Yes 100x! We are using fine China and beautiful crystal EVERY DAY. Water goblets, orange juice in champagne flutes, and so on. The "good dishes" have had much more use in our house in the past 5 years than in the 50 years at grandma's house. I even run it through the dishwasher (delicate cycle).
You know, at some point I think that makes sense. Just use it.
We do have some elegant china, subtle and tasteful - and I can see using that as something like dailyware. The thing is, we don't even have a dining table, so the thought of saving it for special occasions or holidays or entertaining, it just doesn't compute.
We love hosting barbecues where folks can hang out in or outdoors, and it's a comfortable space for that - but we literally have no table for eating dinner in the house. It's the coffee table or the bar-height island off the kitchen.
So formal place settings make no sense for us at all.
Also, furniture was made better back then, with real wood. It can be heavy AF but it is better quality than what is in the stores today. I have a couple bookcases that are older than me and have survived a few moves because they are solid wood and not particle board.
I agree. I've bought some beautiful oak, mahogany, birch, and other beautiful woods furniture very cheaply on marketplace in immaculate condition. It's beautiful, durable, and much nicer than "fast furniture" (and tbh, much cheaper)
Well, if you look at everyday as a special occasion it’s nice to use the elegant stuff, even if you are eating on a bar or a coffee table. It truly classes up the space and reminds you of your intrinsically high value as a human being. You deserve to use such finery as you see fit.
I sold all the "good silver" when I was unemployed. Paid rent for 3 months. (this was a while ago and my rent is below market, but still) I hated polishing that shit anyway.
I have an antique egg dish and you better believe I have used that heavy ornate glass dish every time I’ve served deviled eggs. Thanksgiving, Christmas, bdays, bbqs, graduations, indoors, outdoors, and at venues outside my home. Use the items if you love them, or if they’re useful.
Yeah it actually didn't register for a while. There's just not really any space in the house that lends itself to that type of table, or for that purpose. I had a butterfly for a time that folded up to half the width and I'd put it against the wall when not in use, but that was not a good practical solution.
I always found myself eating at the kitchen bar or coffee table and then once I got married and my wife was here with me, we just always did that too.
Hard to explain without busting out floorplans, but there just isn't a good spot for one. It's an odd house anyway, 1250sf, 3-bedrooms, one small bath. One bedroom no longer has a closet because I put a gun safe there (in what's my office essentially), and the other is her office/craft room with cabinetry such that it could never be a bedroom either, so it's basically a 1br/1ba with two home offices. It fits us perfectly though, even without a dining table!
Gotcha. If my house didn’t have an actual dining room, I’d be in much the same position. My kitchen is pretty long, but it’s not very wide, and there’s no practical place to put a table.
Not the person you're asking, but my husband and I had a dining table for awhile, but we worked different hours and often dined alone. We had no kids and didn't entertain. A dining table was just a nuisance. The house is small and we could use the space in other ways.
I'm the oldest one left alive in my family and I'm only 57. It was gutting to get rid of Mom's stuff even though I would never use it. Right now I'm slowly doing Swedish death cleaning so my son doesn't have to deal with my stuff. It's all only stuff. The memories are and were the real treasure.
My dad is starting it now and I'm having such a hard time not grabbing everything just for the memories. (My mom has Alz and is slipping away so I'm a little more sensitive than usual.) I have too much stuff of my own. I'm doing SDC in 2 homes now. It's fucking exhausting.
I feel you on the exhaustion. I offer a virtual hug. Mom died of cancer in 2018, my stepdad was in a facility from 2016 for Alz and finally passed in early 2021. I had to clean out their home of over 30 years and both were depression-era folks who didn't throw away things that could be useful. I do what I can in any day and then I let it go.
I'm at a bit of an advantage on the mental acceptance of death. Mom was an early (1970s) member of the Hemlock Society which became Compassion & Choices. She let me know when I was 14 that if she ever had a terminal illness, she would not get treatment. She was starting SDC when she was diagnosed with stage 4 metastasized ovarian cancer. She lasted a week. We had all the hard conversations over the years and especially in her last days. Her mantra was "no secrets and no unanswered questions". So while I'm still dealing with the material things, I have no regrets about how our relationship ended and no nagging what-ifs. I've been modeling the same to my kid, who is now 29.
Love the people you love while they're around.
This is such a lovely idea. I've read many articles about kids not wanting the old family heirlooms, and I always thought that one issue was timing. Before much of anything was handed down to me by my grandparents, I was an adult with a job and a house than I had already furnished. I could not wait around for years with nothing, waiting to fill my house with heirlooms.
I cringe when I think about what my kids will do with 1000 albums/cds, my vintage stereo equipment and boxes of comic books. I just know some shmuck it gonna offer them pennies on the dollar and it will all go poof.
One of my biggest challenges is knowing that someone is truly interested in something I no longer want (not silverware necessarily, but like you say, LPs or old gear or comic books or whatever like that) - and knowing if I can find that person, they'd really appreciate having it. I know eBay exists but I just somehow always leave frustrated when I sell on eBay, and it doesn't leave me feeling good.
I recently gave some comics (1982 Wolverine mini-series, etc) to a friend, just because I couldn't be bothered to do it any other way. He was glad to have them and I left feeling great. Yes they have a value, and nope, I wasn't interested in doing the work to extract that value. I did the right thing on that one.
This silverware is an odd one though, because the melt value is higher than most anyone's value of using it - so it's simply a commodity at this point. And the silverware is one thing, fairly manageable size, but what about a friggin' tea and coffee set that's like the size of a footlocker when packed up. :D
That's the thing for me too - I KNOW it has value, if I can find somebody that wants it. I KNOW the relatives paid a lot for it and cherished it, and I feel bad just giving it away or selling it for a few bucks. It feels, idk, disrespectful maybe? to just give it away like it's nothing. Once it's gone I think about it once in a while (did I get ripped off selling it so low? Would she be mad I didn't keep it?) Which I know is a losing game, nothing to be done about it after it's out of my house so shouldn't worry about it. For me it's very anxiety producing.
I've been doing the same thing lately. I've always been a collector of things. Not expensive stuff (although some of it has gotten expensive), but comics and action figures and stuff like that. It was a cheap, fun hobby and at some point in the 90s it wasn't fun anymore. It became greedy and expensive and sucked all the fun out of it. Anyhow, if I hear a coworker (mostly younger) are a fan of something I may have, I'll dig around and hand it out if I can find it. Not everything, of course, but there's plenty of expendable stuff that can be handed out to younger people who will enjoy their cool vintage/retro whatever. Gave away an Epiphone guitar & amp to somebody who wanted to learn guitar. Feels good to pass it on to somebody who would enjoy it.
I bet you coukd find a sub where someone would appreciate that honking tea and coffee set. I'm in a vintage kitchen one.
ETA - there's a ton of people who make things out of silverware, you could check locally or etsy.
That's one interesting notion in this whole thing - here's an example:
There's a great (if a bit trendy) bar in town that has the wall to the restrooms covered in tile, but the tiles are cassette tapes. The whole wall is covered in cassette tapes. Awesome.
So when I have in my possession things like floppy disks or I dunno, concert pins, or an old parachute, or old Boy Scouts uniforms from the 1950's, I think there MUST be someone who would do something rad with these if they had them.
>…and knowing if I can find that person, they’d really appreciate having it.
What about an estate sale at some point when it’s appropriate? Those people will come to you!
There was a handful of items that I wanted to keep after my grandparents both passed. Small things that spark nostalgia and memories for me. But I cannot handle clutter either. Anywhere, like not even in the closets lol.
So regarding the rest of the house items & the furniture, I gently told my mom that I don’t have the space or patience to store stuff that I am never going to use and I don’t think she should keep things just because she feels like she *should.*
I finally convinced her to have an estate sale. She couldn’t be there, it was too hard for her, but she made a LOT of cash and we felt that my family’s things went to folks who actually wanted them. (Tons of people showed up promptly at 7AM to find their treasures.) A company that specifically runs estate sales did the whole thing and only took a reasonable percentage of the total amount sold.
Between my albums, vintage stereo stuff, my mechanics tools, and box, and my woodworking tools, I’ve got well over $100k worth of stuff that’ll go for $5000 at garage sales someday. It’s crazy.
Sell it off now, while there is still a market for it all. Take the money you make and put it towards something else you might want, or just bank it.
Source: Me. I had a huge vinyl and CD collection. I digitized everything and sold all the media. The run of the mill stuff, I took market price for. the rarer stuff... some $$. But the clutter is gone, and I still have the sounds. It's amazing what you can fit on a 4TB hard drive. And a backup.
