Finding Interesting Things While Renovating.

bos

Legend
Staff member
Apr 10, 2006
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When I tore up the carpet in my living room I saw a signature that read "Abe Lincoln was here". I think it was fake though.
 

mac4cy

Active Member
Jul 16, 2009
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Urbandale
A couple of years ago I was renovating my basement. It had the drop ceiling and I was taking the tiles out when out popped a marijuana pipe. I figured the kids that where here before me, 1980s, left it there so they wouldn't get caught.
 

ISULifer

Member
Jul 30, 2008
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Pulled up two layers of linoleum in my mud room last week. Found newspapers they had used for padding. The Des Moines Register and Boone Republican from 1937 under the lower layer of linoleum and the same from 1941 under the upper layer. I just finished reading a short article Amelia Earhart wrote during her trip. As well as some Nazi articles. After getting all the linoleum up I found a well/cistern under the house. I was not expecting that! I also found an accessory for a wood burning stove in the attic - it's an add on oven that would sit on top of the stove. At least that's what I think it is. The house was built in 1900 and had never been sold before I purchased it this year. I wish I could have gone through it before they cleaned it out for sale!
 

CRcyclone6

Well-Known Member
Bookie
Dec 27, 2007
12,152
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Cedar Rapids
Found a large wasp nest occupying the space between my floor boards when I was replacing some sub flooring.

At first I thought it was huge bunch of spray foam filler and then I poked it with screw driver and saw the honeycomb. I freaked for about a 1/2 sec until I realized it was dormant.


Found something like this in our attic, the winter after we moved in. Looked like a 16" softball. Thing was huge. Brother in law is an exterminator, came over and removed it.
 

CyOps

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2010
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Lincoln
All I've ever found were mice skeletons but my cousin is remodeling a house in Omaha and went into the attic to run a vent pipe for a new bathroom. In the attic he found three garbage bags. Each one was full of old steel beer cans, individually wrapped in newspaper from the early 70's. There were some duplicates but about a hundred different cans. The Schmidt beer cans with the different outdoor scenes were the coolest in my opinion.

When remodeling my last house I left a lot of empty beer cans in the walls, but they were all Busch Light.
 

cdekovic

Well-Known Member
Mar 25, 2006
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Ames
Here's a story for you. A new business was moving into a building near downtown Ames about a year or so ago and they were tearing out walls for the remodel and found a wallet. That wallet was stolen from my mom who worked in a retail store a few blocks away. The wallet was stolen about 30 years ago.
 

cyson

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Jun 24, 2007
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The last couple of days I've been helping my dad do some renovations to their home. Today we were cutting into the floor of the second level to lay some plumbing for a new bathroom on that level.

The floor was hardwood/finished on top and base board underneath... but in between we found a newspaper separating the wood. We found parts of two separate newspapers... one was Des Moines Register from May 16th 1935 and the other was part of the local newspaper in town. Pretty cool stuff. We debated ripping the entire hardwood (top coat) up in the corner we were working in to get the whole edition but decided against it. But we took a good hour, hour and a half looking at the news of the time and advertisements, which were by far the best from the stuff we did manage to get out.

So that got me wondering. Have you ever found anything interesting hidden in the floors/walls/ceilings during a renovation/repair? And what was it?

We left a newspaper from today's DMR and a picture of us in the wall.
Edit: Decided we are also going to leave more of a time capsule. Cell phone, 3.5" floppy disk, cd, dollar bill and some coins, maybe some other things... suggestions?


I have bought, renovated and sold a variety of houses over the years and have found things of value. I've found silver spoons and forks, money, weed, antiques etc. I've got a buddy who found a cigar box full of old out of circulation coins in the duct work of a house he bought. There's lots of stuff waiting to be found. In the early sixties in the small town of Eldon, as the story goes, a guy was digging a basement under his home and found a kettle of gold coins. Eldon is close to the old Indian agency and it's suspected that these were the coins the government paid the Indians when they purchased Iowa.
 

