Not quite IN the home, but growing up, we lived in an older house (probably built in the early 1900s), and my mom had decided to excavate part of our back yard to tear out some old fence and shed structure. When she did, she found countless objects: old china (some broken, some intact), toys, tools, cutlery... It was cool being a kid and helping dig up these buried treasures! We never did find out where they'd come from, though.

I found several tiny keys on the top of our interior door frames. Never did figure out what they went to.

This made me laugh, because in this week's episode of "Modern Family" (amazing show that you should all watch!), Phil and his son Luke decide to go on a treasure hunt underneath their house. Upon getting up the guts to crawl into the tiny space (in jumpsuits and with headlamps at the ready), they scream as the camera pans to two skulls and a pile of bones laying nearby on the ground. After they scuttle out, screaming, Phil reveals that it was actually just the previous homeowner's Halloween decorations. Ha ha.

We renovated an apartment that was owned by a woman who ran a catering company in the late 1960's and early 1970's. We found dozens of cookbooks from that era, as well as recipes clipped from newspapers, and menus that she wrote on cards for her clients.

We enjoyed reading her notes and menus, though we weren't tempted to make many of the recipes, as they relied heavily on deep frying or slathering with mayonnaise.

In the drop ceiling of our basement, we discovered used condoms, syringes, and nude playing cards. The box of condoms was also found - dated in the mid-seventies. The whole thing was creepy to say the least.

Over twenty years ago, when I was in high school my mom and I took the medicine cabinent out of my bathroom to be replaced with a sheet mirror over the whole wall. In the void left in the wall I put a letter detailing what year it was, who was living in the home, what our lives were like, etc. We totally forgot about it until 2 years ago when my mom remodeled that bathroom again. At the time I wrote the letter I had no idea I was writing to myself...sure got a kick out of it. And boy did I dislike Pres. Reagan...that made it into the letter!

One of my friends found an old whiskey bottle and a tin box of condoms in her kitchen wall!

Our house isn't that old (1963), but considering the original owners (the people we bought the house from) raised 9 kids in it we've found some interesting stuff during our renovation:

http://redneckmodern.typepad.com/redneckmodern/2007/08/things-you-find.html

http://redneckmodern.typepad.com/redneckmodern/2007/08/anyone-loose--1.html

And the best find - the original brochures for our Eichler neighborhood which we actually found prior to closing and the family was kind enough to give us to keep with the house:

http://redneckmodern.typepad.com/redneckmodern/2009/06/original-eichler-literature.html

I have a collection of petrified moss bird's nests found inside an old soffit. Just heavenly ;)

During an exhaustive year of genealogy hunting, I tracked down a house in a village that my ancestors had built. The house (which still had a plaque on the front door with our family name on it) had been sold to a young couple, who graciously entertained my questions about the house when I randomly knocked on the door. The real treat was that they gave me a tin of old photos that had been left behind, and sure enough they were photos of my long-gone relatives.

While crawling deep in my 20's era house's crawlspace behind the chimney I unearthed a large leg bone. Really creeped me out. We later determined it to be from a cow.

I completely gutted and remodeled the kitchen in my 100 year old house about a year and a half ago and found an interesting collection of stuff in the wall. (a baby spoon, a leather cat collar, stickers, crumbled newspaper clippings (all type in german), 2 spent handgun shells, buttons, etc.) I told my neighbor about it (he likes history and has lived next door for over 20 years) and he said the shotgun shells didn't surprise him because the guy who used to own my house was a drug dealer back in the 70's! Now I wonder what I might find under the stairs to the second floor when I pull them out and replace them!

avimom, I did the same thing when I was maybe 11 or so - tucked a note into the space behind our crown molding while helping my dad install it. I was always reading (and loving!) books where the young protagonist would find a old doll in their attic or a box of treasures buried under the porch and it would lead them into these marvelous adventures. After moving from a 225 year old colonial house in New Hampshire to a spec home in suburban Florida, I think I knew that my chances of discovering other people's treasures were slim and I'd be better off leaving my own mark on the home instead! My parents still live in the home and I will be heartbroken if they ever decide to remove that molding - I'm still daydreaming of the day that an "Amelie" discovers the letter!

Growing up, my parents purchased a victorian mansion that used to be a boarding house. This was in San Jose, CA. Digging out the basement foundation, we found many marbles, some glass bottles, a metal toy soldier and a salt and pepper shaker set.

i once found a scary looking 1980's taffeta prom dress in the basement of a house i used to live in. it was perfect timing, my friend had it dry cleaned and wore it on halloween for her "Carrie" costume.

this post reminds me of a chuck palahniuk book where the main character writes poems and confessions on concrete walls before drywalling over them.

10 packs of cigarettes under the moulding above the downstairs bathroom. the house was almost 100 years old but the ciagrettes werent very ancient altho it was brand i had never heard of before....we tore them open and put them in the rose garden

Our discovery was a nightmare, but not in the creepy bones or skulls sort of way. We tore out a concrete patio and discovered an abandoned fuel oil tank. The nightmare is that we then had to involve the EPA to insure it had not leaked and completely excavate it and it turned out to be the size of a small car probably 1000 gallons. The good news was that no fuel had leaked although it was still maybe 1/4 full. No soil remediation was required but we did have to find more soil to fill up the large hole before we could put in the new landscaping. The whole discovery delayed our landscaping a year. It was also an expensive discovery!

We bought our 1952 home from the original owners. It was cleared out spotless when we moved in, but when we began renovations, we found a box with the original owners wedding invitation from 1949. When our neighbors were getting ready to sell their house they had as estate sale. I went as was talking to them. They'd also lived in their house since the 50's and were still in touch with the man we'd bought the house from. (His wife had passed, hence, why they'd sold the house) I brought over the invitation so she could return it to him and she got teary eyed telling me how much he'd appreciate it.