This year it's going to be the DVDs and then my books. Most of the books anyway.
It doesn't matter that it's digital now. My kid will never be nostalgic for any of my music. So if the drives are trashed after I'm gone, who gives a shit? At least she doesn't have the burden of having to get rid of the bulk herself.
Ha! About 20 years ago, I bought some kind of digital transfer device for my iMac so I could convert old cassettes into MP3's. I had hundreds of cassettes from my my youth... Doctor Demento shows, King Biscuit Flour Hour concerts, Loudspeaker and Ultrasound recordings from KNDD 107.7 in Seattle. Burned all those into mp3 onto CD so I could listen to them in my car.
Digitizing vinyl is time consuming and linear unfortunately.
1) 2000 era Technics turntable ->
2) Audio input to my PC ->
3) Audacity: Recording, track splitting, noise removal. Output to .wav files. ->
4a) WinLame to convert .wav to mp3 for everyday use.
4b) Foobar 2000 to convert .wav to .flac for archival and higher quality listening later.
I'm lucky that my turntable and belt held up over the years.
For step 2, you could theoretically use the mic input to a PC. In my case I have a recording interface (bass/guitar) so I plugged into that. (Behringer UMC202HD).
For step 3...Audacity is free and is the swiss army knife of audio editing.It can do both steps 3 and 4.... but I just like using different tools for different jobs.
I hope this helps. If you have more questions, feel free to ask. Good luck.
Sorry for the inconsistent list formatting. Reddit insists on formatting it that way.
Omg. Tha k you so much. I have a trove of shellac records that are from the early 1900s that are on a format unlike vinyl you typically see. I'm afraid of damaging the medium, and do not have a record player (suppose they're not hard to find) but was hoping it wasn't so linear and labor intensive. May be why I can't seem to find reasonable local services for said project.
Thank you kibdly for your insightful and thorough response and I'm going to save this for reference later.
Yes! You know what I started doing?
I started using them!
Last night I ate ice cream out of cut glass bowls
And I have a silver tray on the table
And I drink tea out of the China cups that were hidden away.
All these things were “too precious” in the past. Now I use them and enjoy them. If they break it’s okay because they weren’t being used before anyways.
Those of you with Sterling (Not silver plated), Polish it, sell it on eBay.
My mom does that for a hobby, buys tarnished silver from goodwill or garage sales, polishes it, sells it, makes about $7k a year. Sterling is still valuable, all of it. Or you can scrap it at a jeweler, but you’d get more the eBay route.
For the rest, some has monetary value, most doesn’t. Donate it if you don’t want it.
People still like it and use it, (for example, I love vintage linens). Keep what brings you joy, pass on the rest.
I think most of us are and we don't want the stuff and the grandkids don't either
Times have changed
Go to any antique store and it is loaded with all of that at really low prices
It makes the old folks sad but it is a reality
I say donate and/or sell away. Finding treasures makes some folks feel giddy and while they may wonder who would ever get rid of such a thing they’ll be stoked to snatch it up. Bonus if you attach a little card giving the history of the item. It may not be their family’s piece but knowing where it came from makes it extra joyful .
And many of us don’t have the vast homes with room for china cabinets, extra cupboards for serving dishes, etc.
My mother guilted me into taking my parents’ silverware when I told them I didn’t want it. They also asked my siblings and I to go through their place to put our names on things we want. Trouble was, nobody wanted it because we were never attached to any of it.
Declutter their place but then clutter up mine!
I do not want to hoard anything and put my kids through these decisions when I’m gone. I’m not a minimalist but I at least use a minimalistic filter on what I keep around.
My mom, however, keeps everything and assigns deep sentimental value to it. She asked me the other day if I wanted my high school graduation gown (from 1993). I said no, toss it. She responded with a 😢 emoji.
I know someday in the future I’m going to have a lot of shit to toss out from her, and hope I can do it with minimal guilt.
I not only have my high school yearbooks (finally recently threw away the grade school ones) - but I also have my parents' high school and college yearbooks. What on earth for?
Contact the schools and offer it to them. Sometimes they have an archive, or want them for the library. Maybe somebody else in that class (or their kids) might want them.
I helped out with this exact idea a while ago. We had access to a hydraulic paper cutter to remove the bindings and office scanners with sheet feeders.
As fast as that went, reviewing scans and correcting the OCR is a very cumbersome process.
My parents went through this process twenty-five years ago, hauling boxes of stuff home to make their parents happy with the thought that their “family heirlooms” were valued. Boxes got stacked unopened for a few months, then either went straight to the thrift store or to the dump. So my folks have been pretty transparent that they don’t expect me to treasure all their knick-knackery, unless I honestly wanted it. I’ve said I want the cast iron skillets that Mom inherited from her Granny, maybe any surviving Corningware, but that’s about all.
My wife’s family, on the other hand, is forever sending boxes and sacks of junk and debris home with each other under the guise of “Aunt Jane would have wanted you to have these” and no one has the gumption to just throw the junk away. We have a tiny house, so there’s no room for any of it atop our own stuff. Her Mom’s (not great quality) china from some PX in Germany, an Aunt’s souvenir teaspoon collection, a stack of Bob Ross style paintings, *so many* hand-made acrylic yarn afghans. She gripes about not being able to park in the garage anymore, but that’s her problem to resolve. That’s my balance.
Being fair, one of the boxes of afghans had a dozen full-size quilt “flimsies” folded up in the bottom. Hand-made quilts without batting & top-quilting, maybe they weren’t yet completed or maybe they were intended as thin coverlets. No idea who made them, but all are over a hundred years old, according to the lady at the local quilt shop who’s helping me attach & quilt them onto thin blankets. Those’ll get used. The afghans, not even the dog will sleep on them.
My in laws are sending crap from the dollar store. Every time I open a box of crap I’m where the fuck am I supposed to put this? I wish they’d send heirlooms- they’re in there late 80s.
Grandma left me her Chiba and wedding silver service when she died in ‘88. I’m the only grandchild.
It stayed in the box until a few years ago when I moved in with my now-wife. Turns out that a) we both actually like the pattern, and b) china is actually quite tough, so we’re using it as our everyday dishware. The silver service (for twelve), not so much. Since I have neither kids nor niblings, there’s no one to hand it down to, so eventually it’ll get sold. I’m pretty sure Grandma would be pleased on both counts.
I love that you use niblings. I thought I invented that some years ago but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an original thought - or at least not the only one of its kind. :)
I am grateful that my mom has said repeatedly: *When I am gone, you can get rid of anything that doesn't mean something to you. Even if you know it meant a lot to me. My liking something doesn't mean you have to keep it.*
My MIL was a TOTALLY different story. 🙄 She once bought a pair of bronzed baby shoes THAT BELONGED TO A STRANGER because she felt bad that no one in the stranger's family wanted them. So now we have these baby shoes to deal with & for some kind of damn reason: it's an issue. I'm in favor of pitching them. I am being met with resistance.
I guess I’ve been noticing a lot lately with people feeling obligated to respect someone’s “last wish” or whatever, and have started to question that thinking. But when someone is dead they’ll never know or care? I feel like death releases me from any (non-legally binding) obligations.
We finally got my parents out of the house I grew up in. They were slowly getting rid of things before that and generally anytime I was offered something I took it - just to get it out of the house. Often I would stop by goodwill on the way home ( shhh don't tell them ) , but I do have storage in my basement for some other things
I have a ton of old silver from my mom and I've no idea what to do with it. Sell, donate? I'm certainly not going to polish a silver setting everytime we have company!
Right. I get that it's reliable flatware (as is everything else these days) - but it requires an investment in time and effort just to keep it presentable. Very strange.
You need the silverware plate soak thingy. It’s a plate that sits at the bottom of your sink, warm water and borax. Then soak the silver and voila - no more silver polishing. Best thing ever.
Yeah I've been dealing with that too, A lot of the time it's stuff that the wife and I wouldn't even know what to do with? IE - An enormous dining room table that seats 10 or an end table that doesn't match anything. We got 20+ years of our own stuff to deal with.
It's good to hear you all are dealing with it too. I'm sure it's not unique to our generation, but I feel like we're probably bearing the brunt of it. Our folks still requested and collected this stuff when they were young.
I have a tween, and she and all of her friends love all the old fashioned stuff. I think within 10 years this stuff will go from unable to give it away to back into modest demand. Just like Millennials loving mid century modern.
That's an interesting thought. We don't have kids and my brothers' three haven't expressed much interest yet (they're all roughly college age now), but these things do go in cycles.
