Tell me about what's in your walls.

[monadnocky]

Kitchen being renovated right now; this part of the house was last touched in the early 80's. We think.
The guys keep on finding these, in the walls, the ceiling, what have you. This one still had some.... beer? swill? I don't want to know? in it.
I'm sure they've found stuff more interesting, and perhaps you have too. Let's hear it.

Edit: I have no idea why this won't orient correctly. And I have no idea why it's doubled.

[rec head]

Getting ready to do the bathroom. I always hope for a stack of cash.

[lumpy]

F----ing squirrels and chipmunks right now. We just had the visible holes in the woodwork patched (first paint job in at least 30 years) and fixed a collapsing section of foundation where they were getting in, but I just spied one ingressing behind a concrete stoop against the back door.

When my mom and I tore down the old dropped kitchen ceiling back in the 80's, we found a lot of fascinating stuff. Little tiny lace-up boots, an ice skate made out of iron with leather straps, and some hard core pocket-sized religious tracts. That part of the house dates back to the 1760's supposedly.

[smontanaro]

Found an Indian Head penny during one renovation years ago. Raccoon nest & skeletons on the fireplace grate on that same redo (cool tin cover on the opening had been caulked in place).

[rwsaunders]

Looks like you had a safety conscious plumber working on the house years ago...or it was just beer o’clock at the time.

[Saab2000]

Alcohol mixed with power tools at a construction site is always a good idea. It's how America was when it was great.

That's someone trying for the Darwin Award right there!

[alexstar]

F----ing squirrels and chipmunks right now. We just had the visible holes in the woodwork patched (first paint job in at least 30 years) and fixed a collapsing section of foundation where they were getting in, but I just spied one ingressing behind a concrete stoop against the back door.

When my mom and I tore down the old dropped kitchen ceiling back in the 80's, we found a lot of fascinating stuff. Little tiny lace-up boots, an ice skate made out of iron with leather straps, and some hard core pocket-sized religious tracts. That part of the house dates back to the 1760's supposedly.

Concealing shoes in a house was a tradition whose meaning has been lost... cool find.

Concealed shoes - Wikipedia

[j44ke]

In Richmond VA, the contractor I worked for found silver dollars under the threshold stone periodically when redoing front door frames on old 19th century houses. There was one from the house I worked on with him dated 1890 or thereabouts that that he put in a display box he built for the owner.

I had an old hammer come out of a soffit I was pulling on and nearly brain me.

Bathrooms usually had a pile of razor blades between the wall studs where the medicine cabinet was.

Wood beams occasionally had pencil markings for measurements leftover from when they were put in. My boss remembered one with "cut the other end" written on it. Not clear if those instructions were followed.

I heard 3rd 4th and 5th hand stories about jobs renovating houses in a neighborhood that had previously been not so great where workers found guns, drugs and money in the walls.

[monadnocky]

My current contractor (who did a kitchen in a former house 12 years ago) is an avid metal detector enthusiast and numismatist. He says that the hate he has for working on very old New England homes is counterbalanced by the coinage he often finds in the walls, sometimes dating back to the late 1700's.

A lot better than finding degraded coins in the acidic New England soil, I guess.

The guy has found shoe buckles from the Pilgrim era. Imagine.

[monadnocky]

In Richmond VA, the contractor I worked for found silver dollars under the threshold stone periodically when redoing front door frames on old 19th century houses. There was one from the house I worked on with him dated 1890 or thereabouts that that he put in a display box he built for the owner...

For good luck, I assume?

[Corso]

I found a bunch of empty space where insulation could and should have been.

[monadnocky]

I found a bunch of empty space where insulation could and should have been.

This drives me absolutely bananas. No excuse.

[Corso]

This drives me absolutely bananas. No excuse.

It’s an old colonial. In the living room, I also found a 8” gap (floor to ceiling)between old drywall that had been wall-papered over. No wall, just air!
Amazing no one ever tried to hang a picture there!

[joosttx]

Crack pipe and possibly crack or epson salt in the first house I rented after college. Also tons of mice shit

[rwsaunders]

Monandocky...I've been painting our kitchen this past week and when I saw your Schlitz bottle pics, my trusty old Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG) paint can opener came to mind. It's a mullet tool...business in the front and party in the back.

[Corso]

Monandocky...I've been painting our kitchen this past week and when I saw your Schlitz bottle pics, my trusty old Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG) paint can opener came to mind. It's a mullet tool...business in the front and party in the back.

Yes, the classic “church key”. Well, that’s what the old timers I grew up with called it, it stuck with me. I have a few myself!

[monadnocky]

^^^ I found a box of those in the woods once.

And make no mistake, that bottle of Schlitz is a pint bottle.

[Blue Jays]

I have buried interesting “time capsules” in each of my residences that have been renovated.
Magazines, newspapers, handwritten notes, and money in triple-ziploc bags and 2-liter plastic bottles.
Unsure how long capsules will last, yet someone will get a kick out of the discovery someday.

[lumpy]

Concealing shoes in a house was a tradition whose meaning has been lost... cool find.

Concealed shoes - Wikipedia

I hope we put the shoe back but I honestly can't remember.

[lumpy]

I hope we put the shoe back but I honestly can't remember.

Not behind the walls, but tangentially related, my sister and I were cleaning out a storeroom last week and found my Uncle Pete's climbing journal from his first trip to the Tetons in July, 1962.