A couple were exploring their now-home when they found something shocking in the cellar.
Hannah and Sam live in Lancashire, in the U.K., and set up Instagram account @restoring_oakfield to showcase the restoration efforts of their home. The couple, who have three children, bought their 1840s home in 2024, and since then, have been painstakingly restoring it to its former glory, with Hannah describing it to Newsweek as their “slow renovation project.”
The couple live in the home, while doing renovations where possible, and are still finding little surprises from past owners.
“We are still in the very early stages of renovation, but we’ve found an antique oil lamp, the original auction sign for the house sale in 1970, and a few vintage children’s toys in the attic,” Hannah said.
Now, one video has seen their page explode in popularity, as they showcased a particularly surprising—and, at first, even frightening—find while exploring their cellar.
In a video posted on December 8, Hannah led viewers down to the large cellar, with plenty of obvious renovation work needed, but with a huge amount of space and potential.
But as Hannah turned one corner, she was suddenly in a room where painted words stared back at her, reading: “DEATH WALKS BEHIND YOU.”
Hannah said: “When we initially entered the cellar and saw the writing, we didn’t know what to think, especially seeing the words ‘death walks behind you’, which we didn’t recognize as lyrics.
“But, as we looked around, we quickly recognized the bands and thought it was brilliant.”
The video pans to show numerous phrases daubed in bright paint on the walls, including Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and T. Rex, along with words on an exposed beam helpfully reminding people to “mind your head.”
Hannah explained in a caption that she felt “shock” when they first saw the paint during their viewing, as it hadn’t been mentioned by the estate agent—“so it was quite the surprise at first but we thought it was brilliant.”
Her post racked up hundreds of likes, as one commenter praised the “awesome taste in Gen X music,” and another agreed: “Excellent music taste.”
“Creepy at first but cool when you realize,” a poster wrote, adding: “My daughter won’t let us buy a house with a cellar, they really freak her out…I’m going to send her this!”
Hannah said that, unfortunately, their renovation means the words had to go.
“We were gutted when the render had to come off the walls, but it was simply too damp,” she said.
But she added: “I’ve taken photos so that we can create prints to eventually hang on the walls!”
Home renovations are time-consuming and expensive, depending on how much needs to be done and the size of the house. A 2024 report from Rocket Mortgage suggests prices of between $19,514 and $87,474.
Gut renovations are the most-expensive type, as it involves stripping a home to its basic structural elements and remodeling it: the average cost in the U.S. is between $100,000 and $200,000.
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