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Hi folks,
We’re getting ready to close up the walls on our addition and we’d like to place some type of time capsule in the walls. We got the idea from when we remodeled our first house. Inside a wall we found the first page of the local newspaper stuffed into a no-longer-used receptacle box. It wasn’t intended to be a time capsule but it was really interesting to read stories from the late 1930’s about U boat sightings by fishermen and war reports.
We’re thinking about leaving things like the Sunday newspaper and pictures of us and of the construction. Does anyone have any other ideas? For example, I thought about leaving the boot discs from my now-defunct Windows95 system so that future generations could see how really tough things were for us way back when…
Replies
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AOL CD
*a new dollar coin.
*A current big name newspaper - Like the Chicago Trib or NY times.Info about who built the house and/or addition.Maybe a picture of the house as it is now. Info about the homeowners.
*Those are great ideas. How about a Tom Brady rookie card?
*We did just about everything listed above...When we built our house, the kids (then 3 & 5) got carte blanche for artwork...drawings/paintings on the subfloor, on the sheathing between the stud bays, etc.We put newspapers inb the jumbo ziplock bags with a pouch of dessicant. Baseball cards, pokemon cards, a beenie baby or two, pics of the house in progess, as well as a videotape all went into various stud bays. I just did a built-in window seat in one of the kid's rooms, they put a set of State quarters and a couple of short stories they wrote between two panels.As I built and installed the cabinets, the kids wrote messages on the backs/bottoms of panels. Short messages with dates, ages, etc. Various artwork and pictures were dropped behind kitchen cabinets as they were installed.I even put my old boots and worn out shorts (started as pants, to shorts, to too short-shorts) in a stud bay. I pity the fool that breaks open that wall.We also put original info regarding the house...surveyor charts, house plans, some other documents.
*Wood chips, cut-offs and a half eaten hamburger. Oh - sorry, wrong string. How about copies of your phone, cable and utility bills; also copies of your mortgage and auto payments. Fifty years from now people will marvel at how affordable everything is.
*How about a copy of my paystub? That'd be good for a laugh too...
*Anything mice won't eat!
*I like the idea of pictures and names. HGTV has a program entitled if walls could talk. It might give you some ideas. Its about that sort of thing.
*What WON'T mice eat?
*Mice poison is what.
*Mongo, that's great! I'll bet your kids had a blast doing that. In a hundred years they might do a HGTV show like Ron mentions on your house. How about a small savings bond? I wonder how much interest would accumulate over a hundred years or so? I wonder if the finder would be able to cash it in...
*My mice happily ate the poison offered and then left blue poops around the house as thanks!
*I built a hollow space into the beam of the coffered ceiling of my den and had everyone that worked on the job sign a set of the house plans and then stuck them in it.Mike
*i will do a similar project, and would like to docment the circulation of paper currency throughout the U.S. in the early 2000's. would you all please send me a clean $100 bill and a short note with your name and address, so i can put it in my time capsule.
*Include something that you can part with that's plenty old already. It'll give a head start to old crappola we all enjoy finding on a remodel.
*Just would'nt be complete without a few beer bottles and a fifth of some good stuff(ok just leave an inch in the bottom), that's all I ever find and we DO have a heritage to pass along right?
*I always enjoy finding old bottles. Before plastic they put all types of liquids and lots of powders in them. Found a small tapered square one with the cork still in it in the house I'm remodeling now. Bunch of old ex-lax tins, too. Just something commonplace like that, maybe a small plastic Advil or Tylenol bottle, or a perscription bottle for Prozac. Maybe an AIDs awareness brochure. Another vote for a newspaper, I love looking through the ads. How about some photos of the neighborhood, or center of town?
*I found a package of old condoms in the attic of my 1941 craftsman home. They had disintegrated in the package. I wonder if there is some 60 year old person out there because some framer lost them out of his pocket.........?
*Wow, great ideas. I'll have to enlarge the addition to hold a bigger time capsule. Along the lines of what Calvin suggested (something already old), maybe I'll put in some of my favorite old LPs from my college days in the '70s. I don't have a turntable that works anymore and I've replaced my favorites with CDs. Would Pink Floyd still sound good in a hundred years?
*My daughter (then 9 yrs) was leafing through the programming guide and one night asked if we could watch If Walls Could Talk. I shrugged and said "sure."A couple of minutes into the program, she started asking when the show would really start. "This is it," said Daddy Mongo.She was bummed...she thought, based upon the name of the show, that it was a scary movie.
*Time Capsules?Being in the flooring business and on ocassion installing some of those "bullet proof" laminate floors I'll place some manufacturer installation specs under the floor and write.."installed this date...How long did I last?" I'll probably be seeing some of those in a few years.I'll throw business cards under the solid 3/4" floors, along with newspaper headlines or magazine articles of the day. Chances are very good they won't be seen for at least 100 years and I think about the folks that will discover them. Yea, I'm a smoker too and I've placed a few butts there as well.