ISU_phoria

Well-Known Member
Apr 10, 2006
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Andover, MN
I have a buddy whose parents live in St. Paul. (for those who didn't know, St. Paul was a favorite weekend hangout of the Chicago gangsters back in the 20's & 30's) A few years ago, my friend's folks were remodeling their kitchen & tore down a wall in during the remodel. In the wall they found nearly $40K in cash & a bunch of guns, including several Tommy guns. In return for a small display case for some of the stuff, they "donated" most of it to a local museum.

We have often speculated over a few beers why the items were there & what happened to cause them to be left behind.
 

CloneIce

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2006
37,772
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My buddy just found $23,000 worth of old silver coins while renovating his kitchen. That would be nice.
 

intrepid27

Well-Known Member
Oct 9, 2006
6,011
5,079
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Marion, IA
My dad found a old double barrel muzzelloader shotgun inside a wall of a house he was tearing down. Not in gtreat shape but pretty cool.

My biggest find was a very well preserved old box of sparklers. I'd guess they are 1930s or older.
 

BEACHBUM

Member
Oct 23, 2006
205
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18
Des Moines
My dad's friend was remodeling his mom's old house to sell when she passed away about 4 months ago. He remembered in the 1970's they remodeled the house last and they had closed off/boarded up an old staircase with a small room behind it. After tearing that apart and opening the small room they found an old moonshine distillery! It was a time capsule to say the least with everything needed to make whiskey. They were all excited cause most of the equipment was made of copper and they were going to scrap it for money. I told them they should at least tell someone in case it was of any importance. I hope they took my advice.
 

CYEATHAWK

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2007
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The last couple of days I've been helping my dad do some renovations to their home. Today we were cutting into the floor of the second level to lay some plumbing for a new bathroom on that level.

The floor was hardwood/finished on top and base board underneath... but in between we found a newspaper separating the wood. We found parts of two separate newspapers... one was Des Moines Register from May 16th 1935 and the other was part of the local newspaper in town. Pretty cool stuff. We debated ripping the entire hardwood (top coat) up in the corner we were working in to get the whole edition but decided against it. But we took a good hour, hour and a half looking at the news of the time and advertisements, which were by far the best from the stuff we did manage to get out.

So that got me wondering. Have you ever found anything interesting hidden in the floors/walls/ceilings during a renovation/repair? And what was it?




The EXACT same thing happened to me when renovating an old house. Was originally built in 1895. Someone had added more square footage to the main level living space by making the rap around porch part of the living room. When we discovered this, we decided to move the walls back and have the original porch. When we took up the sub floor, we found the deck floor still there. When we took up the flooring, we found creosote soaked Des Moines Register and Tribune from June of 1933 being used as a moisture barrier between deck floor and U/L boards. Most was torn when we removed flooring....however, one page came up intact. It had some very interesting reading. Germany threatening the world they will take the part of Poland which was lost in WWI by blood if necessary. Houses to rent for $15 a month. A car salesman from San Francisco swearing that the new Buick would climb the Rockie Mountains based on tests done from the streets of San Francisco. Very, very interesting!

We left a newspaper from today's DMR and a picture of us in the wall.
Edit: Decided we are also going to leave more of a time capsule. Cell phone, 3.5" floppy disk, cd, dollar bill and some coins, maybe some other things... suggestions?
 

cyson

Well-Known Member
Jun 24, 2007
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I always leave a note with my name, when the work was done, a few coins etc.
 

aforstate

Active Member
Jan 23, 2010
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I happen to know there is an interesting assortment of power tools behind the drywall of one lucky house in Dakota City, IA.

Apart from old newspaper and dead rodents, I've only found a 70's porn stash in the walls of an old supermarket that I was gutting when I lived in Tacoma. Don't worry, I had gloves on.
 

illinoiscyclone

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2008
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Wisconsin
cannot find the article but one buddy who works for a campground with old trailers back home found 40 grand, a benelli nova, and a few handguns in the walls of a cleanout.
 

GrindingAway

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Nov 27, 2006
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I usually just find that the previous builder did a crappy job and my renovation becomes a lot more expensive.