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.
Erin@The Impatient Gardener says
We found this in September during the demo for our renovation. I took a picture of it and sent to our former neighbor (who’s husband built our house and probably wrote this way back in 1938).
We had them cut this board out and save it for us and we’ll be displaying it in the newly renovated house.
Lauren says
That is beautiful! We’ve never found anything that nice.
We found a huge stash of children’s clothes & toys in the attic of our current house. It was sad to think that someone left those behind (the house was a foreclosure and had been rented for years prior so we have no way of knowing who it all belonged to).
We found a much more “interesting” “treasure” on a hidden shelf in the master bathroom linen closet of our old house. It was a pretty gross room that had to be completely gutted but when my husband and a friend were doing the demo they found a collection of men’s magazines featuring… ummm…how do I put this…mature ladies. The magazines weren’t quite vintage but the models in them were.
Sherri says
And on another note (almost forgot about this one), in a previous home, the former owners children had painted with glow in the dark glitter paint all over the game room walls. It was very well hidden in the daytime and it took us two weeks before we discovered it. We were shocked. They had written huge hearts with boys and girls names in them. It also took us days of painting to cover up the large black diamonds (like 4 ft tall) that were also painted in that room.
Erin @ The Impatient Gardener says
Ack … such a loser. Forgot the link.
http://theimpatientgardener.blogspot.com/2010/09/construction-update-no-3-cool.html
Jenn L @ Peas and Crayons says
That is awesome!!!! I should leave a note behind when I move! so fun =)
Kathy C. says
Oh that is so awesome! You have to frame it! Tell me you’re going to frame it! Simple sleep design with large mat. Yup… I can totally see it.
:)
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Kathy,
After snapping a few photos, we stuck it right back between the wall and the mirror to be discovered by someone else someday!
xo,
s
Sherri R says
And on another note (almost forgot about this one), in a previous home, the former owners children had painted with glow in the dark glitter paint all over the game room walls. It was very well hidden in the daytime and it took us two weeks before we discovered it. We were shocked. They had written huge hearts with boys and girls names in them. It also took us days of painting to cover up the large black diamonds (like 4 ft tall) that were also painted in that room.
Stacy @ Every Little Thing says
That’s so neat, especially since you guys do that too!
I once wrote a newspaper article (in my old journalism days) about a house that had 100-year-old newspaper articles and photos in the walls (literally, inside!). When I went to look closely, my throat closed up! I was allergic to the mold on the newspaper! hahah
Jacqueline says
when we removed a very large wall mirror while renovating our house we found two peoples names with the time and date (1942!) written behind the mirror.
we also discovered hand prints in the back corner of the shed with a name and the date 1921.
K says
We got about 15 Jesus pictures scattered throughout the house. We were finding them two months into living into the house. We also found an original poster of the Village People. Olga, who owned our house before us, had it for over 50 years, and she and her family were the only other owners before us. They left a plaque above the washing machine that reads “World’s Greatest Grandma”. We won’t take it down, becuase she probably was the world’s greatest Grandma, and it will always very much be her house too.
Kirby says
No notes, but definitely empty liquor bottles! I mean Civil War Era! They were tucked in the walls of an old house we moved and are remodeling! I guess kids were naughty back then, too! :)
Rose says
Oh, that’s definitely kismet. What a sweet treasure to find. You should totally frame that!!!!!
Katherine Brown says
When we renovated our basement this fall we found old pin-ups stuck to the concrete wall behind old dry wall…click my URL to see the photo on Facebook!
Izabela says
No note. That is so sweet. My hubby found an old book, and I mean old, published in 1910 in our attic the other day.
ashley says
6 months ago we moved into a house we bought from a couple who had lived here 36 years. Their three daughters are all grown and older than us, but we have their heights charted in one of our closets. I would never paint over it. I am going to add our 1 year old’s height to it every year.
Alexson says
We found a note proudly scrawled on our basement drywall as we were tearing it up: Cousin Ronny’s Weekend Project.