*I used to put my business card under the floor too and I wrote on the back how much the floor cost, with the date.
*take som pictures of everybody involved and burn them on a CDIt would be cool if it wasnt discoverd for long enough that they had to take it to a museum to find out what it was.
*Business cards and CD sound cool. I think we can make a short video with our digital camera. We could put on a greeting along with a bunch of pictures. I think we'll try to get pictures of some of our neighbors as well as the town. Great ideas! We'll put in some regular pictures as well and a lot of the other ideas that've been provided here.
*Roger:100 years from now, one may not be able to run the CD as it will probably distinegrate unless it's in a good vaccum tube? That's why many older Hollywood films can't be reproduced and have been lost forever.Ian:I'll have to start that one! Thanks. Geesh, I can just imagine what 1,000 sf of hardwood flooring cost in 1901. If I recall looking through some Sears and Roebuck stuff of the time a "family home" of the time was going for $2,100.But, how much of the population actually owned their own home? Very, very few.
*I don't know, Ken. I am worried about how some of the media will survive. If I write something on the computer and print it on my Epson Ink Jet will the ink fade over a hundred years? Will the CD disintegrate or will it last for a hundred years? I need the same ink they used for the Declaration of Independence!!! Where can I get some?
*Roger ,It would have to be Pink Floyd ,The Wall album . I got a Paper from a bath remodel that was a floor shim, Headline ;FLYING FOOL DUE IN PARIS
*Magnetic media will "fade" over time. Technical publications say that floppy diskettes can lose enough strength in 10 years to make them unreadable (at least, unreadable by normal diskette drives). Most people don't have a diskette drive that works for 10-year-old disks. Videotapes are also susceptible, especially the analog format. If you leave a CD, be sure to write the date on the CD and (if you store pictures) the format used. I'd recommend .BMP (bitmap) since it's about as basic as you can get. Knowing the year and the format would be of enormous help to someone trying to read the data years from now.You can have your .jpg/.jpeg pictures printed on photographic paper for around a buck each (8"x10"). Some inkjet ink (color) will fade within a year if it's exposed to daylight. Some colors last longer than others, and better quality paper and ink will last longer, but none last as long as photographic paper. And if you really want longevity, I guess you could go for engravings and sculptures... :) Maybe a mummy?
*Don, The Wall it is! We don't need no education....Ted, that's good info. Thanks! I've lined up someone with a CD burner. I'll go with .BMP for the pictures as you suggest. I'll type up a message to the future and print it on the laser printer at work. That should last longer than the ink jet.
*The more I look at this discussion, the more I seem to be interested, being a science fiction fan and a lover of history. Ted makes some great points. But, "in the year 2525.."(Zagar and Evans) would be another choice for additional song."..if man is still alive.." One hundred years is a long time when one looks at the most recent time frame. It was less than 100 years ago when the Wright Bro's became successful with the first flight of an engine driven aircraft.Everthing will be different 100 years hence. Geesh, I should get back to reality as I have far too many fictitous stories to tell. 100 years doesn't sound like much when you think about one's own age.time for another Holiday brew:)
*Ken, it might be tempting to try to predict what some of the changes will be over the next century. Of course, you can't predict the breakthroughs. Like who a hundred years ago would have predicted how we'd be communicating on the internet or even something like nuclear weapons that have been around for over half of the last century.Right now they’re experimenting with stuff like electronic paper and should have products out within the next five years. You’ll be able to buy one copy of FHB in paper form and then each month download the new issue and the “electronic paper” will reconfigure itself into the new issue. There are several working prototypes out there.They’re also building molecular level computers and machines. In fifty years or so you’ll be able to reprogram matter to take a new form or new function. Instead of buying a new car you’ll buy a new program to reconfigure your car. Maybe for construction, you’ll be able to reprogram the wall to change from an open screen during a nice day to windows or solid walls at night. Pretty wild stuff. Maybe if we put in a bunch of predictions into the capsule they’ll call me Nostra Dumas in a hundred years!I need some more of that brew too!!! Or maybe that wasn't tobacco in that cigar???
*i Maybe if we put in a bunch of predictions into the capsule they’ll call me Nostra Dumas in a hundred years! And if your predictions don't come true, they'll probably be calling you Nostra Dumbass.b : )
*Good one, Luka! Like I haven't heard that one before... ;-)
*ROFLMFAOI was waiting for you to tell me "if I had a nickel for every time I heard that"...Figured I'd rebound with "if I had a dime for every time I heard that...b : )
*Hey, buddy. I've been sitting here for the last five minutes trying to figure out a joke I could make out of "Luka". The best I could come up with is "Hey, isn't 'Luka' communist for 'Luke'???"You got me!!!
