Just a sampling of the treasures we found while sifting through rat’s nests at Love House. From top, clockwise: A gold chain, mercury dime, Goose Shoe Store token, overall latch, old clothing tag, square nail, old eraser.

(Taken from a video from Insta, sorry for the bad quality)

The lath and plaster ceilings freaked us out. They weren’t sagging yet, but we knew we wanted to put can lights in, so it would be easier to just remove everything up there and start fresh with drywall. PLUS, I like taking out additional weight from our houses, not adding it. We have taken ceilings out before and it is messy, but usually kind of fun and not a big deal. This time around we were elated(?) to find out the entire perimeter of the house was stuffed full of rats nests. After the initial shock and terror, we decided it was a good thing.

Rats LOVE shiny things and general things of interest. They would come out at night and literally steal things from the house to take back to their nests. How people lived here while all that was going on is beyond me. Lucky for us, the rats had all been killed or moved on by the time we purchased the home…all that was left behind was their most valuable (non-edible) possessions.

American money from WWII, an old pen nib, more chain, a buffalo nickel, a button and an old razor handle.

We always thought we would find diamonds in the walls! Ha! This one was one of our favorite finds-black corral and diamond watch band. Not that old, but HELLO, so cool. Chris, Andy’s brother, was over helping the day we found this…I think he might like treasure hunting as much as we do. #understatement.

After a week or so…he are our winnings: more coins, several cool marbles, another store token, old thread spools, an old razor.

Pretty dang exciting. Everyday was such an adventure! We are still holding out for a $5 Mormon Gold piece…valued at like $3 mil. That would be ok.

Some other cool thinks about taking ceilings down included seeing all the old nob and tube, which had long been disconnected. We left it inside for the next renovator to find in 160 years. (It had better be our great, great, great, grandkid.)

And the original order written on the floorboards:

Covering back up the ceilings was a difficult decision. On one hand, it was amazing to see them exposed; on the other, it would have always been loud, dusty and extremely difficult to have the perfect lighting that I wanted. In the end, we knew we had to sheetrock. I’m glad we did, but it’s neat to remember what was under there.

Side Note:

Here’s that old picture of the summer kitchen I promised! Isn’t it cute? It reminds me of Art City and it’s a shame it burnt down.

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This has been really fun catching up on everything we have done so far! We have decided that we are going to start posting almost every day and include what’s happening NOW as well as before. We are so excited to share everything that we do on a daily basis.

I hope you’ll subscribe and enjoy the journey with us!