Woman Discovers Touching Part of Home's History Left by Previous Owners

A Kentucky homeowner's discovery of a nostalgic remnant from the life of the house's former residents has gone viral on Reddit. Kylie Miracle, a 34-year-old who recently moved to a "very rural and secluded" home in London in southern Kentucky with her husband and son, shared an image of her discovery in a post on Reddit under the username dawnofthedeadling. The image showed several markings of numbers next to names on a white panel of a door frame. A caption shared with the post, which has had 38,900 upvotes since it was shared nine days ago, says: "Just bought a house and found this on the garage." Miracle told Newsweek: "The numbers next to the height measurements are indeed dates and the oldest date on the chart goes back to 1998 and the most current date is from 2021." Miracle explained: "It really touched my heart when I saw it. I grew up in an old farmhouse and my dad used to tick off my height by the front door. "Seeing the measurements just made me think of my dad and how much he loved me enough to take the time out to measure my height and document my growth over the years. I can only imagine a grandfather measuring his grandkids for the same reasons."

The latest post comes as 4.71 million existing homes are expected to be sold in 2024, marking a 13.5 percent rise from the 4.1 million anticipated in 2023, according to the latest forecast from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). "Annual median home prices are expected to remain largely unchanged at the national level in 2024, for the second straight year, modestly improving affordability from rising income," according to the NAR report. A 2024 forecast report by Realtor.com, the property listing website, said: "Home prices are expected to ease slightly, dropping less than 2 percent for the year on average. "Combined with lower mortgage rates and income growth this will improve the home purchase mortgage payment share relative to median income to an average 34.9 percent in 2024, with the share slipping under 30 percent by the end of the year." Miracle, who has been working for the Kentucky Consular Center in Williamsburg for 11 years doing facial recognition, said her new home is in a "very quiet" location around the national forest territory in London. She said the home's listing indicated that the house was built in 1964 and "according to the inspector, whoever built it added on piece by piece until it was complete." Miracle—who grew in Corbin, a town next to London known as the birthplace of the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant chain—and her family were living in government housing for several years. But it turned out to cost "too much to continue living there," she said. "Both my husband and child are disabled as well, so when we received the news that we could no longer live there, it was kind of terrifying," she noted, adding that they moved to their new home in London after securing a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loan for first time home buyers. Miracle was "smitten" when she first saw the home listed online and the more she saw it, the more she "fell in love with it." The new homeowner doesn't know much about the history of the house. However, its most recent prior owners purchased the home in the summer and wanted to "turn it into an Airbnb," but it "fell through and they put it back up on the market." Miracle said that several Redditors in the post have noted that it's "easy to fix and to paint over" the height markings, "but I knew from the moment I discovered it that I never would. It's just a part of this house's history." She explained: "This house was their home too and their history helped cement this place. I hope whoever these kids were are living their best lives now and just know that I'll safekeep their history as I make my own here." Do you have a similar story to share? Let us know via life@newsweek.com and your story could be featured on Newsweek.