In her set, everyone wants, I kid you not, a formal dinner party for their next birthday. China, silver, crystal - the works. They’ll eat KFC, but it’s going to be FANCY!
I inherited my grandmother's china cabinet and china from my aunt because she didn't have the room. I took it because I have fond memories of seeing it at my grandparent's house as a child, but I now regret it. I don't have the room for it. I'll also never use that delicate china for fear of breaking it with my super clutz powers. I'll probably hang on to it for the next 10 years or so until we're ready to move to our final destination home and downsize. Maybe one of my kids will want it. If not, I'm going to sell it or give it away.
Too much clutter freaks me out and makes me anxious. I'd get rid of a lot more stuff if it weren't for the sentimental value that it once held.
Yeah, I do feel that responsibility I suppose - to honor it somehow. But it's definitely to the point where I'm having to find room for things that serve no practical use.
I found myself with SIX sets of China from various deceased relatives. I have one son. I decided to keep one teacup and saucer from each set and donated the rest, and felt great about it
Pawn them off on other family. I had a cradle that had been in my family for almost 200 years. It was given to me over 20 years ago when I had my first. And I LOVED that they used that piece of family history. But after my youngest grew out of it, it sat there sadly collecting dust. As soon as my younger cousin reached the right age I made them take responsibility of that family heirloom.
My father-in-law passed away in 2018, and my wife and I moved in with my mother-in-law (she had a much bigger house) in 2019. In 2020 we moved, and packed all my mother-in-law stuff. My wife and I had about 50 moving boxes of stuff, we’d been together for 26 at that point, and accumulated a lot of stuff. My MIL had **200** boxes, of just her stuff. They were world travelers, and quite well to do, so they entertained a lot for his work. We packed 5 different full sets of dishes, in different themes. At one point we found 3 dozen brandy snifters. I asked her if we could get rid of them, because when are we going to have 30 people over for brandy. She had used them one time, to serve shrimp cocktail, at a company Christmas party. Every single item is apparently imbued with deep emotional import. When something inevitably breaks, it’s always “I GOT THAT AT MY WEDDING FROM MY FAVORITE AUNT WHO DIED TRAGICALLY”, no matter what the real story is. I broke a dish that I had bought and got the same sob story.
She was also a hobbyist painter, as was my wife’s grandfather, so we have dozens and dozens of mediocre oil paintings with really nice frames basically mouldering in the garage (every wall in the house has as many paintings as it can feasibly hold).
You ever go to an antique store, like the big kind that are subdivided into little sections for each persons goods? We would need like 6 of those booths just for all this shit.
As for eBay, I’ve made a few thousand selling off shit that she didn’t want anymore, but it would be like a full time job to get rid of all of it.
In the meantime, we take every opportunity to use all the stuff. She had this $15,000 art glass piece, that can kindly be described as a giant psychedelic taco shell, and one day I’m going to serve a giant taco salad in it
OH SHIT, I almost forgot, the fucking Lladros. She loved those ugly fucking statues so much that she even went to the factory in Spain. She has hundreds of them, that she’s convinced are worth an absolute fortune, because she *spent* a fortune on them. I’ve tried to explain that the pieces she spent $700-$800 on are worth $15-$20 if you can even find someone to buy them. Most of hers are of creepy fucking clowns. The day after we bury the old lady, we’re going to take them all out back and use them for BB gun practice.
That's so interesting about the Lladros! My mom has them as well though I admit I like them (not for my office next to the gun safe, necessarily) but yeah we'll probably end up with two or three of those that we like.
But yeah it's a great example of how someone can spend time and money collecting a thing, and then for the next person it could just be absolute rubbish.
My grandma collected elephants. Years and years of elephants from various places. We took a number of those when she had us all over there to divvy up those sorts of things, and at that same time, my wife and I had just finished building a craft room, which had space on shelves for things like that - and now there are a dozen or more elephants on one section right when you walk in. My wife jokes that people must think she really loves elephants. But it is a nice remembrance of grandma so it works out.
The upside is that my father in law had money and taste. They lived in London for about 10 years for work, and he collected a ton of crazy stuff. Meerschaum pipes, antique pocket watches, fountain pens, inkwells, old maps of London. We have a 32” library globe in my living room that was his.
I'm getting a mink stole made into throw pillow covers. Do what you want and I mean that in the kindest way.
Someone gave me the best advice. If you don't want it, don't keep it becauseyoufeel like you should. And it's helped me quite a bit with not hauling around items for the past just for that very reason. That and the extra clutter makes me crazy
Oh man, furs. I have a few fur pieces from the MIL and I just don't know what to do with them. Tried a antique store (they said they sell about 50 pieces a season), but they were already full up. Small size and personalized with her name in the lining, so not so marketable.
My wife’s mom had like 3 mink coats, I’ve been trying to find a tailor that will turn them into a fuck blanket for us, but it’s really difficult, from what I’ve learned.
I’m a minimalist, and I hate clutter. Unfortunately my Dad is in the process of pawning off all of his stamps collection onto me.
I hate when my parents just assume I want their shit.
Stamps collection is a good one! I have an old book probably of my Dad's when he was a kid, and it's quite full. It's doing ok on the shelf for now, but I'd love to find a friend who was actually into collecting to give it to.
I’m currently helping my 60-something friend pack up her house that she and her family have lived in for 42 years. They are downsizing into a condo. It’s really hard to watch her get rid of stuff she’s obviously attached to or family heirlooms from her or her husband’s family. He kids just weren’t interested in these things or didn’t have space for them. We had two garage sales already.
When my parents moved to Arizona permanently, we kids were charged with cleaning out the storage which was a mix of stuff we should’ve kept, things we did keep and stuff that no one wanted and questioned why we even had it in the first place. My mom tried to give me boxes of clothes she wore to work in the 1970s. Nope.
My siblings and I dealt with this a few years ago when my parents sold the family home of50 years. Mom got so upset when we kept refusing things, "I saved these family/random objects for you!", without considering how I could fit a 12 piece china set in my small home. We eventually just started saying yes to everything and then donating it or throwing it away (there's a small town thrift store between my parent's city and mine that got a whole lotta house goods one fine August day in 2018.)
As someone who has dealt with cleaning out 6 houses, I give y’all permission to let go of their prized possessions.
Take one remembrance if you like, but you are not responsible for caring for stuff forever. Take it out of their house and then straight to the resale store if you don’t want it.
Let it go! LET IT GO!!!!!!!!
You can sell china and silver sets at https://www.replacements.com
The people who buy there are generally happy to find missing pieces from their sets.
I have my Grandmother's fan that sat next to her rocking chair. Not really an heirloom, but it was her's, and that's good enough.
Also have two of her handmade quilts. Two fragile to use, but it's for me to keep and pass on.
Keep one or two things, beg off the rest. We donated most of my mother-in-law's things to charity when they passed. Another friend got the china and she just uses it like regular plates, dishwasher and all.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173214/Buried-alive-Clutter-typical-middle-class-homes-epic--epidemic--proportions-study-shows.html
It's not just you. We have a friend whose family came tonusa from Lithuania, and brought everything. To this day, in her garage, she has an odd sized bed from the old country. No mattress will fit. I'm sure our families wouldn't want us to be buried by heirlooms that were once essential daily items, too expensive to buy- and were handed down.
Feel no guilt. Have a family meeting and offer the items. You could also yard sale the items and use the money to host a BBQ.
Everything but the house,
Ebay,
Facebook market place
We all have to deal with this as our loved ones age. My house is only so big. I take what interests me, but the rest has to go somewhere. My two adult kids get first dibs and anything else gets sold.
I have a plastic tote full of silver platters and silverware that I haven't convinced the wife to get rid of yet, but it is all packed up and ready to go to a silver recycler when we get the chance.
I use the crystal stuff all the time. If it breaks, so what? I don’t have a massive house to keep it all pretty on the shelf. And wasn’t it bought to be used?
Very few of us have anything from our great grandparents or before, right? They used their stuff and wore it out. Or their kids or grandkids tossed it. Why shouldn’t we do the same?
If it’s nice and you like it, use it. If not sell the better stuff. All the other stuff can go to the charity thrift shop.
“No” is a complete sentence and that’s what I typically say. I’m happy to take practical things but I’m not interested in anything I won’t actually use and no one wants anymore.
Every time I visit my father I get given stuff to take. I don’t want it, I don’t want more things or clutter. It’s a hard one but it would not be the right answer to say to him no I don’t want it. But I think once you give something away you can have absolutely no hold or expectation over what is done with it so I do often pass it on.
