You know how we hid a secret note in our first house to hopefully be discovered in a few decades? Well, we found one in our new house! It doesn’t appear to be very old, so we’re guessing it’s from the previous owners (who lived here for 22 years, so it’s still pretty amazing). Where was it? Tucked behind the large wall mirror in the hall bathroom. See that tiny nub sticking out under that wonky orange arrow?
While John was giving Clara her bath I was hanging out with them slash standing-around-staring-at-things-I-can’t-wait-to-update when I looked up and saw it peeking out of the top of the mirror. So I tugged on the corner, revealing a nice little printed note.
In case you can’t make it out, it read:
May today bring you peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are both of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of us.
Isn’t that sweet? I dunno if it’s leftover pregnancy hormones or what, but it totally made me tear up. Because it’s exactly how we feel. Like we’re exactly where we’re meant to be. How cool are the past owners of our house for hiding this little gem? We think they’re the bee’s knees.
Have you guys ever found any messages in your home? Any initials with hearts scrawled in a kids closet, letters carved into concrete outside, or beer cans and old newspapers in the walls? Somebody tell me you found vintage “men’s magazines” somewhere. Scandalous.
Donna says
In our current home, which has only had one previous owner, there are markings in the basement showing the height of the two children that grew up in the house. I thought that was neat.
Caitlin says
We found an envelope with a note on in inside the basement ceiling tiles. It said something along the lines of “Joe-enjoy your trip and buy yourself something nice!”. We immediately took down more tiles but didn’t find any forgotten money. haha
A few weeks ago we bought an antique mirror at a thrift store. We took the back off to refinish it and there was newspaper behind the frame from 1937. It was in almost perfect condition!
Karen says
We found a pink plastic dollhouse toilet hidden under a vanity cabinet when we remodeled a bathroom. It now sits in the guest bath shower niche as a conversation piece. I was really hoping for a stack of $20’s instead…
Andrea says
PS. The son of the previous owners left us an extra-special souvenir… the attic access panel is in the closet of what was his bedroom. When we moved in & opened the attic panel for the 1st time a mounted deer head was looking right down at us. Needless to say there was some shrieking and shuddering with that little surprise. Stinker! We proceeded to name the deer Maurice and donated him to an uncle who thought the story was heee-larious.
Kristen says
My very first apartment was a studio in a sketchy area, and I lived there for about four months. When I was moving out, I did the whole top-to-bottom cleaning deal, including the top of the kitchen cabinets, which were set about a foot down from the ceiling (I had never displayed anything up there because I frankly was waiting to move out from the day I moved in). To my not-so-delighted eyes, I came across some magazines of the spicy variety. And not just any spice … older lady spice. As in … grandma.
Actually, talking about this has brought up pretty traumatic memories.
Christie says
Last night, we found a piggy bank from “Hungry Mother State Park” behind a wall in our basement. We’re 25 cents richer :-)
Kathy C. says
ugh.. why couldn’t I spell “sleek” instead of sleep! lol.
Amy says
We found a little note on the wall in the crawlspace written in kids handwriting and in red crayon. It said “We’ll miss you, old house.” then it had a sad face by it. I told my family that nobody can remove this and I wrote next to it “Thank you for sharing it with us, we’ll take good care of it”. I know they’ll never see it but it felt right.
Alexa says
We had the family room floor ripped up and replaced the day after we bought our house. It was laminate over parquet, and the owners had tried to pull up the parquet without luck. In the 2 foot patch of missing parquet was “our first home” and the names of the owners at that time.
Sadly we had to plaster over the names to level the floor again. But it was touching to find. We wondered where they were now.
So sweet to find those little touches.
Meagan says
Ooh ooh. When my family (mom, dad, brothers) moved into our house in NY 16 years ago, the previous owners kids and grandkids had written on the walls leading up to the attic. They wrote notes TO the house, e.g. “Dear House, you are the best house ever. We will miss you.” How CUTE is that?? Now, as my parents get ready to sell the house, I would actually love to do the same thing! (Sad face)
Mandy says
We bought our first home from my Grandmother. We reno’d the basement and as we were tearing down the ceiling, down fell a bag of “pot” and a very old Beatle’s concert poster! Quite a find……and after much teasing, Grandma assured us it wasn’t hers!! hahaha!
Sarah says
Our former homeowners left us a brand new toilet in the attic. My husband had a heck of a time getting it down the attic stairs, but it sure came in handy when we remodeled one of our bathrooms. Goodbye ugly blue toilet, hello free new white one!
onepianomom says
My parents found a box of old love letters in the attic of the home they moved into last year. They found the couple online, and they were living 30 minutes away. Their children had moved them 10+ years ago when there was a health crisis, and they thought the letters were gone. Mom said she had never seen letters (she read a few) were a man wrote to a woman with such detail of what was happening in his life and such tenderness to his love who was at home.