We also ripped up wallpaper and found a note on the drywall from the son- then about 12- bragging about hanging the wallpaper in 1963. That wallpaper covered EVERYTHING- even the moldings!!! It was insane but meticulously done. I think he became a surgeon.

A perfectly intact clay pipe, tobacco still in it, behind a vertical piece of window molding in our 200 yr old home. It was still leaning against the stud where it was forgotten by the carpenter who fitted the window in an 1860 addition.

Thanks for the shout AT.

My house was built in the '30s, and all the insulation is newspaper. Reading the articles is part of the "fun" when we renovate.

Though, when I first saw the title of this post, I thought it'd be about the eaten up termite wood you find beneath the finish!

Newspapers in the walls from WWll. I got excited when I felt a little box on top of the closet door sill, but it was ExLax from the 1960's.

When we bought our house, built in 1880, the previous owners kindly bequeathed to us a few items they found in the walls when they renovated: an old-fashioned calling card, baseball card, and school photo. I wonder what other treasures are lurking just out of reach...

I also hope this week's episode of "Modern Family" helped inspire this post! So great. We're about to move into a house and I'm wondering what treasures are in store for us...

I love reading these!! Our condo was built in the 70s so hasn't gathered much history... we did find a large collection of pennies inside the patio door frame, but there just aren't many places to hide things in a condo with cinderblock walls and concrete floor & ceiling.

Tucked way back into one of my kitchen cabinets I found a box of Kroger brand macaroni and cheese from the 60s/70s (judging by the design of the box). My kids were fascinated by the fact it didn't have a bar code on it.

I thought the stuff you find behind walls and in the floors were the contractor's "signature"?

When I gutted a bedroom in our old house, I found a creepy looking doll inside the walls. It was plastic baby doll from the seventies.

Anyway, a couple of months later, this woman knocked on my door. It turned out that she and her nine siblings had grown up in my house in the seventies (Oy! Ten children in that tiny house!). She told me about how one of her older brothers had taken her doll and thrown it down into one of the walls through a hole and they hadn't been about to rescue it, then later, her dad patched up the hole. Yup. it was her doll and I was able to give it back to her! It made my year.

Silverware. When we tore up the kitchen floorboards to fix a hole under the sink, we found fifteen pieces of silverware. Not valuable, of course. I picture some little kid in the 1950's laughing and poking forks and spoons and butter knives down this hole...until his or her horrified mother realized what they were up to.
Also, a section (I am not making this up) of metal railroad track underneath the shed we tore down. It was only about a foot and a half long, but really, really heavy. My husband uses it as a mini anvil.

I found 3 really old rugs in the back of my attic. We had them professionally cleaned and now we keep them in the front living room. There's also a giant letter J in the crawl space of my basement. What's up with that?

During renovations of our last home, I was cleaning up from all the dust and reached on top of a very high cabinet. To my surprise I found some pictures and one of them was a picture of me from when I was about 8 years old or so. It was a real surprise! Of course, this house was located in the small town that I grew up in, population of about 2500. A town where most everyone knows everyone but I still never expected to find an old picture of myself in that house!

I haven't opened any walls in my 1913 house (yet--bathroom reno soon). But I've found some charming things in the garden, including any number of marbles and a tiny metal cowboy gun.

A few months ago we cleaned out the ash trap at the base of our house's chimney (our house was built in 1936--we just moved in a few months ago).

We opened the little iron hatch in the basement wall, and armed with a small trowels we began scooping out the fine, powder ash.

For over two hours we scooped out 12 large garbage bags of ash, momentarily lost a poker in the chimney shaft, and developed short-term coughs (we really should have been wearing protective gear).

Shaking off the ash we found almost an perfectly preserved Raleigh cigarette package, perhaps dating to the 1940s or 1950s.There was an empty box of Smith Brothers cough drops (circa 1940s), a small bottle, and a remnant of milky glass. I did pull out other things, including charred lumps of wood, nails, and bottle caps, but those were not as pretty. Though the finds were humble and closely resembled garbage, I loved the idea of connecting with generations that lived in the house before us.

All of the finds suggested to us that no one had ever taken the time to clean out the ash trap in the life of the house!

My husband found this in the backyard:

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g87/hoki_photo/CIMG2116.jpg

It's about 1ft (or 30cm) long. We have no idea what it is. Our property used to be farm land before it was developed in the 70's. Maybe it's something off a harness or a tractor?

Anyone know specifically?

Thanks!

In our old house, I found a child's signature in felt pen inside the kitchen broom closet. I let the signature bleed through the new coat of paint I put on the closet, as it was the signature of the previous owners' daughter, who had died- our friendly little ghost.

My father told me that, when he was a little boy, his father gave him a baseball autographed by Ted Williams. The same night he accidently dropped his new baseball into an open floor register. To afraid to tell his father he never attempted to retrieve it. Look back, he claims that it probably wasn't Ted William's real autograph.

We sold my grandparents house about 7 years and because they lived down the hill from us I drive by it everyday. After reading everyone's posts I can't help but wonder what kind of interesting artifacts the new owner will find.

I own a 120 year old house in boston and have sledge hammered out many square feet of concrete pathways - what I learned is that it takes a lot less concrete if you fill the trench with trash first!

Oh! and once, thirty years after they bought the house my parents found the skeleton key to their front door in the basement - Then they had to start locking up when they went out of town!

Wow, these comments are fascinating!!! Great post.

We found the inaugural scratch n' sniff Hustler issue from 1977 when removing some cabinets....pre-brazilians.

http://modfrugal.com/2010/01/you-cant-make-this-stuff-up/

This is my favorite post of all time. I hope it's resurrected every now and then. :)