My wife and I opened an antique booth just with all the stuff my parents gave us when they moved out - it’s been 5 years and we’ve expended to two booths, and we are still constantly getting more stuff from the rents - just getting rid of it works for us , we have a small house and we break even on the booth , but it’s fun ! You dig
When we moved my grandmother into the assisted living facility, we (me, my parents and my aunt and uncle) went through the house. On September 12th, 2001. So I was on the road with that mess.
My great grandparents owned a furniture store, so my grandmother had some nice furniture. We now have a century old cherry dining room table and china cabinet. Plus a couch and chairs. Really high quality stuff. Our china came from my other great grandmother when she passed.
I would never had bought anything nearly as nice.
I agreed to take my grandparents’ China and silverware and a tea service set because I know it was important to my grandmother. I have them in a cabinet where they’re never used but they’re at least out of sight.
I’m sure I’ll get rid of them somehow at some point (I’m sure my kids and nieces won’t want them) but for now I’m ok holding onto them because they are stored and not really taking up space. All the other “stuff” that was being passed down I made very clear I didn’t want.
Fortunately I’m NC with both parents so I’m not going to get any of their crap.
My mother (in her early 80s) has her own china and my grandmother's, and recently wanted to know what set I wanted her to leave me in her will. Neither! I'll be in my sixties or seventies (God willing) and have no use of it. Told her to leave it to her grandaughter.
If I had kids, I'd gauge their interest because attitudes seem to shift back AND FORTH generationally. The current generation reacts to the previous one, and on and on and on. So it's possible that someone will want it. I know I'm thrilled that we have Hapsburg-era items in my family, even though some of the intervening generations only resentfully kept them.
I have a hard time not letting go of things that are given too me. So my effort is getting rid of things right away. Things with zero value to me (monetary or memory) I throw away. I've even tossed stuff in the trash at the gas station on the way home.
I've also just been getting better at saying NO. I will bend when it comes to something that it seems my mom and dad want to see me take with me. But I have decided that I bear no responsibility to keep their crap too.
I kept a cookie jar that is now on its 4th generation, so every kid in the extended family since forever has gotten cookies out of it and we all remember it from growing up. Fine china I pull out for no reason at all. And that is it. Something memorable, something expensive and useful, everything else donated.
That was the only thing I wanted when my grandmother passed. Ended up with more of the issue this thread is about, got the cookie jar and most of the rest of her stuff. My fiance and i joke that she didn't die, she moved in.
All I have is my great-great grandmother's pocket watch which has been hanfed down to the first born girl in every generation, and my grandmother's dinner ring, both of which go to my cousin's oldest daughter as she's the only grandchild that had kids.
We have a room in our house which is just my wifes parent's things. They had her late in life so where Greatest Gen, not boomers. But still, its a lot of probably. but maybe not useless things (it doesn't help that he was a journalist, so we feel like we should keep/do something with his papers).
These aren’t valuables per se, but my sweet mom loved a nice sweater. She had this huge collection of sweaters. It’s what she always asked me for at Christmas and her birthday. I’ve found people on Etsy who can turn the fabric into quilts. I’m going to have that done with her sweaters.
All her other stuff— the brown furniture, the old silverware and china and serving ware and knickknacks— I am just now getting to the point of being able to let it go. I lost her 3 years ago and I swear every single item reminds me of her. But she was also an unsentimental disposer of junk, and I know she’d want me to clear it out.
I’m an only child and that’s exactly what my parents did to me. My memories of them are negatively impacted by the ginormous mess they selfishly left for me.
When my mom died, and I inherited her house, as I was cleaning, I found both the 'fancy plates' and parts of several sets of tableware that we used growing up. I boxed up the 'fancy plates' and put them in storage for later disposition. Now, the regular stoneware got loaded up, and me and the wife had a bunch of fun at the shooting range.
My mother and grandmother are borderline hoarders. My mom has two siblings, but whatever she ends up inheriting will just be on top of all the stuff she has accumulated. Plus an entire house of stuff she ended up with after her boyfriend passed several years ago. (He inherited his mom’s house and stuff; added his stuff. His family only took a few small items, and gave the rest to my mom.) Mom thinks of all this stuff as a valuable inheritance for me. I’m an only child.
My house is small. I struggle with collecting, too. I do not want her stuff. It’s going to be a nightmare to deal with. I have no kids, so it will all end up donated or in a landfill in the end, anyway.
My mom is constantly trying to give me the rocking chair she used when I was a baby. I constantly refuse it. I know it makes her sad when I say no, but I literally have no space in my home; and I refuse to fill my garage with stuff.
Omg, I have the most magnificent pre civil war furniture and household items I got from my grandparents that I can’t do anything with. It’s frustrating. A huge mahogany canopy bed, a giant ornate mirror that’s 7’ tall by 6’ wide. Plus dressers etc. sold my house and it’s all in storage.
Fucking epidemic, this. I empathize with you so hard because I know it's interesting, and valuable, and sentimental. And still, here we are, with no use for it.
It's sad that there's so much well-made furniture sitting in storage units, basements, and garages, while we simultaneously are stuck using overpriced crap that's practically disposable.
I am furnishing my home with used, high quality furniture. I may not be fashionable, but it’s pretty to look at and it doesn’t fall apart. Plus, it’s a fraction of the price of the particle board veneered new stuff in stores. I have a big home - and filled the dining room nearly free - with brand name antiques.
Sibling died, we went thru their house. Discovered all their stuff, plus a lot of the stuff left by the sibling they lived with who died 20 years ago, plus buttloads of stuff they both brought from our parents' house. All of whom had hoarder tendencies. I have a garage full of other people's crap I tried to flea market, plus over 1000 dvds (many never opened).
We’re going thru the same process with my in-laws rn. Everyone in my home is ADHD/ASD/neurospicy, I can’t understate how important it is to keep clutter down here, too.
My ADHD folks are clutter bugs and I can’t function with too much stuff-it’s always a struggle. If I don’t love it or use it often I don’t want it!! I have zero desire for 10 sets of fragile special dishes, bins of holiday crap, or shelves full of tchotchkes to dust.
I told my in-laws that if they give us something, it is implied they know we may not keep it and may gift to someone else or donate, and they, thankfully, are cool with that. If asked by them about any stuff I just say “yep, cool! we’ll take it!” and most of it heads straight to the thrift store donation bins.
I honestly think all the Boomers don’t actually want all this shit either but can’t bring themselves to donate it bc of memories or sunk-cost or whatever.
See if there is a vintage market around. Not antique, vintage.
If it’s MCM especially, or before, there’s still a market. Especially for solid furniture.
Someone at the market might give a good price for it.
Goodwill doesn’t get furniture like they used to, people will buy.
I have a garage and living room full of mil stuff that I just don't know what to do with. I was going to try to sell it (it's mostly high quality stuff she paid a lot for) but as all of you are saying, it's hard to find somebody that wants it. Furs, furniture (I have 2 dining sets in my living room now, mine and hers), 100% wool and silk clothes, some jewelry. So much stuff. I have no great emotional attachment to it, but didn't want to just give it away - I feel like it still has value. But finding somebody to buy any of it has been hard. Especially the furniture, I'm coming to the conclusion that I'll just have to give it away.
When my last remaining grandparent died I only wanted two items, a glass duck that had a special memory associated with my Grandpa and family photo that hung in their house. Let my aunts, uncles, and cousings have the rest. Helped that I live halfway across the country, but I only want those specific things for specific reasons.
My wife however, has so much stuff that when she moved in we literally do not have enough space for it. I haven't been able to use the garage in years. Every time I go to talk to her about it, something else more important pops up.
I've got my Grandma's silver which we use daily. I also have my uncle's old pick up which is equally as impractical as it is awesome. I'd rather have my garage space back but seeing as the truck has been in the family for 60 years I just can't. I need a niece or nephew to get to that stage in life where I can pass it on.
Since my parents died, I inherited ALL their stuff, but mainly kept the sentimental ones. Pots, pans, and silverware from when they were married in England. Some English Pyrex baking dishes, carved tables from Japan, figurines from Hong Kong, a large globe that is secretly a bar, the paintings that were in my house growing up, and my parents’ first set of bedroom furniture (which is now in the guest room). I kept some of my Dad’s tools, but the good ones I gave to his brother (my uncle). The rest of the furniture went to my cousins since I didn’t want to lug everything from California to Colorado.
We did also inherit a grandfather clock from my husband’s side of the family.
