Despite not having made any more progress on researching the history of our little house, I am still slightly obsessed with revealing it's past. Every time I visit the house I find myself wandering through the rooms, running my hands over the vjs and wondering who lived here, what were their lives like, what would they think of what we are doing? I am determined to research further, but it will have to be put on hold for the time being. I discovered quickly that it is quite a labour-intensive task.
As work has been continuing I have been secretly hoping that we would find hidden treasures buried within the walls of the house. Unlikely as that would be, considering that the house has been cut in three pieces, driven 150kms on the back of a truck and reassembled. Nevertheless, I have been waiting for the magical moment where a perfectly preserved time capsule drops from the ceiling ... imagine a box filled with photos, love letters, and old trinkets!
Ok so maybe I do get a bit carried away sometimes ... but although it's not quite a time capsule we DID make a few exciting little discoveries at the house.
We have managed to save 8 beautiful old hooks of different shapes and sizes from various areas of the house, including the kitchen pantry and a bedroom wardrobe. I plan to create a coat/hat rack with them to hang in our hallway.
Behind the old oven in the kitchen we discovered quite a little trove of forgotten items. I was not quite inspired by an avocado-green plastic ladle, or the cheap (and very grotty) kitchen knife, but the sweet little spoon and chopping board pictured above were a nice find I thought. I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but most likely clean them up and find them a home on display in our new kitchen.
But perhaps the most exciting find was an old newspaper (above). Dated 4th August 1940, it is an old Sunday Mail and was laid underneath layers of lino and thin metal beneath the oven. Darren had told me before we discovered this that builders often place a newspaper, or leave some kind of mark, somewhere within a building during the building process. I think this may have been more of a practical placement than for any sentimental reasons though! It is very brittle, and we only managed to remove these two small pieces. We suspect the newspaper was put there during a kitchen renovation, as the original house dates back further than 1940. I'm going to frame these little pieces of history.
So it was not quite the treasure box I was dreaming of, but still lovely little reminders of the history of our house. Perhaps we should create a time capsule of our own for future inhabitants?
x M