JODY says
AWW the note is sweet! Have you mentioned where you purchased the grey sectional that you will be using in your new great room? I have a fairly new sectional in my great room, that I paid a fortune for, and I now HATE! The pillow backs are all smooshed and it just looks all broken down! We live w pets too so I was thinking of a leather one next, but the family thinks that will be too cold and “un-comfy!” Any advice?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Jody,
We definitely owe you guys a post about our sectional hunt and the decision we came to after lots of looking around! Stay tuned for that.
xo,
s
Angie says
Our house is 103 years old, and 3 years ago we gutted it and redid the whole thing. We found a suitcase, postcard from an orchard nursery, a fabric hanging of the 10 commandments, an some full rolls of wallpaper. All items looked about 100 years old, and the post card even predated the house by a few years!
Christy says
Shortly after we moved into our 1972 house, we removed some very outdated hideous dark green wallpaper in the kitchen. As I was peeling away, I found a note written on the wall underneath the wallpaper. It was was from the previous homeowners when they had just moved in (message was dated) and it talked about her love of the color green (pretty much every room in the house was green), her kids and their ages and how happy they all were in the house. It was cool to find!
We also found another note written on the drywall behind a built in cabinet we tore out (to build a new better one). I’m guessing it was the original owners note to the builder…it said something like “this area looks great”.
Camberley, Fancy House Road says
Another reason I want to buy an old house next time we move… Hidden letters = Awesome.
-Camberley
Meghan says
We found a super creepy black and white picture printed on a piece of metal of the old owners of our house dressed up in farmer outfits. The husband was stroking his shot gun and their child looked like she was straight out of a horror movie… no one was smiling in the photo. I have a feeling it was one of those dress up and get your picture taken things that they have at amusement parks… BUT IT WAS CREEPY!!! We also found a TONNE of catalogues for … how do I put this nicely… male vs male ‘toys’. They were up in the attic and all the order pages were ripped out… Thats when the entire house got a REALLY good cleaning and EVERYTHING was painted… there is nothing original in our house anymore!!!!!!
Chris @ Our Corner House says
We found a note scrawled on unfinished drywall near our stairway, over which unfinished pine tongue-and-groove flooring was installed (Yes! Flooring on a wall!).
The note read: “Dear Rick, Please finish the wall.”
Our disdain for the chosen finish makes us wish Rick, whoever he is, hadn’t listened.
Christine says
Awww, that’s so sweet!! All our old owners ever left us was some dirty toilets and burned out light bulbs!
Rachel says
My dad was a pastor growing up, so our housing was provided by the church. My dad was installing cable in my basement bedroom, and in the drop ceiling he found some old “men’s” magazines. They were from the late 80’s, I think. We thought it was pretty scandalous, since the only folks who’d ever lived in that house were ones employed by the church. :)
Robin says
I found a note once! When we lived in London I had a closet under the stairs and a girl who lived in the room before me left a note with a drawing on the wall in the closet. I of course left one too for the next tenant years later! Although I found out it was totally remodeled and gutted so someone probably found it!
Also we did this as kids when my parents added an addition to our old house! I thought it was the coolest!
Heather says
This is absolutely beautiful. Our house was being rented when we bought it. The previous owners (not renters) had been through a divorce and not upheld the property well, but it has great potential. We’ve found SO MANY things that have been hidden. Initials, handwritten scrawls on the back of the drywall of the whole family and their pets at various times as well as an original hand drawing of the house with the addition on it (this was when we found out our addition is SUPPOSE to look odd…we’re fixing it when we renovate the house this summer).
Summer 2009 I was walking into our guest-bedroom-for-now and looked up at the door sill to see writing on it. I turned around, looked up again and what did I see?
“Man Hater”.
Ahhh the romance.
Teresa says
That is so sweet. When we remodeled our bathroom we found a playboy magazine from 1987 and a pair of women’s undies between the walls. Totally creeped me out!!
Irene says
That is the sweetest thing ever! What a nice note to find in your home, and the sentiment is fantastic.
Delta says
We found a box of cancelled checks hidden above the rafter in our storage shed. It was an odd place to store checks! We figured the guy had a little hidden stash of cash he didn’t want his better half to know about! I don’t remember looking at who the checks were written to though… man I wish I had thought to do that! What was I thinking?
reyanna says
How neat!! I love that note! I wish we knew who wrote it. :-(
And funny that you mentioned finding “scandalous men’s magazines.” When we first bought our house, I was on the hunt for the perfect nightstand. I searched Craigslist, eBay, stores, thrift stores, online, etc. I couldn’t find anything that was *the one*, you know?!
