What unexpected hidden gem have you discovered after buying your home? – 17 surprising secret features

If you’re lucky enough to own your own home, you’ll know that properties often come with some hidden surprises.

And while these features can often be unwelcome, every now and then a property will surprise its inhabitants with secret benefits. Reddit user VizualBooty was keen to learn more, so they posed this question to the good people of r/AskReddit:

‘Homeowners of Reddit: What unexpected hidden gem did you discover in your house after buying it that wasn’t mentioned in the listing or by the previous owners?’

Here are the top replies from pleasantly surprised homeowners…

1.
‘I found the original owner’s wedding rings… the mother died in childbirth in 1928. The dad died in an accident in 1932. We bought the house from the daughter, who was in a nursing home, in 2001. She had been raised by an aunt and had never been back to the house.

‘I sent her the rings and a bunch of photos. She was ecstatic to receive them. She died and left me as her sole heir… it was only like 10k, but super nice. Plus, I got the rings back…’
-Human_Management8541

2.
‘In-floor heating. The previous owner didn’t know it existed. Worked great.’
-Oregon687

3.
‘My brother found a few $50s in a light fixture shortly after he moved in after the bulb blew. He decided to look at the other fixtures… found $750 or so hidden around.’
-TriumphDaWonderPooch

4.
‘Basement wall folded down into a tabletop train setup.’
-NickLP

5.
‘The area behind our house was just brush and not very impressive. But the city ended up buying it and re-wilding it. For the first five years, they just let it grow and then they did a controlled burn and now we have a forest with walking path behind our house 10 years later.

‘And every June for the whole month, it’s full of fresh wild raspberries. We have a herd of deer, a fox, ground squirrels, squirrels, hawks, eagles, wild pheasants, and hundreds of rabbits. It was like winning the lottery.’
-Don_Gately_

6.
‘Two huge aboriginal art paintings in the roof discovered when having solar panels installed. We had to smash the garage ceiling to get them out but worth it.’
-Aussiebiblophile

7.
‘Not necessarily a gem….but we’ve found close to about 50 pairs of scissors randomly in our backyard. All different types and sizes. Very odd .’
-alexisjack123

8.
‘When we first toured the house, the walls were full of paintings – the seller’s late husband was a prolific amateur artist.
A few months after we moved in, we discovered a rolled-up canvas in our bedroom closet, which, upon unrolling we also discovered … a topless portrait of the seller.’
-charlotteagrammatica

9.
‘I had to do some work on the upstairs plumbing that required cutting into my ceiling downstairs. I was shocked to find that the ceilings had been dropped by almost 2.5’. I have 12’ ceilings!’
-Baynyn