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.
ErinEvelyn says
Our 80yo home came with foil on the “master” bedroom windows (poor man’s blackout shade for the previous owner who worked nights, or so I thought…) and a x-rated naughty board game shoved in the back corner of the highest closet shelf. ::::shudder:::: I would have MUCH preferred the note you found, Sherry.
Heidi says
Our house was built in 1890 and we’ve found so many treasures as we’ve remodeled: old wine bottles, an old shoe, books & scraps of magazines, a necklace, little toys, etc. When we re-sided our house a few years ago, we found a signature and date on the paper between the siding and house. AND we found a mummified cat under our enclosed porch – creepy!
Lilly says
The previous owners of our home left all kinds of little presents for us! They left us a bottle of champagne and two glasses in our fridge, a Glenda the Good Witch and The Wicked Witch of the West figurine in our cabinets (we live in Lawrence,KS so super appropriate) and a really great mobile in our office. Their little gifts really made moving into our first home so special and we hope to do the same when we sell!
Kim R. says
Our current house is a foreclosure. When we moved in we had to do a LOT of leaning, etc. We found a note in the top of a closet from the teenager that lived in the room to his family. It was essentiallly a suicide note. It told his Dad he didn’t blame him, he loved his mom, brother and sister, etc. By the way, he didn’t do it. He was a troubled teen.Obviously, the family had problems – they had their house foreclosed on them. We’d liek to think we are changing the “feeling” of this house.
LindsayH says
Immediately after closing on our house and before we actually moved in, we ripped up all the nasty beige wall-to-wall carpet to reveal the hardwood floors underneath. In the living room, scrawled on the carpet pad with a big red marker, were the names of some previous owners, the date (something, 1982 – we bought our house in 2005), and “Jesus Saves.” We got a good laugh about how even Jesus couldn’t save that gross carpet.
Nikky says
I CAN tell you that!
We just bought a house that needs a LOT of work, and in the process of tearing down basement walls we’ve found beer cans, cigarette packs and matches, a ballot for little league president 1979, and a few sheets of… *ahem* pictures that, judging by the hairstyles and makeup are from the 70s as well. Being the trailer-raised heathen I am I found this hilarious (and frankly, kind of cool)… my fiancé’s mother was scandalized, though.
Monica says
I changed my name for this post lol. My co-worker moved into the house of a good friend of mine from high school. When this co-worker and I realized this connection, he told me that upon moving in & re-doing the basement, he found a bag of um, a leafy green illegal substance, hidden above one of the ceiling tiles! Not really left there on purpose… nonetheless, an interesting find.
Carla says
That is such a cool note! I haven’t found anything cool left behind in my house, not yet anyway. I do, however, talk my husband’s ear off about remodeling ideas while he’s trying to give the baby a bath :)
Kaitlin says
I have yet to find anything sentimental in the house I moved into, but when my parents were moving out of the house my brothers and I grew up in for 20+ years they left a time-capsule of sorts w/ letters from all 5 of us kids and I believe they wrote something too. I believe they hid it in the attic somewhere. Hopefully whoever finds it will enjoy it. It’s been about 6 years and I don’t have any idea what we wrote anymore.
candyheartshome says
Love this – what a great idea. I bought a wardrobe from the 1930’s and found some pages ripped out of a book, which were lining the shelves, including a beautiful illustration of an Arabian horse that I framed and hung on my ‘picture wall’
Wendy H says
Well, it wasn’t nearly as sweet as your note, but in our first house (a SERIOUS fixer-upper) we found a hole in the wall behind the toilet and there was some crack (as in cocaine) in there. My hubby has been through FBI drug training so he knew what it was. We also found the kind scale used to weigh drugs buried in the yard when we relandscaped. At least it wasn’t a body.
Special, huh?
Elizabeth Harper says
My husband built an addition to his house after I left my house and country (US) to marry him and live in the UK. I put a little love note into the side of the house that he didn’t see until our first wedding anniversary when I wrote about it here.
http://giftsofthejourney.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/one-year-later-a-shelter-for-my-heart/
Jen says
They weren’t vintage but we did find a couple of “men’s magazines” underneath the pot drawers in the kitchen! =)
Sam says
When we moved into our first house, we were in the walk up attic looking at some repairs that needed to be made. My husband pulled some insulation out of the eaves (spelling?) and found a tin box. In it were some envelopes of notes/letters, a pack of gum, and a very old (not used, thankfully) condom. From the info in the letters, we guessed that the owner was in his late teens. The year/date on all of the letters was in the late 30’s. The address was not the address of our home, but for city street a few miles away. We decided to drive by the house, just for kicks, only to find out that the highway was built where that section of the street used to be. We decided to do a little research, only to find out that the house was MOVED out of the city into the suburbs when the highway was built. Made sense, too, because our house inspector kept saying that even though the house was built in the 1950’s that the wiring appeared more like that of the 1930’s! Bizarre, no?