*Cigar?What cigar? Times change so darned fast when you look at it from afar. The internet will probably be looked at in comparison to the typewriter one hundred years from now. Your ideas sound as wild as mine but it sounds like we'll need fewer and fewer people doing the work as it doesn't bode well for employment?...in the year 2525.....Place this discussion thread in the capsule. They'll probably say ...taunton who?
*Ken, I will place this thread in the capsule!The stuff I talked about is already in development so it sounds wild but it's on the horizon. Do a web search on “electronic paper” and you’ll see that it’s not far off. The first market will be stores that have signs everywhere. Instead of printing new signs they’ll just reprogram the signs. Do another search on “molecular computers” and another on “molecular machines” and see the research that’s going on. This is the stuff that’s happening now so who knows what the currently unknown breakthroughs will be!Nostra Dumbass predicts that Taunton will have to change the name of its publication to “Fine Home Programming” to stay in step with the technology!;-)
*ROFLOLYou know, on the electronic paper idea. I could see that taking off with store signs and such. But I don't think it'll fly for any more than a small percentage of magazine subscribers. I like to be able to look back through the old magazines for research sometimes. I don't think I'd like my old copy being 'replaced' by the new copy. Not even if I could flip a switch and get back to the old copy.
*Luka, actually I agree with you. I do a lot of reading on the "throne" so I'd be concerned about "build-up" after the first ten or twelve issues on the same electric paper. Thanks for the great laughs, man. Have a great holiday!Roger
*Roger, I'd put some coins from the current year. I'm always looking for coins when I tear into a wall. Once, while restoring a house built in 1840, we found a 1905 nickel inside the wall. Previous remodel, I suppose. Or it could have rolled under. Anyway, when we were ready to close the wall back up, we put the nickel back where we found it, along with a 1999 nickel. Since I'm from Georgia, I like to put the Georgia state quarter in wall cavities when I get the chance. I left a few recently in a wall of a house built in the 1880s.
*I found an auto repair bill from 1929. Twenty some parts were replaced and the bill came to $27 (but I guess that with inflation that would equal what we pay today). I also found a souvenir canteen from the 1896 "encampment of the civil war veterans" in Philly. Oh and I also found a tombstone in my attic. Of course such items as a grocery list on a 1935 postcard are also interesting finds. I took pictures of my neighborhood and inserted into the wall for future remodelers to find.
*I used to work in a motel and about every six lunar months, I would flip the mattresses over. One day I was doing this and smack in the middle of the bedspring section was a copy of Playboy magazine. I looked at the date and it was about five months old. So I thought of all those religous old ladies who had slept in the meantime on a copy of the Playboy centerfold. Thus my peevish suggestion is to slip a copy of such a magazine into the walls before you seal them in. Who knows - perhaps the house may be sold to a Jehovah's witness. -Peter
*If you want it to last a long time, be sure to use acid free ink and paper, and seal it from moisture. Bathrooms and kitchens are the most common rooms for a remodel, so If you want it to be found put it there, but they are also the most moisture bearing rooms in the house. If you stick you capsule in those rooms you will need extra sealing, demoisturizing power.You can but Time capsule cannisters made of titanium and other inert, enduring materials online, not sure where, but I question the validity of that expense.Alot of good ideas for stuff to put in on this thread though...
*Gee, just when I thought we'd heard them all we get more good ideas. I've collected a few of the state quarters to put in. We're going to put in a recent real estate tax bill and some utility bills, as well as some of the free real estate pamphlets you get at restaurants. I hadn't thought about a Playboy though.Maybe we can put materials with different themes in different parts of the house. Maybe a Playboy and package of condums in one corner and some Jehovahs Witness propoganda in another, and stuff about us and the construction elsewhere. I won't print the JW thread from the Woodshed though because I don't have enopugh paper! It'll be sort of a lottery depending on where they remodel! Great ideas, folks. Thanks again!
*Just get a piece of pvc pipe, a cap and a threaded cleanout. Glue all the parts that need gluing, and let it sit for a week before you use it. (To let the chemicals from the glue dissipate.) Leave the threaded part open while it is sitting for a week.Wrap everything inside in plastic first. Now put everything in, wrap some teflon tape around the threads of the plug, just in case, and screw the plug in. You might want to paint "time capsule" on it before you leave it.
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Hi folks,
We’re getting ready to close up the walls on our addition and we’d like to place some type of time capsule in the walls. We got the idea from when we remodeled our first house. Inside a wall we found the first page of the local newspaper stuffed into a no-longer-used receptacle box. It wasn’t intended to be a time capsule but it was really interesting to read stories from the late 1930’s about U boat sightings by fishermen and war reports.
We’re thinking about leaving things like the Sunday newspaper and pictures of us and of the construction. Does anyone have any other ideas? For example, I thought about leaving the boot discs from my now-defunct Windows95 system so that future generations could see how really tough things were for us way back when…