When you look at the image of the bathroom in Improvised Life’s budget renovation, you’d never guess what lies hidden under the tumbled marble floor tiles the contractor generously donated.
While I was choosing just the right mix of tiles —marble itself is so varied, each tile was different — I thought of a slight addition I’d ask the tile man to make as he set them in place.
I chose four of the tiles…
…and drew messages and symbols on the back/underside of a them…
…
…to build-in a sort of blessing on into my space…
The tile man set them into the floor without telling me where. I like not knowing exactly and the randomness…
I wonder if someone long after me might tear up the floor to discover a few.
And it got me thinking: why not build signs, messages, blessings into a space before walls and floors are closed up, either for your own knowledge or for someone future soul finding a message from the past.
What a great idea. Will do when we renovate the kitchen!
This reminds me of the cathedral in dc. When the earthquake toppled the pinnacles, the found coins, messages and other items left by the stone masons some 100 years before.
I thanked my father and stepmother on the unfinished wall of my kitchen for their bequest which allowed me to renovate. The note is covered with subway tile and I am grateful to you for reminding me that it is there.
What a fantastic idea! I absolutely love this and will do it when I buy my own home.
Since I still rent, I am thinking of how I can alter that to make it feasible for a home I can’t change that radically. Maybe behind pictures? Under lamps? Maybe a PostIt in between dishes in the cupboard? Hmm, ideas are coming …
This reminds me of the messages I have placed under the handlebar tape on my bicycle – inspiration and encouragement meant only for myself, selfishly enough. The covered-over notes written there on masking tape relate to fostering an awareness of, maintaining safe practices in, respecting the environment of, and interacting with those who inhabit the places I cycle in and through.
What a GREAT idea. I’m going to do that with my bike. As long as I know they’re there, they have an impact. Reall great! Thank you.
Ah… when we rebuilt our house after it burned down the finish carpenter who was building the
staircase wrote the names of all the best secret surfing spots from the Oregon border to the Mexican border
on the backs of the poplar treads before he nailed them in place. Every trip up and down those stairs
carrying bundles of laundry was leavened by inspired visions of riding magical waves with no one but
screaming sea gulls and dolphins for company,
THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!
When we resided in our home many years ago, it was the gathering place for all my children’s friends and was the highlight of the Michael Jordan era. Being an are teacher, I couldn’t let all that blank space go unused and invited the neighborhood kids to use it as an homage to the Chicago Bulls. It was quite a sight until the siding finally went on and the kids loved it. I imagine, should we every move, someone will find a BIG surprise.
When we resided in our home many years ago, it was the gathering place for all my children’s friends and was the highlight of the Michael Jordan era. Being an art teacher, I couldn’t let all that blank space go unused and invited the neighborhood kids to use it as an homage to the Chicago Bulls. It was quite a sight until the siding finally went on and the kids loved it. I imagine, should we ever move, someone will find a BIG surprise.
When my sister-in-law was a little girl vacationing with her family in a rental cottage on Cape Cod, she wrote a love note to the cottage and hid it in the back recesses of a closet. Much later, when the owner of the cottage was cleaning, the note fell from its hiding place – to be discovered and wept over.
I once did what I now see as a horrible thing…i buried my ex-boyfriend’s love letters under new drywall in my bathroom. There were so many of them after a year abroad when we were separated, they were like wallpaper before the new drywall went up. I wish I now had them to read the sweet messages of youth and inexperience.