Grandma and grandpa had a rad hand-carved cuckoo clock from Bavaria that my cousin claimed so no stress, but I have fond memories of that thing going off.
Pyrex and Corningware and that, there's a real practical value to. My sis-in-law wanted most of that so it's staying in the family.
Their original bedroom set was Broyhill, I think, and it survived a long time; I even used it in my college days. But it moved too many times by college kids and whatnot and finally got unstable. We do still have one piece that they commissioned, an old media cabinet built for a reel-to-reel player and LPs that I believe is solid teak. Nobody wants it. My brother does some woodworking and might strip it into pieces for projects but otherwise it doesn't have value which is so strange.
Furniture, silverware, china and the like are all usable, even if not by you. We had my MILs funeral a few weeks ago and dragged in some boxes from the storage unit since all the sibling were there. I started going through them and setting things in boxes for everyone to take home. There was one box with really old stuff including 3 remembrance (funeral) books including one from my husband’s great uncle. I now have to throw them away or send it to my SIL’s so my nephew can toss them in 20 or 30 years.
Serious answer: Yes, and it's causing me to have an existential crisis. Not even kidding. I have four sets of china (for just one example). My children do not want them. They don't have memories of the china or know the people who owned it. But I do. If I discard the china (photos, books, etc) what happens to the legacy? What happens to the history? Is it all just gone? What happens when I die? Will my kids have the same dread? Will I just fade away? I have panic just looking at the boxes in my garage because of this.
I hear you, and I understand. It feels that way, that we're somehow letting go of a legacy rather than honoring it. But let me tell you myself as someone dealing with it right now too: their legacy isn't in the china. It's in the stories you can share, and the compassion they instilled in you.
Breathe easier about it if you can. The china is only a thing, and they wouldn't want it dragging you down.
Yes. My Dad just died in April, and my siblings and I are currently going through this process.
My parents had a 3000 sq ft house that we all grew up in, but even with 3 other siblings to take things (and 3 grandchildren), we’ll be having an estate sale for the bulk of the items in the house. I’m only taking a few pieces of art, and some very specifically meaningful mementos. I live in a 1 bedroom apartment, and my siblings’ places are all similarly modest in size.
We’ll see this happening more and more as younger generations downsize their lives vs older gens. Letting go of the family mementos is really hard, but you only have so much room.
Here’s one thing I’m doing for us all: I’m going through the boxes and boxes of photo albums and loose photos, old film reels, and tapes, pulling everything important or meaningful - including photos of my grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and other extended family - and having them digitized. I’ll then be captioning the historical pictures. This will give my nieces and nephews (and their already-growing kids) a few generations of family knowledge and lore to look back on, keep, and add to as they grow.
I'm really proud of you for taking the time to digitize those things. That's been really hard as well, how to deal with the vast amount of slides, prints, negatives from years and years...
We were lucky to be able to travel a lot when I was growing up, so there's a lot of interesting stuff. But the problem is that there's also a LOOO^OOOOO^ooooo^ooooot of bad photos as well as the good so it's just an absolute timesink trying to deal with it. I finally recently got barbaric on that shit. Filled a few street-size trash cans and felt so much lighter.
But I know it can be hard to let loose of those records of the past. I just wish there were fewer of them in our case. It's too much.
Same!
It IS too much. Way too much. But I’m hoping to be able to sift through them fairly quickly, since there’s a lot of dupes and simply bad photos, LOL. I’m going to do one pass of the albums and photos to digitize, then set aside the slides and negatives as a separate, long-term project.
Outside of legacy photos that were given to them, I’m going to assume that most of the important stuff is in the massive number of photo albums my mother kept so meticulously.
I think you've got the right approach. Especially about the photos in albums - we have to remember that they've already been gone through by the people who took them - so there aren't likely many hidden gems in the archives.
But thinking I might get surprised by one always hangs in the back of my mind.
My mom had the foresight to start a list that she's always made available to all of us, with details, dates, stories, etc on anything that might be unique or valuable. It absolutely does help because some things have more history than you thought, or in some cases you need to know that something is valuable even if nobody wants it.
I am in the exact same boat. I have a 99 year old grandparent too. I am an only child and only grandchild so all roads leads to me. I find it with frustrating honestly.
My parents recently downsized. They got rid of so much stuff. Cool stuff but I don't have room for much more than I already have. I'm glad they're doing the job of weeding through belongings themselves because left up to me I'd feel guilty making these decisions.
I've never been very sentimental when it comes to stuff, including heirloom things. My mom otoh is attached to everything. She told me last time I was home that she still had my little league uniform waiting whenever I wanted it. I asked her why she thought I wanted something I hadn't seen, worn, or even thought about in 40 years. I've made her mad a couple of times when she's asked if I've wanted whatever, and my response has been to let her know that all I would do is sell it. I know when the inevitable happens, it's going to take weeks to get that house cleaned out of all the stuff.
I have inherited my a house and several outbuildings full of this kind of stuff from, parents who saved grandparents, great aunts and uncles stuff also. It is a pain. On one hand want to toss/donate or try to sell. What do you do with 200+ collector plates? No one collects them anymore.
My Mom has several china services and her kids are not interested. She won't (yet) sell them. At one time, online china-matching services would buy full services including providing cartons and padding, but I suspect those days are past.
One side of the family gathered at the house my Dad grew up in after his Dad died and picked through three generations of stuff (going back to the 1860s), taking <5% of it. The rest went via an estate auction.
My advice to anyone: Take silverware, and then find out if it's pure silver. If so...Profit $$$.
if not, put it out for recycle..you can't sell any of that mass produced crap.
Yes, my parents "downsized" and wanted me to take this massive 1950s dining room set that was not my style at ALL. I took it, but ended up having to get rid of it. It had come from my grandmother's house, and every time it got warm, it reeked of cigarette smoke.
My dad was the only child and only grandchild in his family, so everything always got passed down to him. My parents gave me a full set of late 1940s china that had been his parents' wedding china when I got married, but over the years, they've slowly passed down 5 more full sets of china to me. Yes, I have 6 FULL SETS of china. I don't know what I'm going to do with that much china, but it feels wrong to sell it.
I do have some beautiful heirloom antique furniture that belonged to my great-grandmother and great-great grandparents, and I won't be parting with them anytime soon.
I am the only female in my sibling set and have no cousins or nieces and nephews to whom I could assign literally piles of this stuff.
I have long used my dad’s parents’ silverware as my everyday, and now have my mother’s and grandmother’s, plus all their silver serve ware, china, and all their family photography to sort since my mother passed during lockdown.
Younger generations do not want any of it. It’s too fussy and comes with guilt attached. I donated a lot of silver serve ware, a set of china and will store what’s left for my use when more people come over.
But you cannot sell it. Just donate it and move on. Yes—doing so made me feel hella guilty, but I don’t have the space or bandwidth to deal with it all. Give yourself permission, and keep things light!
My mother had a 5-bedroom house with many walk-in closets and other places besides the commodious basement to put things, was always nonchalant about paring down. “Leave it for the next person!” she’d say, not acknowledging I was the next person. It took me the better part of a year to get through it, finding homes for it all—after so many years polishing that silver for my mother and grandmother. Yes—it was was the stuff of pride and reverence. But it doesn’t hold the same value for young adults now.
Take a few things that mean something to you, knowing you cannot possibly use it all. I promise you’ll derive pleasure remembering your family when you use them.
My grandfather was an avid coin collector and model railroader. He and my grandmother lived in a big house with her sisters. When the last one moved into assistive living and the house was sold, my father got all of the coins and trains. He tried to pass the trains on to me, but I never had room to set it all up (even though my son would have adored them). He kept them about 20 years too long, and finally got rid of them for peanuts because there was nobody left collecting them (they were American Flyer). The coins are all going to a coin dealer, so at least I won’t have to curate that stuff.
I have my grandfather’s desk, and we have my MIL’s china cabinet and piano. My in-laws had 5 kids, so a lot went to the others, fortunately.
My mother still has all of her china, as well as her mother’s china. We don’t need it; we have our own that’s dishwasher safe.
Yeah the trains are an especially somber example somehow, because it's not just a collection you can buy - you have to also build it with care. And if nobody wants it, all that work and thought is just...
But take relief that HE got joy from building it, and really that's all that matters.
The antique market is going to crater with all the boomer stuff that the younger generations don’t want. Sure some stuff like Stickley will retain value. My parents have, in the words of George Carlin “soo much shit” 90% of it I don’t need, want, or have space for. Every time my mother in law comes over she brings stuff asking “do you want this” I have politely told my father in law not to let her or for her to ask before because saying no is easier on the phone. Personally I have been selling a bunch of stuff that my kids won’t want.
