Families used these washstands every morning and evening for personal hygiene, holding a ceramic or enamel basin and pitcher of water on the top surface. Servants or household members would empty the dirty water into slop buckets kept below on the lower shelt. As indoor plumbing and dedicated bathrooms were installed in houses during the early twentieth century, these wooden washstands became obsolete for their original purpose. 90cm wide x 94cm high x 40cm deep