This 118-Year-Old Home Has a Retro Bathroom Feature That's So Small-Space-Friendly

"With its location higher up on the wall and nearer the sink, plus the inclusion of a built-in toilet paper holder on the side wall within easy reach of the toilet, this is most certainly for tissues. Their contemporary descendants would perhaps be the kind of metal tissue dispensers we sometimes see mounted onto hotel bathroom vanities."

A TikTok creator discovered a built-in tissue box feature in her 118-year-old house bathroom—a rectangular box with an oval hole built directly into the wall near the sink. Design historian Maile Pingel confirms this was indeed a tissue dispenser, positioned higher on the wall and closer to the sink than the toilet paper holder. The placement and design distinguish it from toilet paper holders. These built-in fixtures represent an earlier era when tissue boxes were considered essential bathroom amenities. Modern equivalents include metal tissue dispensers mounted on hotel bathroom vanities, showing how this practical design concept has evolved over time.

Read at Apartment Therapy