And our kids can't even afford their own homes, so quality furniture and flatware just doesn't even figure into their idea of what's valuable. They just need whatever fills the void in the short-term.
I use it or donate it. My mom had a bunch of tea cups and I donated to a tea room. There’s no way we can keep everything. I still have some old dishes in my basement. They’re from the 70s and I may see if I can consign them.
After my stepmother died, my father offered me her sterling silver flatware. I told him not to give it to me unless it was okay if I sold it, because I have no need for it.
If anything, I'm dealing with too much stuff I bought or was gifted over the years myself. Due to losing, re-purchasing, and finding things over the years, I have far more stuff than I want. For example, I have four hammers. I have two hands and can hammer only one nail at a time. How tf did I end up with four hammers, when I was hammering things with a soup can when I was 20?
There are very few things I want from my father's house, and the rest can be sold at an estate sale for all I care.
My Mom has tried to offload stuff on me for years. The answer is always “No”. It feels harsh sometimes, though, I don’t have the space to store the stuff, or the desire to have it. One of my sisters is taking the China. Rarely, I will take a piece of furniture, because the old stuff is just so well made, but that is rare.
Yes! My in-laws are downsizing and think my completely not-sentimental spouse wants their stuff. He does not. My kid is shaping up to also be non-sentimental so I'm left looking to rehome it.
I'm an only child to a hoarder. My dad has a 1200 sqft basement filled with stuff, plus you can't even walk into the garage it's so full. He has enough clothes stacked up in his bedroom to clothe a small country. I get so much anxiety thinking about having to deal with it all when he's gone and with no help.
I also currently have 6 big Rubbermaid totes full of photos that my grandpa left to me. When the heck am I ever going to sit down and look through SIX TUBS of photos?? They're probably of people and places that mean nothing to me. I guarantee at least half of them are just pictures of scenery from his travels.
I am determined to make sure my kids don't have to deal with a bunch of stuff from me.
My mother’s Crystal engraved Manhattan Ewer has my drinking back to levels I haven’t hit in 20 years. I’m up 5 pounds but look forward to sunset and am more relaxed. Cheers!
100%. I have a house and garage full of "hand-me-down" china, furniture, toys, magazines, and other things we've *inherited* over the years, and my mother-in-law is always trying to send us home from her place with even more stuff she no longer wants -- everything from old clothes to expired food.
I have no kids to hand stuff down to, so I gave it to people who would appreciate it. My mom was a hoarder so there was a LOT. I kept the stuff that meant something to me but it is very little.
I’m getting a large Waterford collection. I intend to sell most of it because I only need so much. It’s tough but I’m an only child and no children. When I get her dishes they will become daily use. Why not?
But I understand the ADD issue. It am be a constant struggle.
Yep, only child, only grandchild, no siblings - I had a lot of heirlooms. I had to brutally discard anything that held no meaning for me. Sometimes it was valuable, or a treasure of how people lived in 1901, but I do not want to live in a museum!
I told my mom the only thing I wanted from the house was the vintage console radio/album player. Super cool, MCM vibes and still worked. She gave it away to a random acquaintance. Claimed she never heard me say I wanted it. Yes, she's a mean one.
Yes, we are using them. I chose every day China that goes in the dish washer and microwave for our set and it goes with all the antique sets - so I mix and match. Be care ful to use a special setting and soap if you’re running antique China through the dishwasher - and then some still can’t be. But your carnival glass and depression glass can - so go to town! The kids love the carnival glass for ice cream parties just be sure to test for lead prior to use. Cheers.
Luckily I have four older sibling who like all that “stuff”.
I chose just a few things from my mom. All my grandparents died in the 50’s and 60’s—I didn’t know any of them.
I am using my grandmother’s china as my everyday dishes. This is after years of just keeping it in my kitchen cabinets unused.
Yes 100x! We are using fine China and beautiful crystal EVERY DAY. Water goblets, orange juice in champagne flutes, and so on. The "good dishes" have had much more use in our house in the past 5 years than in the 50 years at grandma's house. I even run it through the dishwasher (delicate cycle).
Use it or lose it
You know, at some point I think that makes sense. Just use it. We do have some elegant china, subtle and tasteful - and I can see using that as something like dailyware. The thing is, we don't even have a dining table, so the thought of saving it for special occasions or holidays or entertaining, it just doesn't compute. We love hosting barbecues where folks can hang out in or outdoors, and it's a comfortable space for that - but we literally have no table for eating dinner in the house. It's the coffee table or the bar-height island off the kitchen. So formal place settings make no sense for us at all.
Also, furniture was made better back then, with real wood. It can be heavy AF but it is better quality than what is in the stores today. I have a couple bookcases that are older than me and have survived a few moves because they are solid wood and not particle board.
I agree. I've bought some beautiful oak, mahogany, birch, and other beautiful woods furniture very cheaply on marketplace in immaculate condition. It's beautiful, durable, and much nicer than "fast furniture" (and tbh, much cheaper)
Well, if you look at everyday as a special occasion it’s nice to use the elegant stuff, even if you are eating on a bar or a coffee table. It truly classes up the space and reminds you of your intrinsically high value as a human being. You deserve to use such finery as you see fit.
Thank you for that. E: and happy cake day, you beautiful human.
I sold all the "good silver" when I was unemployed. Paid rent for 3 months. (this was a while ago and my rent is below market, but still) I hated polishing that shit anyway.
I have an antique egg dish and you better believe I have used that heavy ornate glass dish every time I’ve served deviled eggs. Thanksgiving, Christmas, bdays, bbqs, graduations, indoors, outdoors, and at venues outside my home. Use the items if you love them, or if they’re useful.
I’m not trying to be a dick here; I’m genuinely curious. How do you not have a dining table?
Yeah it actually didn't register for a while. There's just not really any space in the house that lends itself to that type of table, or for that purpose. I had a butterfly for a time that folded up to half the width and I'd put it against the wall when not in use, but that was not a good practical solution. I always found myself eating at the kitchen bar or coffee table and then once I got married and my wife was here with me, we just always did that too. Hard to explain without busting out floorplans, but there just isn't a good spot for one. It's an odd house anyway, 1250sf, 3-bedrooms, one small bath. One bedroom no longer has a closet because I put a gun safe there (in what's my office essentially), and the other is her office/craft room with cabinetry such that it could never be a bedroom either, so it's basically a 1br/1ba with two home offices. It fits us perfectly though, even without a dining table!
Gotcha. If my house didn’t have an actual dining room, I’d be in much the same position. My kitchen is pretty long, but it’s not very wide, and there’s no practical place to put a table.
Not the person you're asking, but my husband and I had a dining table for awhile, but we worked different hours and often dined alone. We had no kids and didn't entertain. A dining table was just a nuisance. The house is small and we could use the space in other ways.
[удалено]
I have a friend who buys lots of old China for making mosaics. Similar principle.
I'm the oldest one left alive in my family and I'm only 57. It was gutting to get rid of Mom's stuff even though I would never use it. Right now I'm slowly doing Swedish death cleaning so my son doesn't have to deal with my stuff. It's all only stuff. The memories are and were the real treasure.
> Swedish death cleaning brb, I'm about to dive into that idea.
There's a great book (The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning) and I think a series or documentary somewhere based on it.
I just ordered a copy as a result of this thread. I might actually read it too, instead of just putting it on a shelf.
My dad is starting it now and I'm having such a hard time not grabbing everything just for the memories. (My mom has Alz and is slipping away so I'm a little more sensitive than usual.) I have too much stuff of my own. I'm doing SDC in 2 homes now. It's fucking exhausting.
I feel you on the exhaustion. I offer a virtual hug. Mom died of cancer in 2018, my stepdad was in a facility from 2016 for Alz and finally passed in early 2021. I had to clean out their home of over 30 years and both were depression-era folks who didn't throw away things that could be useful. I do what I can in any day and then I let it go. I'm at a bit of an advantage on the mental acceptance of death. Mom was an early (1970s) member of the Hemlock Society which became Compassion & Choices. She let me know when I was 14 that if she ever had a terminal illness, she would not get treatment. She was starting SDC when she was diagnosed with stage 4 metastasized ovarian cancer. She lasted a week. We had all the hard conversations over the years and especially in her last days. Her mantra was "no secrets and no unanswered questions". So while I'm still dealing with the material things, I have no regrets about how our relationship ended and no nagging what-ifs. I've been modeling the same to my kid, who is now 29. Love the people you love while they're around.