Then one day, I turn on to our old street (I was picking up stuff from our old apartment), and I found a nightstand on the side of the road. I didn’t even THINK, I pulled over that second and threw it in the back of our Jeep. As I’m driving, I’m thinking, “What did I just DO?!?!! I didn’t even look inside! It could have drugs! Or poisonous bugs! Or snakes!” I sped up to get there faster. LOL.
I finally was able to look inside when I pulled up to our old apartment. No drugs. No bugs. No snakes. What did I find inside? Porn. Magazines, men’s club brochures, DVDs, business cards for escort services. Tons of porn. LOL. I threw all that in a black trash bag and took it to the dumpster, washed my hands VERY well, and then gave my new nightstand a pretty makeover. :-)
It’s a story to tell the kids when they’re older, that’s for sure. ;-) LOL.
Kathleen says
So sweet. I may just have to copy that down and hang it somewhere to read. Definitely a sentiment worth reminding ourselves of every once in a while. The only unexpected thing we found when moving into our house 5+ years ago was copious amounts of dried cat urine that the previous owner somehow masked while the house was on the market. Ugh. It was disgusting. In the kitchen cabinets. Behind the clawfoot tub. Down the side of the refrigerator. We just went under contract on a new house which is already vacant and seems immaculate so I’m hoping any surprises we find there will be fun ones! You’ve definitely got some good karma wafting through your house.
J says
We haven’t found a note, but I have left them in every place I’ve lived in since college. I always wonder if they’ve been found and what the finders’ reaction would be. We even signed the under-flooring in our last (our first, but no longer current) house before we started installing our bamboo flooring a few years ago. We figured someday, some new owner will want a different floor there, and when they go to pull up all our hard work… surprise message! :-) And I signed the inside of our daughter’s bedroom closet right before we moved out (in a place you’d never see unless you directed to it), in the hopes that if we’re ever able to see the inside of the house again, I can have a, “look! it’s still there!” moment. (I am admittedly a sentimental dork.)
Lorie Smith says
We found a tape measure in one of our floor vents when we had them cleaned out…who knows how long it had been there since the house is 41 years old. We just recently poured a new driveway and we let our girls put their handprints in it and carve their name with a stick…we also put a penny be each handprint with the year we poured the driveway. My parents always did that for us when they poured cement at new homes, be it driveways, sidewalks, pool decking, you name it, our handprints are in Ohio and Florida now. :)
Mary says
That is very sweet! We found some names scrawled on the fence by the kids play area in our new house. We also found 1 old black women’s ice skate in the attic…the weird thing was a man had lived in the house for 25 years, but no woman lived there!
Alissa says
Random and unrelated, but a few days ago I had a dream that I visited your blog and it was completely reset to one of those basic starter templates with much less polish. I remember being saddened but thinking, “Well, John and Sherry must have a plan to make it beautiful. Just like their house.” This may mean I read your blog too much…
Beth@Just{Heart}It says
Did you put it back where you found it for the owners after you (that’s looking ahead!) or do something else with it (frame it?)?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Beth,
Yup, we took some pics and slipped it right back where we found it to be discovered again someday!
xo,
s
Lindsay says
Well, when we moved into our home the previous owner left us a set of towels in the dryer. How exciting… but good for rags. ha ha. :)
More interesting is that I worked in an office that was once a home. In the basement, which was still very much a basement, was a toy box with vintage toys wrapped in newspapers from so long ago. They were adorable. Looking back I wish I had taken a few home with me! But after playing with them we put everything back in the nook with our boxes on top, returning things as we found them. I guess we wanted to keep the ghosts of owners past happy!
What a nice surprise for you!
-Lindsay
Carolyn @ Lovin' Losing says
We found an x-ray of one of the old owner’s kids that had fallen behind the dart board they left up. Weirder still was the fact that it was taken BEFORE they moved in.
Rachel A says
I had completely forgotten about this until you mentioned finding magazines! The house I grew up in as a child was very old, and in our basement, which was partially finished, the pipes were behind walls that had large doors in them so you could access the pipes. My 13-year-old older brother, along with our cousin, were exploring inside the walls (very safe, I know)…. and lo and behold discovered a few “men’s magazines” hidden away. They were ancient!!! Who knows how many decades they had been hidden there.
