After you bought your house what unexpectedly good things did you discover?

[Shouldbeworkingnotreadingtalk]

Inspired by another thread I've just read .... but let's have the good bits.

We call our house "the house that keeps on giving" as even four years on, we are discovering good bits.

House was derelict / complete renovation job when we purchased - a house the estate agent described as "thought to be mid 1700's two workers cottages knocked together" ... we didn't look into the house construction in any detail, we didn't care what it used to be ... . It was perfect location / size etc for us, we had a decent renovation budget, so we built it regardless. .....

well, after starting the renovation, finding dead straight walls, perfect roof timbers, central heating pipes all hidden perfectly. walnut parquet flooring under every grotty carpet, and immaculate double glazing which had been covered with Ivy/ trees/ plants/ apparently this house was not 200 years old ...

the central chimney was 1750's, but that house burnt down in WW2. Leaving only the huge central chimney and stack. ... What we'd bought was a replica of a "Sussex House" - that was built around the remaining stack. . it's got very old beams from the manor up the road, lots of features, but none original except the central chimney..it was a 1960's replica!!

not gutted, overjoyed in fact. It's been a dream to renovate as essentially it's only 60 years old, so was only cosmetic stuff that needed doing.

We've also found a fully working well, hidden under Ivy, (house was on well water til 1963), and lots of lovely insulation insides walls and lifts.

Receipts left by the deceased vendors showed a new roof for £60k just 6 years before we bought it, snd £20k on a conservatory - Both were hidden by Ivy / trees or covered in moss when we bought the house. (Think Hansel and Gretal house in the woods). A quick (ish) jet was snd all looks brand new.

Very chuffed and thank the previous old ladies who lived here for 50years almost daily.

What good house discoveries have you found?

A safe set in the back of a wardrobe with keys. Only found when moving in.

Fabulous neighbours, breath taking sunset views, amazing countryside, a brilliant primary school and a wonderful village. The house itself I love but it has been butchered by previous owners who bodged every job, cut every corner and messed up pretty much everything they touched. Nothing surprises us anymore, once you have discovered as many hidden horrors as we have they become water off a ducks back.

Delighted to discover how much sunlight our "dreary" Northwest facing garden gets.
The strange arrangements of houses and gardens surrounding our end of the cul de sac means there is nothing blocking the sun from SW until.sunset.
No intention of moving but I've taken photos of how sunny the garden can be in December and January in case anyone asks when we come to sell.

Lovely neighbours. Friendly helpful. But not intrusive

Our flat is quite new so no lovely hidden surprises like parquet floors, but it's lovely and warm! Never have the heating on (unless it's been snowing) and doesn't generally drop below 19°. Bedrooms usually hover at 21° through the winter.

Friend moved into the ground floor of a converted Victorian terrace to find a false floor under the stairs. Lifted it, turns out it had a cellar! A decent sized one too. They found a huge machete in it though 😬

Not exactly a surprise, but have been grateful daily for decent storage - proper full height cupboard in the hall - coatrails, shoe racks, shelves and a plug for the hoover. Proper linen cupboard upstairs on the landing. LIttle room off one of the lofts, you can stand up in it and there's a light, great for suitcases, boxes of stuff you don't want to deal with quite yet. Lovely floorboards underneath the minging carpet on the top floor.

We cleared a load of bushes and trees at the back of the garden and found steps leading to a large elevated patio that neither the agent or we had any idea existed, added 30% more space to our garden than we thought we had bought!

Wow! Loving these.

Garden being visited by a hedgehog, haven't seen a live one for yonks.

Aw these are great.

Honestly I was just delighted that the previous owners of our current house didn't take the wheelie bin with them (unlike when we moved into our previous house!)

Amazing!!!

We were told our house couldn't be extended any more as the back of the house was believed to be a fairly recent extension. After some digging through historical records we discovered that most of the back wall is original Victorian and so got permission to extend substantially.

We also have three attics which the estate agent didn't bother to show us but which are enormous and are going to be converted. Winner!

