Family Buy House, Find Swimming Pool Hidden Under Living Room Floor

A family uncovered a little more than they bargained for while investigating what was underneath the living room of their new home.

Danielle, who asked that her last name be withheld from this story, and her mom Donna have been living on their quirky North Carolina farm home since October 2022. However, they only realized the extent of how quirky it was while they were moving in. That was when the pair discovered the unusual secret lurking underneath the living room floor.

"The night we moved in we didn't have any furniture yet and we were bored and saw half the floor was hardwood and the other half was cement," Danielle said. "They had painted the hardwood so well it was blending but you could feel a difference when you walked over it."

With mom and daughter both "bored," they decided to investigate what lay beneath.

Now an animal rescue farm, the property had started life as a cottage in the 1970s before undergoing a major renovation two decades later. "The house was built in the 1990s put of solid block concrete," Danielle said. "The owners built and designed the house. They were local artists."

When they had first looked around the property, Danielle recalled there had been mention of a "lap pool under the living room" but little else and she had largely forgotten about that, assuming any trace of it had been erased.

However, that night, Danielle and her mom learned that was not the case. Having attempted to remove the "ton of screws" holding the hardwood in place, the pair instead turned their attention to another potential entrance point.

"We saw on the wall there was a slightly rounded cut out and we saw small screws," Danielle said. These cutouts led to small "domes" that were attached to the side of the main building and, to Danielle's surprise, led down to what was beneath.

"So we removed the coverings on the wall and looked down and saw it was basically a finished pool with steps and everything," she said. The discovery was documented in a video posted to Danielle's TikTok outskirtsofheavenfarm.

"It was so cool to see. We had to get a step stool to climb down into it as it was very deep," she said. "It's a lap pool basically in the living room."

There are a number of examples of homeowners uncovering previously hidden rooms and secret spaces on their property. One couple in Scotland made the chilling discovery of two previously hidden children's bedrooms in the attic of their new home.

Another woman moving into a property dating back to 1870 was shocked to discover something hidden behind a wall. Then there was the homeowner who was left "scared" by what she found behind a tiny door in her new home.

However, it's rare that you find an entire swimming pool underneath the floor of a living room. Danielle did a little digging and discovered the previous owners had "wanted an indoor lap but then at the very end decided it might create too much humidity and changed their minds."

"They covered it over like it was never there and built an outdoor lap pool instead," she said. Now that they are aware of the pool, however, Danielle admits the family are at a loss. "We aren't sure what to do with it because it's in the living room," she said. "It would probably make excellent storage for canned goods, maybe because it is underground."

Regardless of what the future holds, she has no regrets about uncovering the space. "It was exciting to see how big it really was and how deep and the unique stairs," she said.

She also now has an answer when people ask what the white domes are on the side of the house. "We say oh that's the underground pool in the living room and we get a strange look," she said. "Then everyone wants to see it and tells us to fill it up and just watch TV while floating on a tube in the living room."

Maybe one day.