The future occupants of this house could be in for quite the surprise…

A family in Haymarket, Virginia, has left a nice surprise for the future occupants of their house – although it may not seem like that at first.

Arwen Bicknell, an editor at a think tank in Washington DC, and her family are remodelling part of their home.

This is what it looks like currently, but soon the space next to the fireplace will be covered and flanked each side by bookshelves.

The 46-year-old has moved around a lot and has always left little tidbits in hidden spots for the new occupants to discover at a later date – whether it’s newspapers or photos of the house as it looked at that time.

But remembering a book she’d read as a kid, Arwen had a different idea. One that’s bound to freak someone out, if only for a second.

“Obviously I’ll never know about it, so it doesn’t much matter to me; I just like the idea of someone stumbling over whatever I left and being surprised, maybe pleased,” she said.

It’s a feeling she’s familiar with herself, and knows reactions can be mixed.

“I know I’ve always been intrigued and enchanted when I have moved into a new place and found stuff someone else left behind. Sometimes I reacted with ‘Oh, I wish I could know that person,’ (a box of old-timey 1920s photos in a gardening shed) and sometimes more with ‘Eeek. What kind of person would …?’ (a rubbish bag of underwear shoved into a hole under a bathroom sink).”

The Boston State House time capsule, which was buried by Governor Samuel Adams, among others, in 1795 and rediscovered in 1855 before being dug up and buried again in 2015, provided some inspiration for Arwen – as did Gothic novel Mistress of Mellyn.

“I was enchanted by the story of the Boston State House time capsule a couple years ago, and having moved around a lot, I’ve always like leaving little things in hidden spots (the attic, a crawlspace) for new occupants to discover later — or not,” Arwen said.

“I’d like to say the idea for the skeleton itself came from Poe, and while his writing was a factor, I’m honestly not that classy. It really sprang from a romance novel I read as a kid — a Gothic novel by Victoria Holt called Mistress of Mellyn, where a skeleton turns up in a priest’s hole during a key scene. And since I love decorating for Halloween, we happened to have a plastic skeleton in our basement storage.”

Here’s to hoping someone uncovers all this in years to come.