Oh, I love that. We left a time capsule of sorts behind the window seat when we put it in, and I can only imagine someone being so excited to find what I left there. (It also included a picture of the old kitchen, just to show what the original kitchen looked like.) How fun for you!

That's fabulous! I love that show that used to be on TV, If Walls Could Talk...they did stories like yours.

How cool. I hope you can preserve some of them...what a wonderful treasure chest to find :)

What an awesome find! I had to chuckle when reading the first pic-- people on the sick list, attending the fair, and shopping in town? WOW! How times have changed- now we have drive by shootings, armed robberies and most recent, (and soooo alarming) military personnel murdering loved (or not-so loved) ones. YIKES!!!

I too hope that you can preserve those- that's amazing.

Great surprise! Now, you need to remember to put in some pics, newspapers, etc. in the walls b/f you close them up so someone 100 years from now will also have a great find!

We put a "time capsule" of sorts in our kitchen wall (away from electrical & plumbing)...pics of the old kitchen, copies of the builders' plans of the original house, pics of our family, and even the final plans for the remodel. No newspaper though...darn! I knew I forgot something!

Incredible! I was a history major, so this would be like finding treasure for me. Do you have a local historical society you could call? Maybe they'd have some way to recover and preserve these newspapers.

maydl, that is a good idea. I'm pretty sure there is a historical society somewhere...I'll have to look it up. I was just saying to DH last night that we need to figure out some way to get the paper off without destroying it. Before we found these newspapers, we found a piece above our basement stairs that is extremely brittle because it hasn't been covered up for years and years. It has been partially painted over and even if you touch it, it crumbles. I was going to take a piece of clear contact paper and press it onto the newspaper to see if it would come off in a good sized piece. I'm still going to try that with that one piece, but I think the new find will come off much easier. DH is away for the day doing a physical ability test for a potential job so I think I'm going to pack the kids up and go find the historical society. ....I wonder if stuff like this will pay my mortgage???

We started keeping a blog of the house remodel....for anyone interested in seeing it. I'm just now getting ready to post pictures of all of the rooms in the house before they were touched. There will be some pictures of the kitchen before we started ripping stuff out. ...just to give you all an idea of why this wall MUST come out. The 'small kitchen' as we call it isn't big enough to make into a dining room....we had already thought of trying that, but after measuring things, its just not possible.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jenn's blog

I love buehl's idea of adding your own stuff to the walls before covering them up. I wish I had thought of that 4 months ago. It sure would've been cool to have something waiting for us when we ripped down walls for our kitchen, other than the weird stuff we found like a putty knife and a tennis ball.

Something similar that I took pleasure in, were all the layers of linoleum that were under our kitchen floor. Each telling it's own story of the timeline it must've been installed, and our house is "only" around 30 years old. It was cool all the same.

How neat! I like the idea of finding the historical society. They may want it and you'll take pride in knowing that you've preserved some of the past. Let us know what happens. I am interested to find out, what you find out.

Boxie

Cool! I wonder if the politicians of 1892 are substantially different than the politicians of today....

That's WILD!! Very timely, too! (excuse the pun) This afternoon, I have an electrician and HVAC contractor coming over to take a look at their respective systems in a house right next door to where I'm renting right now. This house was just foreclosed on, and it's a 2000 sq. ft. farmhouse that was built back in 1900:

It's going to need a whole lot of cosmetic work, and so long as the mechanical systems come back with a good bill of health, I'll be digging in within the next couple of weeks, and I'm kinda looking forward to see what WE unearth!! My wife and I were talking about this all weekend after looking at the place the first time on friday! Now I'm PRAYING that everything comes back in decent shape this afternoon so we're that much closer to digging in!!

hisgal--VERY COOL! Most folks would just rip it out. My hat is off to you for caring enough to preserve your find.

Bill--fingers crossed for you! That's one good looking house although, personally, I wish it were here in NJ so you could come Kerdi my bathrooms ;-)

Bill, how fun! That house looks very similar to the farmhouse we rented when first married 28 years ago. I think it dated to around 1910 or so. Are you buying that house?

I'll know in about 2 hours. 2000 feet on an acre, IN TOWN, for $106K. This one was just too good to pass up, so long as there aren't any real big surprises, which is what I'm looking for right now. Because it's a foreclosure, the realtor (and the bank) has no info on the house, so even before I put in an offer, I want to completely check it out. I've already checked the structure myself, and that looks to be pretty sturdy. But I wouldn't know a 40 year old burner on the furnace from something that's only a couple of years old. Additionally, I want to make sure the first time we energize the electrical circuits, we're not going to get any surprises. The rest, from insulating and replacing windows, to pulling down the lath and plaster and replacing with sheetrock and all the cosmetics, I can pretty much do myself, and I know the roof was replaced last summer (perks of living next door!). The one thing I've found so far that's a BIG strike against this is I went to the fuel company where they bought their fuel. Just so happens I know the owner of the company, and got their fuel usage for last year. Just over 2000 gallons! I can't afford $10K to heat for a season, but if it's just a matter of relatively minor work to the burner, such as a real dirty or old fuel nozzle, or the funace hasn't been cleaned or vacumned in years (both of which could really ruin fuel economy), I'd still be interested. We'll see.

Bill, what a fabulous house--I can't wait to see what you do with it. Just remember the words "money pit", though; it reminds of several beautiful old houses we saw in Philadelphia when we were still living there/considering buying that were crying out for restoration but it would have had to start with shoring up the foundation and on from there.