We’ve noticed lots of weird DIY fixes down there too (a sling of duct tape was all that held up a drain pipe!), so Cousin Ronny was clearly learning as he went with this weekend project!
Shannon says
Off topic, but what kind of countertop is in your bathroom? That looks like something we might be interested in when we get around to replacing ours. Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Shannon,
It looks like a slab of white solid porcelain or ceramic. Not 100% sure which!
xo,
s
Kim says
I love it!!! Gives me an idea of what to do at our house. We bought a foreclosure that was all cosmetic fixes so by the time we are done here and selling, every room, wall and flooring will have been touched.
Brittany says
We found an entire closet filled with the scribblings of the teenager who used to live in the house before the lady we bought it from. We’re guessing she never used the 2nd floor – both bedrooms were empty.
I used the name in the closet to locate the girl on facebook – she’s now in her 20’s – and set her images of the closet. She thought it was pretty cool that I reconnected with her after all these years. Although I get the feeling from all the writing she smoked a lot of pot in that closet…
Here’s a pic from facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30620607&l=1f6acc26f1&id=1426546094
kella says
when i was in university, we were setting a mousetrap in the attic of the house that my friends and i were renting, and found an unlabeled VHS tape.
obviously we had to watch it.
and lets just say there was a good reason that it was unlabeled and hidden.
:)
Raquel says
We never found a note, but there are growth marks in marker for the previous owners kids and grandkids on the inside of the door leading to the basement. I couldn’t bring myself to paint over them so instead decided to add our own tic marks for our boys.
Jess says
haha. In the attic above our garage we definitely found some SUPER old playboys. Like from the 70s.
Candace says
My grandparents have a 100acre farm, complete with barn and a hog-house! Anyways, one of the farm cats just had her litter, so I was on the hunt to find the kitten(s) using my expert tracking skills (it was our practice to bring the kittens down to the house and keep in a safe place away from predators and other cats- also allows us to get proper med care & socialize them!) Anyways, I was up in the barn, and tucked in an old piece of furniture were some “vintage men’s magazines”! I kid you not. I can’t remember if they were dusty, or, erm, still being used by an uncle or farmhand!
At my current house, I have found a laundry-list of items ranging from bone fragments to forks and bike carriers in the yard. But the ultimate find? A men’s pleasure toy… sealed away in a storage nook under the stairs!!! Now THERE’S a surprise!
Jamie says
when buying our first house, we looked at the secondary bedroom’s closet. It was a long,deep, walk-in with a built in bench. On the wall, someone had scratched off the days with hash marks. Needless to say, we did not return to that house. Creepy!
Liz says
Ugg.. the only note we found was a hand written one on the back of a piece of wood trim.
It said “It’s pine, will that work”.. Answered in another hand writing with “No one will notice”.
So that is how we found out are whole house has pine trim and now it makes sense as to why it is so beat up and splitting at the corners. We bought a fixer upper and it’s worse than we even thought!
Lora A says
We live in New Jersey and when I took down the 80’s wallpaper in our guest room, written on the wall was
Phil Sims Sucks! with the score of the Giants/Dallas game that was played that day and the date.
We thought it was funny since my husband is a Giants Fan and currently can’t stand Eli Manning.
Laurie says
When my husband and I were redoing the insulation and floor in the (unfinished) attic, underneath some of the old floor boards, we found an old Dremel somone left behind! Still worked too!
When we gutted the kitchen I found some old papers too – seed packets, recipes, etc. I kept them in a ziplock baggie.
amy good house says
I found a couple of tiny paint-by-number paintings my uncle did when he was a kid. Tucked up inside an old dresser I was painting!
Photos here:
http://itsagoodhouse.blogspot.com/2010/08/desert-paintings.html
Hanna says
My parents built their own house in the 70’s. A few years ago they renovated it and found the words “Fish rule” behind one of the walls. The Fish were a rival poker team when they were building the house (who also helped out building the house, so friendly rivals). Apparently one of them graffitied on the wall before covering it up with insulation and sheetrock.