Future Mama says
That is precious!! I had never thought about leaving a note in a home. What a neat idea.
Much love,
Future Mama
http://expectingablessing.blogspot.com/
Lisa says
The only note we found in our house (shortly after we moved in) was a scrawled child’s drawing of a monster, labeled “I HATE MY DAD” at the top. Nice…
Donita says
Love that Sherry!!! I bet they prayed over your home, and for the new family that would be living there. :-) LOVE THIS!!!
Nicole says
We found some old checkbooks in our garage with checks written out to JC Penney in the 50’s for 50 cents, $1.35, etc. It was hilarious. Did they really need to write a check for that??
NancyS says
Hahahaha – My first office job in 76 I found an old Playboy stashed in the back of a desk drawer :) Now it’s stashed with other old magazines in a basement dresser drawer :)
Stacey says
When we moved into our current home, there was a large, upright wardrobe box left in the attic, just sitting out in the open. Inside was a woman’s rabbit fur (as best as I can tell) coat from Nieman Marcus! Lemme tell you, this thing is FUNKY…dolman sleeves, big shawl collar and it’s black and GREEN!!! I tried it on and it fit, but I looked like some sort of punk rock gorilla!
“Magilla” is still up in our attic. I’m not quite sure what to do with her…
Nancy says
That beautiful letter is the prayer of St. Therese of Lisieux.
Blessings in your new casa!
Kat says
We just moved in and found old suitcases in the attic labeled “magic.” The boy who put them there is now 30 and we know him.
sarah says
Our first place was an apartment that was cleaned between tenants so nothing tangible was left behind, but I did find a the remnants of sweet note wishing “Daddy” a happy birthday on the bathroom mirror. I didnt see it until after the mirror was fogged up during a shower- I guess the little one who wrote it used something greasy that was hard to remove. The little message was visible after every shower we took!
Lisa says
When my great grandmother bought her house in 1940’s, she and my great grandfather found a weird bell in between their screen door and the regular door. It had a string attached to it- the other end was in the attic. Weird. Then they were putting stuff in their kitchen cabinet and noticed one cabinet had a shorter backing- turns out it was a false backing. They pulled it off and found an old book behind there with what appeared to be the names of all of the local KKK members. We think her house must have been a meeting spot at some point.
Mel V. says
When my dad pulled down the brick facade of the fireplace in the house I grew up in, there was a note written in pencil on the main support beam over the fireplace. “Installed [date] by Rob. Call me in 40 years to replace this! Hahaha” We’d uncovered it within four days of the forty years. My dad penciled on another note. “Uncovered [date]. What’s your number?”
Work Reader says
When I was a kid I found pencil drawings of a naked lady sitting next to a fan with her hair blowing on the inside wall of my closet. They also drew cans of Skoal. Random. And scandolous!
Melanie says
We found the Metro section of the Post behind a medicine cabinet we were replacing when we moved in. We put it back along with the current days Metro section. ;-)
Rhi says
On the back of our office door (in a child’s handwriting) it says, “I love Helen. Love Justin.”
HEE.
megan says
We have the name Dean carved into a piece of wood in our bedroom.
Christi says
We found little religous (Catholic) statues all over our house and yard. One was in the laundry room, one in the guest room closet, in the cupboard above the fridge and in the yard (that one was about a foot high).
We are not Catholic so we were afraid to move them, until the former owners daughter came over and asked for them back. We said take them!
Anne says
I found a $25 gift card to Nordstrom smooshed behind a door once. I did NOT put it back to be found later like you did- I spent it! :)
Cre says
I looked at my fixer upper and it was completely empty. When I got the key to move in a squatter moved random furnishings in. I threw all of it out changed the door locks and moved in. I lifted a corner of carpet and discovered hardwood floors. Upon removal of the carpet in the spare bedroom closet I found a used saringe!
Laura S says
We found porn in the drop ceiling in our finished basement. We were fishing a new cable line up in the ceiling and my husband kept getting it stuck on something. Come to find out the previous homeowners liked some freaky stuff and this was probably the best hiding place from their kids!
leah says
Cool! I carved me and my boyfriends name in college in a tree outside my parents house, I love taht that will be there forever, or as long as the tree is.
Ellen says
I thought about this after your medicine cabinet post last week, but when we moved into a 1940’s house and removed the medicine cabinet during a bathroom remodel, we found hundreds of old razor blades! The cabinet had a slot in it for depositing blades, and they were all just sitting between the studs in the wall waiting for us. The hard part was figuring out how to remove them all safely!
