Finding Interesting Things While Renovating.

[JBone84]

When I was little, my dad built us a new house right behind the old house that we'd lived in on the property. When they tore down the old house, they found snakes, big ones (3+ feet long), living in the walls. I was 4-5 years old at the time.

:shocked:

Cannot unread!!!

"SNAKES! I HATE SNAKES!"

 

[jbhtexas]

As far as unsafe things.........

I recently replaced the chandelier in our dining room. The round electrical box that the chandelier was screwed to was held up by one nail driven into a ceiling joist. The ceiling joist had a knot right beside the point where the nail went in, and had cracked. I guess it's a good thing we don't host wild parties where people start swinging from the chandeliers...

We tore out an old shower, and found that the framing for the shower had been attacked by termites. The 2x4s and 2x6s were just empty shells. The contractor was amazed that the thing hadn't collapsed on somebody.

 

[3TrueFans]

Cannot unread!!!

"SNAKES! I HATE SNAKES!"

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlaVsSbwy58]YouTube - Homer Screams "Cobra!" For Ten Minutes[/ame]

 

[temperflare]

Father in-law was having an old farm house demolished when one of the guys digging around the foundation found a jar of cash from the early 1930's. It had a few thousand bucks in it.

 

[MNCYWX]

I'm redoing my basement now... Was ripping out some old ceiling panels and found a stash of porn from 1984.

So I cracked a beer and took a break.

... Or does this belong in the Friday Confessions Thread?

 

[Cyclonepride]

Ah, the furry days.

 

[ISUAgronomist]

Ah, the furry days.

:biglaugh:

 

[terryleebr]

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?

Ex-wife.

 

[isulive2train]

I think I will put a shake weight, snuggie and chia pet in the walls of a home I work on, just to **** people off in the future.