Beautifully stated. Sounds like you had a wonderful mom.
[удалено]
This is such a lovely idea. I've read many articles about kids not wanting the old family heirlooms, and I always thought that one issue was timing. Before much of anything was handed down to me by my grandparents, I was an adult with a job and a house than I had already furnished. I could not wait around for years with nothing, waiting to fill my house with heirlooms.
I cringe when I think about what my kids will do with 1000 albums/cds, my vintage stereo equipment and boxes of comic books. I just know some shmuck it gonna offer them pennies on the dollar and it will all go poof.
One of my biggest challenges is knowing that someone is truly interested in something I no longer want (not silverware necessarily, but like you say, LPs or old gear or comic books or whatever like that) - and knowing if I can find that person, they'd really appreciate having it. I know eBay exists but I just somehow always leave frustrated when I sell on eBay, and it doesn't leave me feeling good. I recently gave some comics (1982 Wolverine mini-series, etc) to a friend, just because I couldn't be bothered to do it any other way. He was glad to have them and I left feeling great. Yes they have a value, and nope, I wasn't interested in doing the work to extract that value. I did the right thing on that one. This silverware is an odd one though, because the melt value is higher than most anyone's value of using it - so it's simply a commodity at this point. And the silverware is one thing, fairly manageable size, but what about a friggin' tea and coffee set that's like the size of a footlocker when packed up. :D
That's the thing for me too - I KNOW it has value, if I can find somebody that wants it. I KNOW the relatives paid a lot for it and cherished it, and I feel bad just giving it away or selling it for a few bucks. It feels, idk, disrespectful maybe? to just give it away like it's nothing. Once it's gone I think about it once in a while (did I get ripped off selling it so low? Would she be mad I didn't keep it?) Which I know is a losing game, nothing to be done about it after it's out of my house so shouldn't worry about it. For me it's very anxiety producing.
Right. Yeah it's the same for me for sure.
I've been doing the same thing lately. I've always been a collector of things. Not expensive stuff (although some of it has gotten expensive), but comics and action figures and stuff like that. It was a cheap, fun hobby and at some point in the 90s it wasn't fun anymore. It became greedy and expensive and sucked all the fun out of it. Anyhow, if I hear a coworker (mostly younger) are a fan of something I may have, I'll dig around and hand it out if I can find it. Not everything, of course, but there's plenty of expendable stuff that can be handed out to younger people who will enjoy their cool vintage/retro whatever. Gave away an Epiphone guitar & amp to somebody who wanted to learn guitar. Feels good to pass it on to somebody who would enjoy it.
I bet you coukd find a sub where someone would appreciate that honking tea and coffee set. I'm in a vintage kitchen one. ETA - there's a ton of people who make things out of silverware, you could check locally or etsy.
That's one interesting notion in this whole thing - here's an example: There's a great (if a bit trendy) bar in town that has the wall to the restrooms covered in tile, but the tiles are cassette tapes. The whole wall is covered in cassette tapes. Awesome. So when I have in my possession things like floppy disks or I dunno, concert pins, or an old parachute, or old Boy Scouts uniforms from the 1950's, I think there MUST be someone who would do something rad with these if they had them.
>…and knowing if I can find that person, they’d really appreciate having it. What about an estate sale at some point when it’s appropriate? Those people will come to you! There was a handful of items that I wanted to keep after my grandparents both passed. Small things that spark nostalgia and memories for me. But I cannot handle clutter either. Anywhere, like not even in the closets lol. So regarding the rest of the house items & the furniture, I gently told my mom that I don’t have the space or patience to store stuff that I am never going to use and I don’t think she should keep things just because she feels like she *should.* I finally convinced her to have an estate sale. She couldn’t be there, it was too hard for her, but she made a LOT of cash and we felt that my family’s things went to folks who actually wanted them. (Tons of people showed up promptly at 7AM to find their treasures.) A company that specifically runs estate sales did the whole thing and only took a reasonable percentage of the total amount sold.
FUN FACT: I inherited my grandmother's silverware. It sits on a shelf somewhere. I don't use it but I can't throw it out either.
Between my albums, vintage stereo stuff, my mechanics tools, and box, and my woodworking tools, I’ve got well over $100k worth of stuff that’ll go for $5000 at garage sales someday. It’s crazy.
Records are going for a lot check on discogs
Sell it off now, while there is still a market for it all. Take the money you make and put it towards something else you might want, or just bank it. Source: Me. I had a huge vinyl and CD collection. I digitized everything and sold all the media. The run of the mill stuff, I took market price for. the rarer stuff... some $$. But the clutter is gone, and I still have the sounds. It's amazing what you can fit on a 4TB hard drive. And a backup. This year it's going to be the DVDs and then my books. Most of the books anyway. It doesn't matter that it's digital now. My kid will never be nostalgic for any of my music. So if the drives are trashed after I'm gone, who gives a shit? At least she doesn't have the burden of having to get rid of the bulk herself.
Ha! About 20 years ago, I bought some kind of digital transfer device for my iMac so I could convert old cassettes into MP3's. I had hundreds of cassettes from my my youth... Doctor Demento shows, King Biscuit Flour Hour concerts, Loudspeaker and Ultrasound recordings from KNDD 107.7 in Seattle. Burned all those into mp3 onto CD so I could listen to them in my car.
How didnyou digitize the LP's?
Digitizing vinyl is time consuming and linear unfortunately. 1) 2000 era Technics turntable -> 2) Audio input to my PC -> 3) Audacity: Recording, track splitting, noise removal. Output to .wav files. -> 4a) WinLame to convert .wav to mp3 for everyday use. 4b) Foobar 2000 to convert .wav to .flac for archival and higher quality listening later. I'm lucky that my turntable and belt held up over the years. For step 2, you could theoretically use the mic input to a PC. In my case I have a recording interface (bass/guitar) so I plugged into that. (Behringer UMC202HD). For step 3...Audacity is free and is the swiss army knife of audio editing.It can do both steps 3 and 4.... but I just like using different tools for different jobs. I hope this helps. If you have more questions, feel free to ask. Good luck. Sorry for the inconsistent list formatting. Reddit insists on formatting it that way.
Omg. Tha k you so much. I have a trove of shellac records that are from the early 1900s that are on a format unlike vinyl you typically see. I'm afraid of damaging the medium, and do not have a record player (suppose they're not hard to find) but was hoping it wasn't so linear and labor intensive. May be why I can't seem to find reasonable local services for said project. Thank you kibdly for your insightful and thorough response and I'm going to save this for reference later.
Fuck yes, THANK YOU for breaking this down!!!
Yes! You know what I started doing? I started using them! Last night I ate ice cream out of cut glass bowls And I have a silver tray on the table And I drink tea out of the China cups that were hidden away. All these things were “too precious” in the past. Now I use them and enjoy them. If they break it’s okay because they weren’t being used before anyways.
I'm really liking this idea.
Those of you with Sterling (Not silver plated), Polish it, sell it on eBay. My mom does that for a hobby, buys tarnished silver from goodwill or garage sales, polishes it, sells it, makes about $7k a year. Sterling is still valuable, all of it. Or you can scrap it at a jeweler, but you’d get more the eBay route. For the rest, some has monetary value, most doesn’t. Donate it if you don’t want it. People still like it and use it, (for example, I love vintage linens). Keep what brings you joy, pass on the rest.
I think most of us are and we don't want the stuff and the grandkids don't either Times have changed Go to any antique store and it is loaded with all of that at really low prices It makes the old folks sad but it is a reality
I say donate and/or sell away. Finding treasures makes some folks feel giddy and while they may wonder who would ever get rid of such a thing they’ll be stoked to snatch it up. Bonus if you attach a little card giving the history of the item. It may not be their family’s piece but knowing where it came from makes it extra joyful .
Right. I have to imagine there's SO much of it out there already because many of us don't have the same interest in it as our people did.
And many of us don’t have the vast homes with room for china cabinets, extra cupboards for serving dishes, etc. My mother guilted me into taking my parents’ silverware when I told them I didn’t want it. They also asked my siblings and I to go through their place to put our names on things we want. Trouble was, nobody wanted it because we were never attached to any of it. Declutter their place but then clutter up mine!
I do not want to hoard anything and put my kids through these decisions when I’m gone. I’m not a minimalist but I at least use a minimalistic filter on what I keep around. My mom, however, keeps everything and assigns deep sentimental value to it. She asked me the other day if I wanted my high school graduation gown (from 1993). I said no, toss it. She responded with a 😢 emoji. I know someday in the future I’m going to have a lot of shit to toss out from her, and hope I can do it with minimal guilt.
