Old houses are akin to mysteries where creepy secrets lurk. Walls have ears, doors have eyes, and strange things are prowling in the attics. When Emily Jean Henry (@funkyglassworks), a glasswork artist, bought a new Arkansas house built in the 1980s, she too discovered a secret lurking in the interiors. In a TikTok video, she revealed that her family had come across a full-fledgling swimming pool covered entirely by the floorboards of a room. It wasn’t until they ripped up the room’s floors that they found they were standing on top of a 12-ft deep hole.
“Guess what we found under the floor of the house we just bought,” Emily said in the video while showcasing a room with a floor made of glazed wood. In further frames of the video, she is seen ripping apart the floorboards, underneath which lay a sight that stupefied her and her family. Under the floorboards lay hidden an entire indoor swimming pool complete with a hot tub.
The video has racked up over 12 million views. People shared both wonder and surprise at the bizarre discovery. “Not in a million years I thought it was a pool,” commented @alinedalavale. “If you are turning that into a pond, seriously consider building an aquaponics system to grow your own food,” @earthling311 suggested. Others cooked up spooky scenarios, saying that something sinister must have happened in the pool, that it was covered up. @reverandtitbag said, “I’d be scared that someone drowned in it and now I have ghosts!” @poppy.palazzolo was reminded of the setting in the horror movie “Conjuring” after seeing the video.
According to Newsweek, Emily and her family thought that the pool made by the previous homeowners was covered up. “When we were buying this house we were told that at one point in this custom-built house, there was an indoor swimming pool, but that the pool was gone and that they had turned the swimming pool into a ginormous game room,” said Emily. They thought that the pool was filled up but their close inspection revealed something astonishing. “It said that this game room floor was wavy.”
In a later TikTok update, Emily explained that she was going to convert the pool into something else. “Although lots of you wanted to see this restored into [a] pool,” said Emily in the video. “We decided that being surrounded by these crystal clear lakes and being such outdoorsy people, it wouldn’t make sense for us to have an indoor pool.” At last, she and her husband decided to refurbish the pool into an atrium and koi pond. Being a glass artist, she said, “I hope to fill this room with stained glass, lots and lots of plants, and a small little koi pond for us to enjoy. We’re going to get so much use out of this room, and I literally cannot wait to have a place to escape to.”
Following this, Emily created a whole new series called “Pool Saga” with videos based on the discovery and renovation of this pool. “It’s going to take a lot of work, professional guidance, and $$$ to turn this into anything but we are excited about the possibilities,” Emily said in one video. In another update, she said, “It is now our plant room. We have added lots of plants. We still have lots of work to do. We will be adding plants for many years to come. We have brought in some cool additions like this window that reflects rainbows on plants every afternoon. Then, we have been slowly filling things up. I’ve grabbed a ton of rock. Fishes in the pond.”
In a video of the Pool Saga series, the camera displays a scintillating sight of sunlight filtering into the place where the pool was, and casting brilliant light patterns all around. “I love when the morning lights hit the pond and make the light refract and dance across the ceiling,” she wrote in the caption. “We’re getting pretty close to doing a little room reveal on this project. We’ll be adding plants for many years to come, but our little oasis is really starting to come to life.”
You can follow Emily Henry on TikTok to follow her pool renovating journey!
