Iāve pulled these responses off another thread that we managed to derail pretty well lol 
The first couple are copies to give it context.
There was no good way to split them off so they are quotes here and removed from sight there ā¦ I hope that makes sense. 
PrintDriver
The forum isnāt telling me where you posted this
FYI it took me a while to figure that out when we started with this software. If a particular forum isnāt chosen at the time of posting itās placed in General by default. However, Discourse has it set not to show. So if itās blank ā¦ itās General
PrintDriver
Kinda like finding that light switch after living in the house for almost 10 years, LOL.
(yeah, I would come in the bulkhead then go up the cellar stairs to turn on the lights. The switch downstairs was on a wall behind a door we never closed for years. Who puts a switch on the hinge side of a door?)
RedKittieKat
Itās a wonder you ever found that ā¦ how oddI think all older houses had some sort of Easter Egg. My parents house had a cabinet that when you opened it ā¦ nothing. it was like someone hung a cabinet door on a wall LOL. It was very strange. We could never figure out what it could have possibly been. It didnāt take long for my Dad to remove it
PrintDriver
That was to remind the old occupant what part of the wall they hid that $1million dollars behindā¦
PrintDriver
Itās a wonder I still found it with all the cobwebs back there. Yikes!
Just-B
I bought a manual transmission pickup truck a couple of decades ago and drove it for, probably, four years before noticing the diagram on the gear shift knob showed a 5th gear, which I had been cursing the engineers for not including.At least your missing light switch was hidden behind the door. My missing high gear was staring me in the face for four years.
RedKittieKat
lmao ā¦ well when that wall came down there was no million bucks ā¦ not even a old newspaper
PrintDriver
Friend of mine did a gut remodel of his momās house when she passed.
There was a 4x6 hole punched through the plaster behind the night table in her bedroom. Didnāt think anything of it until he tore the wall out. Found nearly 8-grand cash in there mom kept handy. He thinks it was cash rent from another property she owned. LOL.
Derailing thread, but todayās the day for it.
That is a great little story. Iāve donāt know anyone who has ever found something that grand when remodeling or packing up after a parents passing.
PrintDriver
Yeah, the only thing I found when cleaning my dadās place was lizard eggs. Florida. Out in what I called āthe porch bedroomā in the sofabed linens. Yuck! And I used to sleep out there when visiting. (Shudder) Now I need a shower.
So far, when renovating our house, we have uncovered two 17th century fireplaces (one, a large inglenook In the kitchen, the other, a modest inset fireplace) hidden behind dodgy mid-20th century stud walls. We have also restored a number of original 17th century oak floors and found an 18-19th century quarry tile floor hidden below a dodgy laminate floor.
In the garden, we are constantly unearthing impressive bits of stonework which will have come from the castle (originally built in the 1200s) which is behind and above the house, After the castle was destroyed, following the English civil war in the mid 1600s, as often happens when castles are sacked, the stone is āacquiredā to build local houses, as is the case with the majority of our place.
The main things we have found In the garden so far are a stone carved Celtic cross which is about 2ft across, a gothic quatrefoil corbel and lots of dressed and carved lintel stones. Just this week, when I was rebuilding a small dry stone wall at the back of a flower bed, we came across what appears to be a three-pointed, simple fleur-de-lys pinnacle decoration of some sort.
We never cease to be amazed by it. You canāt help but try to imagine the people actually carving this stuff with fairly rudimentary tools, almost 800 years ago. How they built entire castles, Iāll never know, lifting and positioning the fairly large rocks in our modest stone garden walls was back-breaking enough!
PrintDriver
Sprout, finding those things in your own house and garden sounds so cool. The UK has always fascinated me. Can you get grants there to do restorations to things like that or does that open huge cans of worms with regulation and such?
We have totally destroyed this thread. Maybe RKK or B should split it off this poor OPās Logo thread.
sprout
I did think, when I was writing, that weād gone a little off piste here!There are some heritage grants for some important old buildings, but in the main, what happens is that if a building is of some historical Importance the government puts a listing on it of grade 2 or grade 1 (the latter for nationally-important buildings). The listing means that you can repair or replace like for like, and restore, but you canāt really change the building without permissions. For example, you canāt just go and slap a conservatory or an extension on it.
Grade two largely deals with the exterior and the interior structure. Grade one is much more restrictive and includes everything. Usually the cost of this is at the owners expense and it can get pricey, as you have to use the right materials. Not a bad thing, as you do see some shocking things done to some beautiful old houses. This, for example, had loads,of MDF and plywood additions along with plasterboard slapped over 300 year old timbered and lime-plastered walls. 17th century oak doors painted lilac. It all ends up as quite a labour of love, but it is satisfying to expose and clean up the original fabric of the building.
If they are looked after, they are such solid buildings, as they are usually pretty over-built with massive 300 year old oak beams that can bend a nail if you try to hammer them in.