A few years years ago (when I was in my 30s) I was back in my home town and was introduced to a woman who immediately started jumping up and down, saying I know you! I know you! Apparently she now rents my childhood home (different from the one mentioned above) and found a note written on the wall of the attic. It was my name printed in careful, school-girl lettering with the words “This is my last night of single digits.” A big milestone for 9 year old me, I guess. :)
Jes says
We were insulating around our basement ceiling and moving the drop ceiling tiles… Behind the fireplace we found a used 12 pack of pull-top budweiser, and on one of the tiles we found a pair of little girls underware. That was weird. There are marks inside a closet door for height charts.
Mary says
I found three mens magazines behind our bathroom mirror! I was painting the bathroom and while I was taping off around the mirror there was one side that the tape just wouldn’t wrap under. I peeked around the corner and it looked like someone had stuffed some cardboard back there…my best guess was that they did it to keep the mirror from jiggling around. After a few minutes I finally decided the heck with it, I was going to remove the cardboard, paint perfect lines and just replace the cardboard if need be. And there they were!! Three dirty mags! Ha! My husband and I got quite the laugh out of it.
ashley c says
How sweet of them to leave you a note. I have never found anything like that before but have left my mark. The house I consider my childhood home is very old (my grandmother’s uncle built it and then she and my grandfather bought it in the 60’s). I guess it was in the 90’s when they finally decided they wanted to build a two car garage and my grandfather let my brother and I carve our names in the wet cement with the date. Every time I go home I make sure to go in the garage and look it at because it brings back good memories.
Rayna says
That is pretty dang cool. Thank you for sharing because it actually really lifted my spirits today when I needed it, isn’t it odd how things come to you like this? The question is….what are you going to do with it?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Rayna,
We stuck it right back behind the mirror to be discovered again someday!
xo,
s
Allie says
Our house was built in the 1800’s. When we bought it we wanted to put in a new front door. We had to cut the opening a little bit more and found a hidden treasure. They must of added on to the house in the 30’s because we had a newspaper stuffed in the walls. It’s the coolest thing! We actually saved some and hung it up. If you want to check it out I blogged about it here:
http://mylifeasawife.intercen.com/?p=137
Brooke Buckingham says
I found a receipt and catalog from an old wig store that used to be in our neighborhood. Both were hidden in the space behind one of our bathroom drawers. The catalog is fantastic – full of really funny 60’s era wigs. The one the original homeowner bought was $60. Probably pretty pricey for that time because she had to put it on layaway! I think I may try to display the wig catalog in some way. Maybe try to frame one of the pages and hang it in the bathroom?
Andrea says
In our previous home we did find beer cans in our walls! We blamed the beer for the off-square walls…
In our current home the previous owners (who built this house)used a closet door as their kids growth chart. We have never painted over it, maybe someday they will stop by & we will be able to show them a little piece of their history.
Sally says
There was a little note inside the medicine cabinet of our first house that said “Lighten Up”. We left it taped there for the 7 years we owned the house, and it was left there for the new owners. We thought it was a good message to pass along!
Jodi says
When my husband and I bought our first house in Framingham, MA it was from a man in his 50s who had actually lived there his whole life. We did a ton of work there (gutted and rewired the entire house to upgrade from an old 60 amp knob and tube electrical service) and found lots of goodies.
On the plaster walls in the second floor hallway we found what we can only guess was childhood art by the former owner and his siblings. It was covered up with some totally 50s or 60s wallpaper and chair-rail height paneling. There was a sketch of an elephant probably pooping (lots of little circles underneath his crouched down bum), and then next to it someone wrote “An Elephant sitting on a Milk Dud”. My guess is that they started drawing and got caught by the parents, and tried to save face.
In the same house we found stuffed up in the basement ceiling a 70s paperpack of adult content. We wondered if the same former owner or a sibling hid it down there in their teenage years.
