut and sew a 'buffer' for shining shoes. We stuffed it with old tights and she then set me to clean all the family's shoes. That was a great summer holiday.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Spooling a cassette with a pencil.

Safely removing a VHS cassette from the player after the player decided to eat it.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Lighting a coal.fire.

This, lots of youngsters move onto canal boats and have to learn to light a fire and run a burner safely. It’s quite tricky at first!

 

[DaveCinzano]

• Finding out details about an old film I've not seen by checking Halliwell's
• Checking the spelling of a word using a hard copy dictionary
• Searching for a word I've only got a vague sense of by poring over thematic lists in Roget's
• Figuring out a route using a Geographer's A-Z

 

[mrsfran]

If anyone can tell me how to mend this, which happened today, that would be helpful.

 

[petee]

If anyone can tell me how to mend this, which happened today, that would be helpful.

when i were a lad you would buy denim patches that had an adhesive back and iron it on.

 

[rubbershoes]

My Christmas gift from a boss one year was a toilet plunger - I'm not sure what he was implying

Even he'd heard