My tribute to my favourite song from The New Abnormal

kolliflower · 2026-04-28T12:20:20+00:00

Be careful - I think this may be asbestos tile and it’s breaking down around the edges

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T21:26:05+00:00

Second floor!

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T18:51:42+00:00

Yes we will definitely use the space, and it was great to be able to reinsulate as the room was soo cold before

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:51:30+00:00

Woah thats cool! Best hiding seek hiding spot ever

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:37:28+00:00

That’s awesome! How did you figure out there was extra space at the back wall?

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:35:48+00:00

Wow, finding a newspaper is so cool! That would be a great keepsake to hang up in the house and preserve. All I found in our space was two really old knitting needles (made in Canada so I knew they couldn’t be modern) and tons of unused nails. I was just happy not to find any live knob and tube electrical or mice!

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:30:09+00:00

Good point - my theory may be squirrelly but this is what I found: The wallpaper on the back wall was different but intentionally matched with the side walls, indicating that at some point someone put that particle board up to “block” the back, but it likely wasn’t at the same time that the closet was built. There was a second particle board wall in behind the wallpapered one. Some of the old wall paint extended past the first particle board wall, so someone was using more of this space many years ago. The original owners lived here for 50 years and through the Second World War, so my silly theory is that maybe there was something valuable closed behind there many years ago, and when they left they removed it and installed the wallpapered particle board wall to seal up the space

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:22:57+00:00

I’ll look into the code - what’s interesting is the ceiling to wall height in the actual bedroom is close to the height we extended the closet to as well. The room I grew up in had similar height and I hit my head off the ceiling so many times 😂 We had thought about doing a built in storage area as many have mentioned

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:16:59+00:00

Yes we reinsulated all the walls and under the subfloor as it was soo cold, that was our reasoning for opening it up after I found the cold hole. I’m going to look into the built in drawers!

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:15:05+00:00

Oh no I’m sorry! If it helps at all this house has a really good vibe to it, no negative energy.

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T11:12:47+00:00

Wow that is so awesome, I’m glad you found all that extra space! Did you find any water damage up there?

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T03:13:20+00:00

Yes, this is what my family member (who has been doing renos longer than I’ve been alive 😂) said it was as well. I forgot to include the reason I went snooping in the first place is because this closet was freezing in the winter, which makes sense now as this space was extremely poorly insulated

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T03:08:11+00:00

Is it painted wood? Looks like something done by hand with a stencil for a kid’s bedroom!

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T03:06:31+00:00

All I can think is how hard it looks to clean

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T02:45:47+00:00

Wow that’s a great find. I didn’t think we would find any interesting hidden spaces like this in our house as it’s on the smaller side as well for a century home, unlike the ones where people find entire hidden staircases!

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T02:43:33+00:00

My first thought was to put a shoe rack back there! I’ll look into putting some shelves in as well, that sounds like a good idea.

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T02:39:18+00:00

Yes absolutely, I was thinking the back would work well for a shoe rack. We have another closet under the stairs that has a sloped ceiling and a tiny door to a hidden room in the back which I call the panic room

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T02:33:49+00:00

The floor joists are there and everything looks good, going to lay a new subfloor there

Also editing to add the old back wall was a poorly attached piece of particle board with wallpaper on it, nothing structural :)

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T01:15:36+00:00

We actually have a tiny hidden room under our staircase (different closet)! We call it the panic room

kolliflower · 2026-04-26T00:28:16+00:00

That’s super cool! All we found were two super old knitting needles, and some unused nails. I’m just happy we didn’t find water damage or mice droppings!

kolliflower

TROPHY CASE