When looking for a new house, potential buyers have various preferences when it comes to the house layout or structure. Does the house come with enough bedrooms or bathrooms, does it have enough storage spaces? These are questions easy to answer, but what about the big question?
Is that house a place you could call home? A homeowner got her answer when she started her home renovations.
Oftentimes, if the structure and layout of the house are good enough for you, then small things such as renovations, changing the wall paint colors or replacing the bathtub can be fixed.
This homeowner had her heart set on an older house…
Donna Hurry just loved her old house from Charlottetown. There are plenty of nice old houses on Prince Edward Island in Canada, and Donna became the owner of one.
Although that meant a lot of fixing, Donna believed the old house had its charm.
The house looked pretty old on the inside and on the outside, but Donna was excited to start home renovations and turn this oldie into a vintage chic!
Little did she know that her renovations would have to be put on hold!
There have been many cases when new homeowners discover some crazy things inside their houses.
Either left there by the previous owners or their ancestors, there are some chilling stories out there…
Some people stumbled upon hidden doors or basements leading to incredible discoveries, while others found cash or album photos walled in! But Donna’s story was unique.
She’d soon see that her house was also holding a secret.
As Christmas was getting closer, Donna decided to repaint the staircase wall. She wanted to have it ready for decorations to look nice when the handrails would be trimmed with lights.
But there was one problem…
Ever since Donna had moved into her house, she left the old wallpaper on the top of the staircase. It was a project for another day, she thought as she carried on with the renovations.
But Christmas was coming and it was a good enough time to have that wallpaper removed.
Donna started peeling off the old wallpaper. Then, she noticed something scrawled on the wall.
Piece by piece, she realized that the scrawling was actually letters! Her Charlottetown home was indeed hiding something!
The letters formed a word, and as Donna kept peeling off more wallpaper, she discovered another word and another one.
Hours later, she took a few steps back and tears began forming in the corner of her eyes…
"I kept picking at it and it just kept developing into this big message," recalled Donna in an interview with the reporters after her story got viral.
What was that big message she had discovered?
Donna looked at the message and began reading it. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she learned who had written on that wall!
It looked like a message delivered especially to her. Here’s what it said.
“In this Last Testimonial, I, Cyril Beverley Armstrong, do hereby state that this household was well pleased with this sound lodging,” started the message.
This man Cyril had a few more words for Donna…
“I, my father HB, mother EG, brothers Nigel and Michael, my sisters, Wendy, Daphne, and Heather also share in my opinions. I wish that this coming generation of family will also fully reach enjoyment here,” continued the message from Cyril.
Then, Donna starts crying when she reads the final words.
Cyril’s last sentences written on the wall said: “It does my heart good to see an old home have precedence over a new one. Yours, Home Sweet Home.” Donna couldn’t agree more!
She then came up with a great idea!
In the interview, Donna said that "it was very sentimental to me that somebody took the time out and wrote that, when we love this place so much and you could tell that this person loved the house so much, too." She decided to track the author of the message.
"I think the person that lived here knew that you had to put a lot of work into an older home to live here, so that that meant a lot to me, too,” added Donna. So after tracking down Cyril Armstrong, she called the reporters to have a first look and to see Cyril’s reaction.
That’s when thing get even more exciting!
When he was greeted by Donna, Cyril said he was flooded with memories. But when he saw the message, it all came back to him.
His reaction was so great!
Not recalling the message at first, Cyril did remember that he helped his mom put wallpaper so he agreed that “it's like something crazy I would do." As he read the words, Cyril chuckled…
"That would be typical of me. I couldn't just say, 'Date. Time.
Cyril.' No, I'd have to have this long sort of Shakespearean soliloquy stuck on the wall,” said Cyril. Then, he laughed saying that he kept the message clean and concise without adding “something awful and scatological.”
Donna told Cyril that his message made her emotional.
"It really touched my heart because you're so sincere and I know when you wrote it so many years ago, you were sincere then, too, and you put a lot of thought into it."
Then, as he talked to Donna, Cyril recalled that it was when his mom went to make supper that he took the chance to write on that wall. "There was that free wall and I thought, 'My gosh, here's my time.
Here's my place and I'm darn well going to do this."
Donna decided to leave the wall like that, with the writing.
"I'm glad that it's here and I'm going to preserve it." The favorite part of the message was the last three words.
The homeowner said that the favorite words in the message are the last words: "Home Sweet Home, because you really feel at home here and you knew somebody that lived here before you felt the same way."
Maybe Donna didn’t discover money in the walls of her house or a secret door to a hidden room, but to her, the message written by Cyril was an incredible discovery.