Our most favorite find was old late 1800s newspapers in the kitchen walls that were used at the time it was build as insulation (it was a Victorian home with plaster and lathe “insulation” in its construction). I was able to carefully save a page and framed it to hang in our next home. I loved that it showed the title of the Boston Newspaper, the date and an ad for $2 Ladies Corsets.
Lindsey says
I totally forgot about something that we found in our new home. The previous owner left us a pretty hummingbird feeder, little fishing poles (new place has a pond) for both our kids and a lovely note saying she hoped we enjoyed growing our family here as much as she did in one of the linen closets. It was a very nice surprise to find after a long day of moving!
Sierra says
My first husband & I bought our first home when I was 17. A couple years went by and we were updating the closet organizer. It required taking down the funky one that the previous owners had put in. On the very top, in the back, was a WEDDING ALBUM! It looked to be an early 80’s affair. lol Lots of teal and poof. Sadly, we didn’t save it. Boo on us.
LOVE house treasures! That note was priceless and definitly a “does a heart good” tear jerker.
B says
Why do you think all of the “May”s in the letter are blue instead of black?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey B,
Our only guess is that it was a design choice. Maybe where they found the quote it was written that way, with all the first words bolded and printed in a different color?
xo,
s
Jill says
My mom’s brother carved his name into his bed when he was younger. My grandparents sold it a few years later and it ended up at some random thrift store, where my dad (who had not yet met my mom) bought it. My dad still had the bed when he finally did end up meeting my mom and she was the one who noticed her brother’s name still carved on the bed!
Mindy says
Fabulous question. And how cool of you to find something like that! How random! We actually had a previous owner drive-by with a note that they stuck in our front door. It had $20 in it and it said:
“Happy Anniversary! Today, we are celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary! This is one of the homes we lived in as a young family with our twins and our new chocolate lab puppy! We did not have much money, but we had lots of love and fun! Please take this $20 and go out and have a little fun on us!”
We thought it was so cute. I wonder how many homes they drove by, dropping off cash?? The funny thing is, we now have a chocolate lab puppy… and just one baby, no twins. But could they be next…? ;)
Rachel says
We found a Winnie the Pooh coloring book and some pamplets behind our kitchen drawers. I know there has got to be more than that hiding in our 1920s bugalow, we just haven’t found anything else yet.
Katharine says
Oh… our current house is full of them. There’s a wall in our basement on which someone allowed all the kids (?) to sign their names in bold tempera paint. They put stars and hearts too.
And you want scandal? When we were remodeling our bathroom before we moved in, we found a……. polaroid. An…… interesting polaroid. A……. PERSONAL snapshot. If you know what I mean. It so weirded me out. Why are people so strange?
On a happier and more historical note, the inside of our bathroom walls were signed and dated by the original builder/owner. His name was Frank J Hubert and he apparently worked on the bathroom in April of 1925. Isn’t that cool?
Jen F says
That kind of gives me happy chills – clearly that home is meant for lovely people.
Margo says
Our previous owner left some marks on the bathroom door frame that marked the height of their children as they grew. They had initials penciled in next to them.
When we moved in, we painted over their marks and started making our own!
Aaron says
According to several websites, that’s a quote attributed to Mother Teresa. Not sure how true that is, but I suppose that’s as good a source as any:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/838305.Mother_Teresa
Lisa says
No notes…but when my cousin was little he made a cowboy and indian village that he dearly loved. When they were moving from Michigan to Florida(about 40 years ago), my very mean uncle told him he had to throw it in the trash so instead he hid it above the ceiling tiles in the basement. A few years ago when my cousin came back to Michigan for a family reunion, he went back to the house he grew up in and the new owners let him recover his sweet childhood memory. It stayed safe and hidden for about 40 years. :)
Victoria says
While I’ve never found anything, when I was younger and we replaced the carpeting in our family room on the bottom floor of our split-level home, my mom had my sister and I paint the concrete slab in one corner of the room before the new padding and carpet were installed. Hopefully someone has found our childish scrawl and smiled!