New homeowner Anne Alcott was devastated when her sewer pipe burst just three days after moving into her house – but she was delighted to find a wonderful surprise under her damaged floors.
Alcott tells PEOPLE she bought the house in May and “within the same week a pipe burst.”
Since the entryway to the house was recently carpeted, the water damage required the carpet to be ripped out to prevent mold and mildew.
But to the 36-year-old Alcott’s surprise, what was hiding under the carpet was even better: red and white terrazzo tiles with a black and white checkered detail.
Never miss a story — subscribe to PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Woman buys historic cottage from 1882, restores charm with ‘wonderful’ renovation (exclusive)
Terrazzo is often an expensive material composed of pieces of materials such as “marble, granite, quartz, glass, shell,” according to Terrazzco.com. It is also extremely durable.
In a series of photos shared on TikTok, Alcott shared how she discovered the stunning floors in her home in Haarlem, Netherlands.
“POV: You buy your dream house and three days later a sewer pipe bursts and floods your hallway, but it’s all good because you ripped out that old smelly carpet and hit the JACKPOT,” she wrote on TikTok.
After tearing up the damaged carpet, she decided to gamble and continue to pull it in the very front of the house. To her delight, she found more thirds.
Anne Alcott’s house floods.
Anne Alcott
“He was in shape,” she noted on TikTok, adding that “with a little elbow grease” (and some epoxy to repair the crack), he’s looking a lot better now.
“A little polishing and then,” she added.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Alcott says she “planned to get rid of the carpet at some point,” but not right away, due to the cost of the move. Of course, once the tube burst, she had no choice – and in the end, she was grateful for a minor headache.
As TikTok commenters noted, Alcott was among the lucky few to find something beautiful in the damage to his home.
“My flood revealed asbestos tiles,” wrote a commenter.
Another wrote: “my house is 145 years old and I just found lead pipes.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(561x0:563x2)/terrazzo-tiles-3-082624-086f6c2048a147998e2c3a3f1e4174d3.jpg)
Terrazzo floors by Anne Alcott.
Anne Alcott
And while the restored floors offered a dramatic before and after, Alcott is now looking ahead to other projects.
“We also plan to paint the walls, remove the plastic covering that hides the beautiful green floor tiles in the entrance, and we know about the double-stained glass sliding doors that hide in the arches of the house,” she says. – The previous owners covered them.
She continues, “We love restoring the old charm of a house so we’re excited to dig further and see what’s hiding.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education