I’m curious, has anyone ever put in a sort of time capsule in a building they are building? More then just a date scribbled on a 2X4? I ask because yesterday I installed a fireplace mantel in our house (while we moved in a year ago, I’m slowly doing the finishing work not required to get the OP).
Anyway, before I installed it, I printed out a bunch of photos of the house under construction, a photo of my wife and I and wrote on the mantel back a short note and the date.
Kinda neat we both thought. And I have two mantels to go.
Runnerguy
Replies
I've run into this a few times.
Once, we where demoing an old restaurant kitchen and in a cinder block we found a pill bottle with a note in it,turns out it was the guy who lived across the road he and his father had put it in there when he was about 6.We brought it to him,he almost cried, he was in his 50's and of course his dad had died years ago.
We also built an addition to a library and in the foundation we installed a 14" plastic pipe with a cap about 2' extended through the concrete wall.
After the building was completed we installed cabinets in this area with a false back,the owners bought a time capsule that was water proof and had a ceremony where stuff was placed in the capsule and then we sealed the cabinets back.
Vince Carbone
Riverside Builders
Franklin,NY
My dad put a $1 bill behind the last piece of crown moulding he installed in my folks' new house in Ohio in the 1960s. He wanted to put in $10, but Mom said no, if anybody found it, they'd tear the whole house apart looking for more.
Of course, that 1960s $1 bill was a silver certificate (not a Federal Reserve Note) so it's actually worth something even today....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....
I found an empty beer bottle in the wall when we were opening up the kitchen. It was a 1964 vintage, stubby Pabst bottle with the non-twist off cap. The only beer I know of in a bottle similar to that now is Red Stripe.
No note or anything.
I just finished drinking a Heineken in stubby bottle with a non-twist cap. 'course I took the cap off before drinking it.Demoeing masonry walls I have found a lot of booze bottles in the fill, all empty
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
you sound disappointed they were empty LOL
welcome home, BTW
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Was renovating a cottage in New England when I found written on the inside of door trim I had removed
words and dates describing the move of the building from a neighboring community and placed there in it's present location. Started and finished about a year or so according to the dates.
Which matched the story told by a n elderly couple which would on occasion stop by and chat.
She said she remembered as a child seeing this cottage, which was an old railway station, moved there via a team of oxen.
When buttoning up a plumber's wall in a closet I elected to place the Miss September centerfold from an old Playboy found in the building as the work began
which became the name of the cottage because of it's prominent location when hanging thru out the renovation.
When my parents were removing the dozen or so layers of linoleum in the kitchen of the old farmhouse they bought, they found near the bottom a newspaper with a headline something like "Lindbergh hailed in New York". (Of course, a few layers above that they found a dead mouse.)
Yes, I did a capsule in our first house.
I had cut an access panel into a closet ceiling to gain access to the plumbing for a 3rd floor bathroom. Panel was large enough for me to crawl into the space above.
When I built the hatch, I turned it into a sealed box to hold some items.
Photographs, coins from that year, a local newspaper including the ad inserts all in a 2 gallon ZipLoc bag.
Left a note on the top of the hatch that there was a "time capsule" inside.
I sign and date everything I build - sometimes with a little note.
Jim
When I removed the medicine cabinet in the 30's house we had just bought (to paint the walls), an inside panel had the autographs of the carpenters who had built the house. I'm sure they've all passed away, but a couple of the last names are still in the contracting business here. This somehow personalized the house for us, so, yes, leaving something for a future owner to discover is a great idea.
similar here. I took apart a newel post in a stairwell and found a note from three carpenters who had built it a hundred years before. one last name was an ancestor to my main man then. Gave the autograph to him.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Often.
On one, the tech market had just stumbled big time in 99 I think. It was profits from Microsoft stock that was paying for the house. I was finishing up the Staircase and put a ful NYT under the landing.
On another, We put a couple newpapers and a photo (dated and labeled) of the couples newborn son under the landing, with a couple other momentoes she chose
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Whenever we drywall a whole house, I usually throw a newspaper in the wall.
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
Yes , I often leave my name in the walls just so that in the future someone will find it and exclaim "Wow , I didn't know that President Goulet actualy worked on this house !"
In 1989 I was doing a rennovation on a building built in 1889. as we were tearing out the old plaster we found a copy of a newspaper from 1889 ,still in good , readable condition. I bought a current newspaper and put it in a plastic bag along with the old newspaper so that at some future date someone doing demo will find two newspapers , [both the Worcester Telegram and Gazette"], dated 100 yrs. apart.
Almost 37 yrs ago a guy I partnered with and I found some '20's paraphenalia-newpaper, some coins, a few pictures in a tin that someone had left in the wall of this house we were working on. We presented it to the owner, they were intrigued. B/4 we covered it up, they gave us back the tin with the original contents and some added stuff from that day. Asked us to bury it again in hopes of continuing the story of their home.
Since, I've urged homowners to place some time sensitive things for those that follow. It's been a "thing" I've continued throughout my times building. I know when I find stuff from a time long ago I can't keep from letting my imagination run wild.
Most definitely currency, news, and family photo's. Don't forget your business card.
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
When my wife and I were re-doing the upstairs bathroom, we made a time capsule with pictures, a few coins, a note and some other stuff I don't remember in a mason jar and stuffed it behind the tile shower.
We also managed to seal the handset to the cordless phone into the wall, but that is another story. We didn't discover our mistake until a day later and all the drywall mud had dried and I wasn't about to rip out the wall for a cheapo phone.
I meditate, I burn candles, I drink green tea, and still I want to smack someone.
I usually put stuff inside walls etc for the amusement of posterity. Magazines, spare change, flyers and once an annoying B&D jigsaw. I don't recall ever finding anything that was obviously left for entertainment only. Lots of old newspapers etc but they were there for practical purposes.