11 Weirdest Things People Have Found During Home Renovations

Lifting up floorboards and scraping through old wallpaper is the interior design world’s equivalent of an archaeological dig. Each layer of decor reveals clues to the past, whether it’s decor trends or lifestyle needs from long ago. Botanical wallpaper and shag carpeting are one thing, but sometimes the discoveries get really strange. Says Sarah Jefferys of Sarah Jefferys Architecture + Interiors in New York City: “Renovating homes in New York City is always full of surprises. In one particularly memorable project, we found a bullet lodged in a rafter while extensively renovating the home of a former mobster.”

In the spirit of surprising finds, here are 10 of the most fascinating and strangest things people have found during home renovations.

A hundred year old butter churn

The churn shortly after it was found

Photo: Courtesy of Tracy Culleton

Culleton has converted the churn into a flower pot.

Photo: Courtesy of Tracy Culleton

Tracy Culleton (@homeintheblooms) and her husband Mark made a lot of discoveries while renovating their grandparents’ 1904 farmhouse in the foothills of Ireland’s Slieve Bloom Mountains. They uncovered lanterns, a full 1960s Guinness bottle, a vintage Nippon camera, coins, medals and horseshoes. But a favorite find was an antique butter churn that dates back to the 1930s. “We found it when we were digging up the foundation where the old parlor used to be,” says Culleton. “My dad restored it and it’s now a feature outside our house as a nod to Mark’s grandparents and the work they did on the farm.”

A scandalous diary

Pages from the diary

Photo: Simply Southern Cottage

Another view on the diary

Photo: Simply Southern Cottage

Sara McDaniel of Simply Southern Cottage has renovated nearly an entire city block in Minden, Louisiana, so she’s made her share of unusual discoveries. But she says one of the most intriguing was an old journal hidden in the floorboards of her own home. “Floor joists were pulled out of the attic space for new electrical and plumbing,” she says. “That’s when we found the pages titled Autobiography of Belle Howard Mayfield, dating back to the 1800s.” On the weathered pages, Mayfield described an illicit affair with her teacher and her attempts to convince her mother to let her leave school at 16 — which she eventually did. The discovery inspired McDaniel to try to find more information about the house’s former occupants and why the teen had to hide her secrets in the attic.

A pizza party in the walls

During the renovation

Photo: Courtesy of Rumor Designs

Vintage soda cans found in the wall

Photo: Courtesy of Rumor Designs

“When we renovated our office building, which dates back to the late 1800s, we found old soda cans from the 1980s hidden behind the drywall,” says Lindsey Jamison of Rumor Designs in Steamboat Springs, Colo. “We also found old pizza boxes from when our building was an Italian restaurant in the 1970s.”

Antique school supplies

A birdhouse found in the old school building

Photo: Courtesy of Stephanie Sharp

Parts of the desk

Photo: Courtesy of Stephanie Sharp

Stephanie and Adam Sharp of Old Souls, a historic renovation company, bought a former two-room elementary school in 2022. And though the 1920s school had already been renovated and converted into three apartments in the 1980s, they still found remnants of the building’s academic days when they got to work. When their electrician was looking for places to rewire, he stumbled upon a hidden cavity under the central staircase. “Hidden for decades, we found an old birdhouse, school desks, and wooden dowels that had held educational posters and maps,” says Stephanie Sharp. “The birdhouse was especially meaningful because we have photos from the 1920s of students with birdhouses they had made.”

A breast implant

Metro found a breast implant while redecorating this room.

Photo: Courtesy of Tracy Metro