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?

In my previous house

badgers ..took a while as it was holes in lawn we first noticed, they’d come right up to the patio doors if we put out fruit or peanuts.
foxes
buzzards
owls
bats
toads
newts
and lots of bird species

there was unused land at bottom of garden, leading to wooded valley. We assumed owners would be accessing it regularly. Nope, it was an untended wildlife haven for the 12 years we were there…never saw anyone other than us go into it. It was lovely

Great find , really interesting depending on where you are

but, 🤔a bit pedantic I know, the first recorded use of canon balls in England wasn’t until 1327 against the Scots, and not used much until the Tudor period when gunpowder was made “ industrially” . The oldest canon ball ever found in England is 1460, from the Plantagenet period. It’s not accurate to say England was still in medieval period in 1460, even if did have an extremely rare one from that era.

Most canon balls found in England date from the civil war. in some places they cropping up relatively frequently, as there were huge numbers of battles and sieges right across england.

🤷🏼‍♀️Just saying….

and if it’s really medieval I assume you’ve reported it as an archaeological find? You could get a fine if you’ve not reported and it’s deemed a very rare find of a very early period.

We have one that likes to do his rounds along the row of gardens on a night - most of us have left little holes in the fence to make sure he's got a clear path when he decides to go on his visits. My dog tried to greet him by sniffing his arse and got a bit of a prickly surprise -and has not learnt her lesson yet (dog of very little brain)

A whole room under the garage! Had lived there 7 years when we got a water leak. Under the house is crouch height cellar with a breeze block internal wall. Had to break through the wall to get to the leak and found a whole fully dug out room!

That we could easily add another room above the garage and another above the sitting room as those parts of the building were only one storey. Didnt have to dig so was a relatively cheap extension.

Unbelievably well insulated

Amazing storage

Kitchen really well designed. Whatever you want seems to be right at hand

I took the cannon ball to a local museum and they identified it. They didn't seem particularly interested in it either. They were more interested in the piece of terracotta roof tile I showed them which turned out to be Roman, and probably reused in the early medieval period. There have been Roman finds elsewhere in the town before. I found the tile on the floodplain down by the river shortly after a big flood a few years ago, so there's no telling where the dwelling would have been. Our town has been in existence a long time and the county archive has some sort of charter dated 1312. It isn't in the Domesday book as it was at the time a hamlet falling into the next parish, which does get a mention.

The cannon ball was in a flower bed near the back door and I think someone found it somewhere else, brought it home and put it there.

The loft is spacious, boarded, with a good sturdy drop down ladder.

This is the kind of random interesting stuff I come on mumsnet for 😁
My house is from the fifties so nothing very exciting to discover, but we viewed in the dark so I didn’t realise I would be able to see across to the parkland on the other side of town. Love sitting at my desk and looking at the view. Also the bats that swoop round the garden in summer.

A huge cherry tree, a white lilac and a stunning yellow rose in the front garden. None of them were in bloom when we viewed / moved in so they were a gorgeous, highly-scented surprise the first spring we were here.

sadly the rest of the house is a bit of a nightmare...!

A late 90s soft porn magazine, stashed high up in the airing cupboard...!

I also know there's some parquet flooring under some other flooring, but I've no idea what condition it's in as I'm yet to lift the existing flooring. I'm hoping it's restorable!

Little notes everywhere from the previous owner. The lady had passed and her daughter sold the place so not sure if they were intended for her daughter or the daughter wrote them but helpful nevertheless. They range from what the dials on the water tank mean, a note on the pole to open the attic to leave the attic open in the summer, down to what levers to press to open and shut outdoor pipe from inside the house so it won't freeze up and how to get furniture marks out of the carpet 🙂 feels like everytime I open a cupboard a wee note is telling me something. The house has been very well cared for so a nice surprise from my previous experience.

Old war ration books in the attic.
Gave them to charity.

Hundreds of bulbs in the garden which popped up in spring - we moved in August.
Lovely original floorboards under the horrible lounge carpet.
A tiled hearth and original fireplace in our bedroom.
A hibernating hedgehog!

Am attic above the kitchen! Saw the hatch in kitchen ceiling when viiewing but had no torch so didn't realise what a substantial and easily convertible room it was! Knocked doorway through from landing of main house and it's now my bedroom and totally lovely. Thought we were buying a 2 bed house and that the kids would have to share, but no... my room is the biggest and loveliest room in the house and the kids got a room each.

When we started our loft conversion the builders poked their head up the hatch and said "it might be bigger then we thought".

By the time they'd cut back beams etc they were able to give us 36m2 of usable floor space. Cost a bloody fortune to carpet right enough.

What a lovely thread - nice to think of the things I’m grateful for

we bought in suburban London in 2022 when we had been viewing for a year and been outbid on too many houses to mention

This house came up at a great price in an area we wanted - we didn’t think it was perfect but it did The job of being a nice enough family house

six months on I feel so grateful everyday to be here. Our first house was a tiny cottage and now we have two kids and it’s just nice having a bigger kitchen, one more bedroom, a driveway and a nice garden. Plus a nice conservatory and a garden

I knew all of these things existed when we viewed but I don’t think it took it all in at the time - now I just feel very lucky and grateful. It’s no mansion at all, just an ordinary family house, but it’s mine.

We moved to get an extra room for an office for my working from home a lot husband and got an stunning garden and a workshop that's bigger than a garage. We had loads of bulbs coming up last spring (we moved in in January.)
Also files of paperwork going back to when the house was built in the 1930s.

All the deeds and letters going back to the 1870s. I did a module on House History for my masters and I used these original documents as the basis of my project....got top marks.

Found out that a different part of the garden always has sun no matter what time of year and the previous owners had created mini areas to put seating to catch the sun. We also back onto a water board which is a haven for wildlife.

Lovely thread!

Not long moved in but for us, an integrated wine cooler. Nice.

When we pulled the lino up there was lots of newspaper underneath to insulate. Plus one delightfully tame 1960's centerfold. I always wondered if one of the previous families teenagers had hidden it there to see their mum's face when it was pulled up, but it never happened while they lived there.

A cellar complete with brick steps winding down not in the description. Must have been used as a workshop going by the things in it
Letters and old cheques belonging to the original owner from the days when banks returned them to you
So quiet you can her the birds wings as they fly past and loads of owls at night