Not all renovation surprises are good ones, but the Brodt family had a fun one waiting for them in a wall of their Boise, Idaho, home.
The family were "delightfully surprised" to uncover nearly 1,600 vintage baseball cards glued to a wall during a recent weekend project.
Melissa Brodt, 51, a Realtor and entrepreneur in Boise, bought the 1969 mid-century modern residence from the homeowner who built it. She appreciated it for its "good bones" and the fact that it "could solve a housing issue" for her son, Luke, 23.
After gutting and renovating the kitchen and the bathrooms, the family turned to a space they somewhat dreaded: a bedroom that had had a wall dressed in green-painted roofing shingles.
"It was suspect — what am I going to find? Is it mold? What is it?" Brodt worried.
But when the shingles were pulled back, the Brodts discovered more than 1,000 vintage baseball cards glued, side by side, to the wall.
Brodt posted her find to social media and has been getting inquiries about selling or otherwise commodifying the unique mural ever since.
She said she would consider going the NFT, or nonfungible token, route, but is still "learning what that means right now."
Collectors, including some who would “possibly remove the wall for their own purposes,” have also asked to see it, Brodt said.
For about five years, the cards were the star of Chris Nelson's bedroom, he told NBC affiliate KTVB of Boise.
He had collected tens of thousands of baseball cards in the late '80s when his mother suggested using some as decor.
“We just had all these cards, and my mom was like, ‘Well, why don’t we do this?’ and I was game,” he told the station. “So we spent a weekend gluing baseball cards to the wall.”
And then a few years later, they hid them under the shingles.
“I think at that point my parents figured it was the easiest way to cover them up,” Nelson told KTVB.
