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Pot lids in walls?

16 years ago

We are renovating our 1918 craftsman bungalow outside of Nashville, TN. This is our 2nd major renovation of this house (previously an upstairs bath was added) - this time we're doing the kitchen and another bathroom. Both times we have found pot lids in the walls!? Any ideas why? just a quirk of the previous owners? some superstition? anyone have ideas?

thanks!

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Comments (6)

lkgrace345
16 years ago
Could they possibly be flue covers? I remember thinking that some of the old tin flue covers looked like pot lids.
Maybe you had a past homeowner that just used something common they had on hand at the time. That would definitely be classified as quirky. (Sounds like something my late MIL would do. LOL)
tcahalan
Original Author
16 years ago
That occurred to me, too -- but they are definitely pot lids, with handles and everything. In fact, today they found a cool white (with black accented) enameled pot lid with a handle. it's just so strange!
Tina
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My wife bought a Calphalon set few years ago. She loves them. A few days ago, I fumbled the lid and it dropped to the tile floor. The glass survived, but it separated from the stainless steel rim. If you look at it, you'll see that the rim encircles and encloses the glass portion, so that the glass cannot pop out of the steel rim -- unless you drop it on a tile floor, apparently. It was also apparent that no amount of forcing was going to squeeze the glass back into the rim. But if you know the secret, it's an easy fix, with no forcing required: 1) Put the glass in the freezer for a few hours. 2) Heat the rim. I just waved it over a gas stovetop burner for about 30 seconds. 3) Now, quickly, lay the rim on a hard surface, and drop the frigid glass into it. With the rim expanded, and the glass contracted, they fit together easily. The cold glass will cool the rim almost instantaneously, and they're wedded together once again. Apparently this is not a common problem -- I found no references to it via a Google search -- and replacement lids are available, but this is a good trick to know. I suspect this will work for all such lids, but have only tested it on our Calphalon.
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I DIYed a rack for displaying antique plates that would work fine for this use. The key is to make it very narrow, with a front tall enough so that the plates can't tip forward and out of the rack [I actually made the front short, with a gap then a dowel so more of the plate face would show]. The plates are still easy to access, they come right up and out. But they're perfectly secure, they've been through a couple earthquakes without falling.
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laughable - I'm not Chicago Bob, but we had considered something like that at one point when it looked like I might not be able to have my 3rd (top) drawer under my induction cooktop at a usable height...we would have had the front represent as the two drawers, but part of the front would have been covering an area of the cooktop clearance, then the drawer in a drawer would have been just below that...putting the drawer within a drawer would have yielded me the storage area that I needed, even if it was a bit less convenient. If you have a choice though, I would be less likely to do the drawer in a drawer. As it is, my top drawer front for my cooktop cabinet is 6" high (lining up with the rest of the top drawers in the kitchen) and will have a drawer depth of about 2 1/2"...enough for me to put flatter utensils (or some people would put lids) in that area.
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You aren't talking about my pot lid side storage are you? I don't have a picture of it constructed but here it was on my interior-cabinets guide (picture #6 in the upper right)
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macybaby
16 years ago
Maybe it had some superstisious or religious signficance to the homeowner at the time the house was built. Something like the idea that burying a statute of some saint upside down in your back yard would help you sell your house.

I was really hoping we'd find some interesting items when we opened up walls. The most interesting thing we found was a postcard postmarked 1904. We found it in the part of the house we were told was built in the 1920's. It's a notice of an order conformation - not the type of thing someone would normally save for 20 years.

I'm looking forward to taking time to research the home's history - but right now all the extra time is spent working on it.

Cathy
kimkitchy
16 years ago
That is really neat & quirky! Maybe just a hint that the po or builder had a sense of humor. "What will people think when they find these in 80 years!" If some of the pot lids are cool (like the black and white one), maybe you could display them somewhere like a mudroom or hallway to the kitchen.
sombreuil_mongrel
16 years ago
If you had found a lid of pot in the walls, that would have a definite meaning ;-) I have seen aluminum pans placed under slow plumbing leaks to protect the ceiling below. The drip has to be slow, not from a supply line, so the water evaporates before the pan fills, but it works.
Casey
calliope
16 years ago
It could still have been used to cover up an old flue not used anymore. My house is nearly two hundred years old, and not much was found in the walls, as they're solid brick, lol, but over the fireplace in the kitchen, up near the ceiling where there was lathe and plaster a bunch of corn cobs fell out when we were remodeling. Yes, this is an old farmhouse, and no.....I don't think humans stuck them up over the plaster ceiling. I have a hunch it was rodents, and extremely large ones.

Also the lids may have just slid there and not really been placed in the wall, if for any reason a way had been opened at one time for repairs. I found a castor oil bottle from a company I know went out of business in 1871 in the dirt under my kitchen when we yanked out the floors to replace the joists. This was in the days before central heat or electric and the only thing I can think of opening into the floorboards would have been a pipe from the spring to a pump in the kitchen.

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