That said, break a leg with the inspections and please report back :)

We put a time capsule in our walls when we remodeled the master bedroom--but other than a newspaper I can't remember what else was in it LOL...

to the OP: I'm thinking you could take those papers--or whatever you end up finding that's most meaningful--to a specialist in archival framing--could have them put in UV protective glass, backed with acid-free paper, etc. and display them somewhere in the house. How incredibly cool for your family to have, and for whoever owns the house down the years to receive as they take possession.

jaedwards-- Just out of curiosity, where in New Jersey? I know a couple of "Kerdi familiar" installers down there.

bluekitobsessed,
I don't know if the politicians were different, but the politics sure were!!!! I took pictures of the article last night, but this weird shadow kept on showing up in the picture and cutting off the corner of the shot. I think the shadow was from my head....figures. Below are the pics that I took...complete with the shadow, but you should be able to piece them together enough to read about the former president and vice-president.

Bill, I thought the same thing, too, about the timing! I believe the word I used when telling my DH about the write-up was "ironic".

Has anyone ever seen the movies Anne of Avonlea or Anne of Green Gables??? In one part of the movie, Anne is writing a story for a Royal Baking Powder ad. Anyways, there is a Royal Baking Powder ad on one of the pages...I had a little chuckle when I saw that and thought of that part in the movie.

My DH says that the newspapers were put in the walls to keep winds from whistling through as the boards shrank from drying out. How fascinating to read. Thanks for posting the closeups.

-Babka

Oh, how lucky you are! Our house was built in 1894, and I was really hoping to find some old newspaper behding the walls. There was some, but it literally crumbled into dust when touched.

That is totally cool.

Quite the reward - albeit I thought you were going to say you found treasure!! Only in the movies, eh? :o)

Fascinating stuff and makes for a great remodeling story. How great to live in a house with a history.

Bill.....what is the verdict on the old farm house??

It's all dependent on the bank, and how badly they want to "unload" this house. We're going to offer substantially less than what they're asking due to problems that would need immediate remedies, complete with documentation, all witnessed by the realtor. I'm not about to pay for 2000+ gallons of fuel oil this winter like the previous owner did last winter!! We'll see. Here's the url to the folder in my photobucket account with all the pics I took the other day and today:

Here is a link that might be useful: The House Next Door

Bill, a lot of that looks cosmetic, but that's a great house.

Replacing the windows would make a huge difference - we got a 900 square foot shack - about what yours looks like and that make a HUGE difference this year over last - since those are in a wood frame, if you get a good quality wood replacement, you can knock them out in a few weekends (husband and I did them with Marvins) - we could do 3-4 comfortably in a day without working hard once we got the hang of it (and that was with cleaning up wood rot, priming and painting the framing). It also isn't hard to replace the doors. That will save big time on the bills. I wouldn't rush to get rid of the plaster walls as that gives the house character and plaster has it's own insulating factors. They look in decent shape. Focus more on the heating, cooling too along with a nice kitchen and bathrooms (you know we all expect you to have the perfectly tiled house ). We'll trade you tiling lessons when we are ready to tile (who knows when that will ever be) for windows, doors, wall paper removal, plaster wall refinishing (NOT FUN) and other stuff :) we've learned.

hisgal2 - before you put up your cabinets, don't forget to write your names on the wall behind your cabinets and the dates you did your kitchen :) we did that so the next people, if it wasn't us, would know.

Actually, replacing the windows is one of the things on my list. The heating system is another one. The furnace is about 25 years old, and I'm told it's "tired". It's not burning efficiently, and that's another problem. Also, it's forced hot air heat, as with most homes from this period, and without fail, every single duct in that house runs for a considerable length through areas that aren't heated, giving the heated air in the ductwork (albeit insulated) a chance to cool significantly before it reaches its final destination, so all the duct work has to be rerouted, as well. Also, there's one spot in the living room where apparently the previous owner had a propane monitor heater, and the hole for the exhaust pipe is still in the wall. From there, you can see there's not one single drop of insulation, which means blown in insulation will be in my very near future if the bank accepts our offer. What I'm offering is about $35K below asking price, and frankly, I don't expect them to take it, It all depends on their counter offer, because if this goes through, I'm still going to pull the loan for about the original amount so the windows, insulation, and heating system can be taken care of right off the bat. The rest can be done as I can afford it.

The windows in our house are wood frame and they are older than the ones in this house, Bill. There is absolutely NO air movement in the first floor of the house and we just couldn't figure it out...until we tried to open a window to install an AC. These windows are all painted shut (not a huge surprise),but also CAULKED between the upper and lower windows!!! It took us 2 full hours to actually get the one open. I'm sure that helps in the winter. LOL We have no insulation, but have been told by many people that a plank construction home is very good with that because it has an area of air in between the two plank areas of the walls.

Also...looks like there are layers of wallpaper in your potential house. If there are many many layers, you may find that removing them will make the house drafty. The many layers actually helps keep the outside air out of the house. Just an FYI in case you didn't know. We're not sure how many layers of wall paper some of our rooms have but I'm not touching them. Gonna prime and paint right over the suckers!

We have oil hot water heat and I'm scared about the cost of oil this winter. The house we used to own was natural gas and the cost wasn't bad at all....oil prices scare the bajesus out of me!

Most of the homes up here of the same age and size used between 800 and 1200 gallons of fuel. This one used just over 2000. If it were in line with the others, I'd make my choice and either bite the bullet, or move on. But that's not the case. The house I'm living in right now was built at the same time and is about 3400 feet total (versus 2080 feet in the house I'm looking at). My landlord burned 1600 gallons last season.