Lovely original panelled doors and staircase that were hidden under chipboard and a safe in the back of the wardrobe.

When my parents got married they lived with my grandad before moving into a flat above a shop (the early 70’s) then they moved into their forever house (in 1982)
while in the flat,my dad went into the attic and found a whole load of Victorian receipts for the shop below-boxes and boxes of them
when they moved,he took the whole lot with them,kept a few and donated the rest to the local museum
we used to go with the kids to see ‘grandads receipts’

they where lovely to look at-a real slice of history but nothing like some of these stories

The previous owners left us all the deeds dating back to 1879 when the land was bought, and reading through all the handwriting of the deeds has been a fascinating tour through local history. There was even some shorthand on the deeds from 1919 which amazingly my mum and MIL have managed to mostly decipher!

Found a page of the Daily Mirror from 1950 in the loft, that was funny.

The washing machine drum turns out to be enormous (it looks like a normal washing machine but appears to be a Tardis inside).

wow that is amazing!

Lovely neighbours and the most spectacular sunsets across the valley. Lovely when I’m doing the pots in the kitchen sink

Listening to the owls at night, the birds in Springtime, beautiful sunsets and the American fridge/freezer (never had one!).

We live in a very urban location, with a tiny patio garden. It looks so soulless and desolate when we viewed it in January, and not much more inspiring when we moved in in May.

However - it has several utterly fantastic, huge climbing roses up the fences, which smell amazing. The scent just hits you are you walk out if the back door. It is south facing (which I hadn't realised, or even considered if it might be when we viewed), and is a proper little sun trap, just lovely to sit out in. And as a final bonus, despite being in the middle of a city, if you sit out there after dark, you can watch the bats from the nearby church tower swooping overhead on the hunt for dinner.

The house is a modern, relatively new build - no nice surprises inside, unfortunately - just a lot of nasty shocks from corners cut in construction, which belong firmly on the other thread!

I found a small medieval cannon ball in the garden.

The garden was VERY overgrown and about 15ft longer & 4ft wider than we realised, so we had a pleasant surprise as we cleared it.

There was also a shed down the end, completely hidden by the brambles, which was very good fun to tear down (completely unsalvageable, so put the axe to good use).

The loft is only accessible through a hatch in the airing cupboard. Popped our heads up but it was a tiny little space So we only went up after a few years in our arts and crafts cottage when there was a leak in the water tank.

And found a second larger space crammed full of boxes of toys and books etc plus a huge old fashioned valve tv. None of this could be taken through the hatch. So the loft access must have been blocked when the house was modernised in the sixties. It's all still entombed up there.

That the boiler worked.

The house was unoccupied before we bought it, and we'd actually visited with an estate agent to see if the gas appliances worked, but it appeared they didn't, so we negotiated a reduction. It turned out the gas supply was turned off 'at the wall' though still connected. The boiler is still going strong over a decade later.

I want to know more about secret rooms and cellars that were found. That is fascinating.

I’ve loved finding lots of useful things, same as PP the old owners left the original deeds for the land and plans for the street, where it was just named ‘New Street’ with no houses yet built.

Already huge garden goes back another 10 foot and has a back patio - currently still all over grown but a future plan for sure.

recently we did a kitchen knock through and found a well under the floor 😳 and big old nook in a fire place that was boarded over we didn’t know existed as just looked like a straight wall, so we got a free fireplace we hadn’t planned on in our kitchen/diner.

“ it was a very rough area at the time”:🤣🤣🤣🤣
I lived there for 2 years as a student and yep , very rough.
first day we got the keys, me and one of my housemates went to local pub to use the public phone ( shows you how long ago 🤷🏼‍♀️) . Place full of men, no women. Went silent as we went in, stayed silent until we’d made the call . We did buy a drink as it wasn’t exactly welcoming we felt. Found out the next day somone had been shot and murdered in there 3 weeks earlier and it was definitely not the pub for 2 young women 😱🤦‍♀️