In today's installment of "weird and inexplicable shit we have found when doing up our house", I give you...

[ShowOfHands]

A mummified frog.

Add this to gaping holes literally papered over, bricked up empty spaces (making the room 15% smaller for no discernible reason), a live cable simply cut in half, secret notes, walls held up with cement and gravel and a room we didn't know we had.

Anybody else found anything weird while renovating?

We have also found the original 1930s quarry stone floor downstairs (under levelling compound and foul carpet) and an original fireplace so it's not all bad!

My DPs Victorian villa had huge bits of wall missing that were stuffed with newspapers and the covered over with wallpapers. I spent hours reading the papers most of which were older than me!

My ex's brother's house had false walls and ceilings in every room! It was detached so not a noise issue. And the ceilings were not low enough to reduce the height significantly. It took all the brothers (there were alot) all weekend to pull it all down.

My GP's house had false walls in the two largest bedrooms (which were very large). Apparently it was done to reduce the rateable value, in the days for rates for domestic property.

One of them sort of cut a double cupboard in half so by going into the cupboard you could get behind the wall and make ghost noises scaring the life out of visiting cousins

I just want to know what the secret notes said

I finally finished renovating my Victorian terrace a couple of years ago. The lady I bought the house from was born in it and raised her family here; it had only been owned by that one family.

The bathroom was originally downstairs. It had seven layers of tiles on top of each other. I gained almost a foot of space all the way round the room once I'd stripped them off!

When I viewed the house I thought the sitting room walls were dark mustard yellow. On moving in day, the pictures were gone & the wall behind them was white...the colour was due to nicotine staining.

I uncovered a glorious original Victorian staircase that had been completely boxed over...just why?!

The front path was Minton tiled....they'd poured concrete over them. I tried unsuccessfully to rescue the tiles (sob).

I found at least 10 different names on hand-drawn height charts in the three bedrooms (behind many layers of wallpaper).

When I replaced carpets, the floorboards were covered in copies of the local newspaper dated between 1901 - 1947. I lost HOURS to reading through them all!

Practically every original feature had either been removed or covered up. I loved the ceiling heights and huge thick walls. It was a real labour of love putting all the original features back in....only took 27 years!

Thats an impressive selection of things to find.

The house my parents owned until I was 5 years old had a hole in the dining area filled with weetabix thanks to yours truly, dad sanded it down and painted over it as it apparently set like filler 🤷‍♀️ nice find for whoever discovers it....

Ooh that sounds exciting OP.

Weirdest thing we found was a grey stone owl garden ornament, under a bush. The eyes were painted white. Creepy looking thing.
And a chamber pot.
The owl now stands on the chamber pot to ward off evil beings or attract them.

Best find was a lead garden tree tag from 1905, still attached to the garden wall.

Tell us about the extra room!

Winterwarrior
I just want to know what the secret notes said
First thing I thought too!

I found a whole cellar that had been blocked off.

@Winterwarrior

I just want to know what the secret notes said

It’s a secret

@exexpat

I found a whole cellar that had been blocked off.

Please tell me it had bottles of wine? And you're inviting us all over for a wine tasting session once lockdown is done?

Zackary - sadly not. All that was down there was an old door, builders' rubble, a couple of mugs, and lots of rather shoddy plumbing and electrical work that probably wouldn't have passed inspection by my surveyor. Oh, and the stopcock for the whole house. Very handily situated.

The previous owners of the house ran a lettings agency and seemed to use the same crap builders on their own home as they did for their tenants...

Cement bags used as roofing insulation between a cane and beamed ceiling and the roof tiles in an old Spanish cortijo.
Same house no electric upstairs, there was so much crap in the house we didn't notice the extension leads from the ground floor.
Next Spanish property hundreds of shoes, bottles both glass and plastic and medication partly buried in the garden.
That's the tip of the iceberg, I could write a book.

Love threads like this
Always lived in houses build in 1960- new so nothing historical sadly

Lots of things behind radiators weirdly
Knickers
A bing toy...
A happy birthday paper plate
Socks
A dummy....

Rubbish really!! Keep em coming people

Ooh, we've found loads of strange things in our place the best was a secret room! Oh and the start of a tunnel to the nearby Cathedral.

pair of ancient longjohns stuffed up a chimney when we took gas fire out

also in chimney, modern postcard to woman who used to live here from her husband, she died young

student art work which i think is by her, I dont know why, its a feeeeeling

a whole window when we took out a fitted cupboard

a child's footprint in some cement when carpet taken up

@Orangesarenottheonlyfruit sounds like a priest hole?

A plantpot round the U bend of the toilet (no wonder it wouldn't flush!)

Oh and a missing ceiling joist.. which explained why you could slide fingers under the bedroom walls... bad DIYer had removed the load bearing wall and not bothered to put a joist in!!!

A box of love letters to more than one person from more than one person. It was bizarre! The place had been a student rental for years and it was as if everyone who had ever stayed there had put one in the box. Most of them were very teenager cringy and made me glad I didn't know any of the people involved!

I dew sometimes I live in a house and find extra rooms I didn’t know we had. Where is your extra room, OP?

I dream! Not I dew.

I have nothing to add but I'm curious to know what this frog looks like.

@NaughtipussMaximus

I dew sometimes I live in a house and find extra rooms I didn’t know we had. Where is your extra room, OP?

I dream this a LOT.

Not quite the same maybe but while enlarging a doorway in a wall built of old hand cast bricks I found one with a perfect deer hoof print in the top.
The type of brick suggests it was 200+ years old and I find it fascinating the link with such a specific moment as a deer treading on a drying brick so long ago.