Allyson says
My condo was brand new when I bought it, so there was no previous owner. It came with carpet, that was eventually removed for hardwood flooring. When the carpet was being torn out, I was horrified to find what looked like a large blood stain in the concrete, surrounded by thousands of cigarette butts and Double Bubble wrappers! Apparently, my builder was a chain-smoking gum chewer, who most likely lost an appendage in the making of my apartment :)
Annie P says
We found some lovely “men’s magazines” in our attic. Read about it here http://refinddesign.blogspot.com/2011/01/damn-dams.html. Hilarious!
Alexis says
In college I worked at a bar in San Francisco that was built on a known speakeasy from the 20’s. They were expanding and taking down a wall when they found a stack of newspapers from that time and a woman’s purse. The purse was really cool, it had her ID, make-up, and some food stamps in it.
They tried to look up some existing relatives without luck. I imagine she must have had to leave in a hurry to have left her purse there, maybe the speakeasy was getting raided. Just my imagination running wild…
Ginger says
Oh I love that. In my daughter’s closet, the previous teen that lived there had written her name and every time she had a friend over, they added their names and notes. She also left a message to whoever ended up with the room that she grew up there and hoped we loved it as much as she did. Very sweet find. I didn’t have the heart to paint over it and since it was inside the closet, where you would actually have to be standing inside to see it, I left it untouched.
tasha roe says
that is pretty cool!
we left a note for our “next owners”, but it wasn’t as sweet as yours.
Back story – we bought this 91 year old house 3 years ago and have had to end up GUTTING the first floor because the previous owners hid things like termite damage, tornado damage, plaster falling off walls behind panneling, knob and tube electrical….
sooo….since we have poured everything we have into this house we couldnt imagine anyone moving in behind us and tearing it up. enter the “message”
upon remodeling our bathroom we had a custom cabinet made that is floor to ceiling. it is super cool and perfect for teh spot. in our mind anyone would be crazy to take it out. sooooo…. before inserting it and screwing it in place we wrote a note on the side – “There is $50,000 under the sump pump in the basement.” We figured if they were dumb enough to tear the cabinet out they deserved to dig up the sump pump. twisted, i know!
Lindsey says
I just bought a 90 year old house and found newspapers in the wall as insulation. (Not cool in MN btw) From the newspaper I learned that renting a two bedroom apartment in a posh neighborhood cost $46 a month.
I also found a huge old hat pin. Super fun!
Kate says
In my first apartment the old tenants had left behind (hid in the back corner of a closet shelf) creepy pics of Woody Allen, some rosary beads and a porcelain Mother Mary figure.
Carrie says
Yep, we found an entire box of vintage “men’s magazines” in our unfinished, unused attic when we moved into our home four years ago. The people who owned our home previously just moved down the street, so we still see them quite often. Very awkward.
Kat says
While checking out the walls of my kitchen shortly after I moved in (figuring out how much spackle I needed… turned out to be tons!), I saw something on top of the cabinets. Figuring it was an appliance manual, I pulled it down. Turned out to be a folded-up piece of computer paper… And I unfolded it to find a picture of an Asian woman. Naked. Legs sprawled. Oh my. (The website printed date was stamped two years prior.) I was very glad to gut the kitchen this past fall! (And luckily, nothing else “memorable” was found!) I’ve since had nightmares about finding all sorts of scary things…
I did find an old dog collar and horseshoe this past spring when re-grading the backyard to add a porch. Also found a few pacifiers in the shed shortly after I moved in. (?!) Oh, and someone had marked the heights of their growing children on a door frame.
Mike @HA says
We found a bunch of height marks (a line with their name and age) for kids from the past three owners! It’s cute. In an old rental I found a sheet of paper describing how to do a self-exorcism of your house… including getting rid of Harry Potter books. Lucky for me the house was already demon free!
kemmie says
awww, how sweet!!!!! Since I am the first owner of my home I will make sure to do this for the next owner…
vee says
Here’s a cool one!
This occurred in the late 90’s When we were helping my step-dad move out of his house and into ours he decided to check out his attic which he hadn’t really looked in before. He found a box full of news clippings from the sixties, most of them about JFK, following his election, presidency and after his assassination. The paper was faded, yellowish, and stinky. I’ll never forget.
courtney says
We haven’t found anything in the house yet (we’ve only been here a few months), but our 2 dogs have dug up some bones in the backyard… eek!
Beth says
Lots and LOTS of old newspapers and gossip papers rolled up in the walls. Our house was built in 1948, so it’s fun seeing what was news in the 50s, 60s and 70s! We also found an old wooden yard stick that must be 40+ years old. Gotta love old houses!