Brooke Harris says
We didn’t find a note, but the old owners came back to our house when I was about 10 years old. My mom was showing them around and they walked down the wallpapered hallway and said “where is the door?” My mom looked confused. Apparently before we moved in someone had sealed in a secret passage way that led from the master out to the nursery!
Chelsea says
We were planting some new flowers in the front yard of our hosue and while we were digging, we found a high school class ring from 2002. Lucky the class ring had the person’s first and last name engraved in the inside, and my husband found the owner of all places..facebook!!:) The guy couldn’t believe we found his ring that he lost almost 10 ago! His sister used to live in our house. Small world too..he still lived in our town! My husband met with him that week and returned the ring to him!!!:)
Shandy says
We rented an apartment in a duplex from some friends of ours before we bought our house. And while they were renovating it (prior to our moving in) they found a blow-up doll, still in the box, in the attic.
They ended up embedding her between the studs in a new wall they were building. When we actually moved in they told us to always remember to knock on the spot where she was located and say hi. ;-)
Carrie L says
Like you, we tackled every room in our house when it was new to us 8 years ago and didn’t look back. As we were painting a dark staircase late one night, we came across “1994” and a heart drawn in pencil in a tight corner on the wall. That was the year my husband and I started dating (and graduated from high school). It’s amazing we saw it.
Akemi S. says
Aww, how sweet! Such a cool surprise to find. The only thing I found at my parents house when I was a kid was a mysterious key taped to the wall in the closet that holds the water heater. I’ve kept it ever since!
T. says
I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky in an old farm house my great-grandfather built sometime around 1910. (My grandma also grew up in that house.) My parents were remodeling the second floor and found a bottle of moonshine in the wall. Very weird since I’ve always known my family to be very religious and conservative. Most of my family wouldn’t dream of even taking a sip of alcohol. I guess my family wasn’t always that way! :-)
steph anne says
That’s so cool!! I kinda wish they gave more info about the house. That would’ve been even better! I really wish we had a note waiting for us in our house but our house isn’t even that old. It was built in 2006 and was vacant for 2 years.
Krissy says
What a touching note to find! I’m curious – are you going to keep the note in the washroom where you found it? Maybe frame it or something.
I’ve never found anything in any of the places I’ve lived, but I bought a vintage credenza a few months back and found a silver spoon and knife jammed in the back of one of the drawers.
Kerry says
We found an old beer can in the walls when we renovated our kitchen. Always nice to know the people who built your house were drinking on the job :-)
Claudia says
When my husband and I moved in together, there was a box he went through from his old place (with his ex-girlfriend) and there were tons of Playboys there. Not his. Hers. I asked a friend of hers because I was all “yeah right, they’re HERS!” and yes, indeed, she had a fondness for Playmates.
kitliz @DIYdiva says
We found a thirty year old (full) bottle of Valium in one of the walls. We’re thinking maybe that was a sign from the universe about what we were getting ourselves into…
Angela says
The house we bought was a short sale, and the notes we found under the shelf in the closet of the teenage girls room were not very nice or uplifting :( And we found porn in the attic.
I also found a small St. Joseph medal in the kitchen, underneath the drawers (but in the cabinet). It made me sad for the family, when I googled st. joseph I found out that they hide the medal in hopes for a successful home sale.
When we remodeled the bathroom, we drew a big heart on the drywall of the opposite wall and wrote our names and the date in there for someone to find :)
Bri says
We found a bunch of old newspaper printing plates that the previous owner had used as insulation dams in the attic, that was kind of interesting. Too bad they were all bent up and ugly, I might have found a use for them in the house. The cutest thing I found when I bought this house was the shelf in the smallest bedroom closet that had “Bounty towels” written on the edge. Guess that’s where the paper towels went. :)
Karen says
We recently found an old pack of Lucky Strikes (with a few cigarettes still inside) while vacuuming out the crawl space in our house (built in 1949). It’s more fun to assume that one spouse was sneaking in there to hide their habit from the other, than to admit they may have been dropped by someone while building the house.
bex says
That’s so wonderful! Like other posters have said, the only thing we found was the bad stuff – a HORRIBLE 2′ by 1′ patch job that they covered up with a chair that they didn’t move out until closing day, paint on every piece of trim/all over the ceilings, some kind of random water damage on the carpet that they (again) covered up until the day we closed…the list goes on. Though, they DID leave things like a perfectly clean kitchen, clean floors, all the paint they used in the house, and a sweet soft-sided cooler in the garage rafters (which we bleached the heck out of). I guess you win some, you lose some, eh?