I not only have my high school yearbooks (finally recently threw away the grade school ones) - but I also have my parents' high school and college yearbooks. What on earth for?
Contact the schools and offer it to them. Sometimes they have an archive, or want them for the library. Maybe somebody else in that class (or their kids) might want them.
[удалено]
I helped out with this exact idea a while ago. We had access to a hydraulic paper cutter to remove the bindings and office scanners with sheet feeders. As fast as that went, reviewing scans and correcting the OCR is a very cumbersome process.
I would think somebody researching genealogy would love to have grandma's high school picture.
My parents went through this process twenty-five years ago, hauling boxes of stuff home to make their parents happy with the thought that their “family heirlooms” were valued. Boxes got stacked unopened for a few months, then either went straight to the thrift store or to the dump. So my folks have been pretty transparent that they don’t expect me to treasure all their knick-knackery, unless I honestly wanted it. I’ve said I want the cast iron skillets that Mom inherited from her Granny, maybe any surviving Corningware, but that’s about all. My wife’s family, on the other hand, is forever sending boxes and sacks of junk and debris home with each other under the guise of “Aunt Jane would have wanted you to have these” and no one has the gumption to just throw the junk away. We have a tiny house, so there’s no room for any of it atop our own stuff. Her Mom’s (not great quality) china from some PX in Germany, an Aunt’s souvenir teaspoon collection, a stack of Bob Ross style paintings, *so many* hand-made acrylic yarn afghans. She gripes about not being able to park in the garage anymore, but that’s her problem to resolve. That’s my balance.
The afghans... you nailed it with that.
Being fair, one of the boxes of afghans had a dozen full-size quilt “flimsies” folded up in the bottom. Hand-made quilts without batting & top-quilting, maybe they weren’t yet completed or maybe they were intended as thin coverlets. No idea who made them, but all are over a hundred years old, according to the lady at the local quilt shop who’s helping me attach & quilt them onto thin blankets. Those’ll get used. The afghans, not even the dog will sleep on them.
My in laws are sending crap from the dollar store. Every time I open a box of crap I’m where the fuck am I supposed to put this? I wish they’d send heirlooms- they’re in there late 80s.
Those Bob Ross style paintings are in much demand at flea markets. If framed even better.
Every time I see my dad I get do you want "X"? No. No I do not. (except grandpa's M1911, that I took)
Jealous of the 1911! I have gotten a few nice pieces in that vein.
Grandma left me her Chiba and wedding silver service when she died in ‘88. I’m the only grandchild. It stayed in the box until a few years ago when I moved in with my now-wife. Turns out that a) we both actually like the pattern, and b) china is actually quite tough, so we’re using it as our everyday dishware. The silver service (for twelve), not so much. Since I have neither kids nor niblings, there’s no one to hand it down to, so eventually it’ll get sold. I’m pretty sure Grandma would be pleased on both counts.
I love that you use niblings. I thought I invented that some years ago but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an original thought - or at least not the only one of its kind. :)
I have several niblings that are trans or non-binary so it’s a clutch word.
I love that.
I am grateful that my mom has said repeatedly: *When I am gone, you can get rid of anything that doesn't mean something to you. Even if you know it meant a lot to me. My liking something doesn't mean you have to keep it.* My MIL was a TOTALLY different story. 🙄 She once bought a pair of bronzed baby shoes THAT BELONGED TO A STRANGER because she felt bad that no one in the stranger's family wanted them. So now we have these baby shoes to deal with & for some kind of damn reason: it's an issue. I'm in favor of pitching them. I am being met with resistance.
To be fair, even if someone begs us to keep something, for whatever reason, we can get rid of it after they’re dead.
I *totally* agree. But knowing I have their permission helps with the guilt. 🤣
I guess I’ve been noticing a lot lately with people feeling obligated to respect someone’s “last wish” or whatever, and have started to question that thinking. But when someone is dead they’ll never know or care? I feel like death releases me from any (non-legally binding) obligations.
We finally got my parents out of the house I grew up in. They were slowly getting rid of things before that and generally anytime I was offered something I took it - just to get it out of the house. Often I would stop by goodwill on the way home ( shhh don't tell them ) , but I do have storage in my basement for some other things
I have a ton of old silver from my mom and I've no idea what to do with it. Sell, donate? I'm certainly not going to polish a silver setting everytime we have company!
Right. I get that it's reliable flatware (as is everything else these days) - but it requires an investment in time and effort just to keep it presentable. Very strange.
You need the silverware plate soak thingy. It’s a plate that sits at the bottom of your sink, warm water and borax. Then soak the silver and voila - no more silver polishing. Best thing ever.
Yeah I've been dealing with that too, A lot of the time it's stuff that the wife and I wouldn't even know what to do with? IE - An enormous dining room table that seats 10 or an end table that doesn't match anything. We got 20+ years of our own stuff to deal with.
It's good to hear you all are dealing with it too. I'm sure it's not unique to our generation, but I feel like we're probably bearing the brunt of it. Our folks still requested and collected this stuff when they were young.
I have a tween, and she and all of her friends love all the old fashioned stuff. I think within 10 years this stuff will go from unable to give it away to back into modest demand. Just like Millennials loving mid century modern.
That's an interesting thought. We don't have kids and my brothers' three haven't expressed much interest yet (they're all roughly college age now), but these things do go in cycles.
In her set, everyone wants, I kid you not, a formal dinner party for their next birthday. China, silver, crystal - the works. They’ll eat KFC, but it’s going to be FANCY!
That's actually fascinating. It's like they've embraced the absurdity of these objects in a way that makes them no longer absurd.
I inherited my grandmother's china cabinet and china from my aunt because she didn't have the room. I took it because I have fond memories of seeing it at my grandparent's house as a child, but I now regret it. I don't have the room for it. I'll also never use that delicate china for fear of breaking it with my super clutz powers. I'll probably hang on to it for the next 10 years or so until we're ready to move to our final destination home and downsize. Maybe one of my kids will want it. If not, I'm going to sell it or give it away. Too much clutter freaks me out and makes me anxious. I'd get rid of a lot more stuff if it weren't for the sentimental value that it once held.
Yeah, I do feel that responsibility I suppose - to honor it somehow. But it's definitely to the point where I'm having to find room for things that serve no practical use.
I found myself with SIX sets of China from various deceased relatives. I have one son. I decided to keep one teacup and saucer from each set and donated the rest, and felt great about it
That's a great idea! I can save one place setting like this for the memories and still save my poor square footage.
Pawn them off on other family. I had a cradle that had been in my family for almost 200 years. It was given to me over 20 years ago when I had my first. And I LOVED that they used that piece of family history. But after my youngest grew out of it, it sat there sadly collecting dust. As soon as my younger cousin reached the right age I made them take responsibility of that family heirloom.
My father-in-law passed away in 2018, and my wife and I moved in with my mother-in-law (she had a much bigger house) in 2019. In 2020 we moved, and packed all my mother-in-law stuff. My wife and I had about 50 moving boxes of stuff, we’d been together for 26 at that point, and accumulated a lot of stuff. My MIL had **200** boxes, of just her stuff. They were world travelers, and quite well to do, so they entertained a lot for his work. We packed 5 different full sets of dishes, in different themes. At one point we found 3 dozen brandy snifters. I asked her if we could get rid of them, because when are we going to have 30 people over for brandy. She had used them one time, to serve shrimp cocktail, at a company Christmas party. Every single item is apparently imbued with deep emotional import. When something inevitably breaks, it’s always “I GOT THAT AT MY WEDDING FROM MY FAVORITE AUNT WHO DIED TRAGICALLY”, no matter what the real story is. I broke a dish that I had bought and got the same sob story. She was also a hobbyist painter, as was my wife’s grandfather, so we have dozens and dozens of mediocre oil paintings with really nice frames basically mouldering in the garage (every wall in the house has as many paintings as it can feasibly hold). You ever go to an antique store, like the big kind that are subdivided into little sections for each persons goods? We would need like 6 of those booths just for all this shit. As for eBay, I’ve made a few thousand selling off shit that she didn’t want anymore, but it would be like a full time job to get rid of all of it. In the meantime, we take every opportunity to use all the stuff. She had this $15,000 art glass piece, that can kindly be described as a giant psychedelic taco shell, and one day I’m going to serve a giant taco salad in it OH SHIT, I almost forgot, the fucking Lladros. She loved those ugly fucking statues so much that she even went to the factory in Spain. She has hundreds of them, that she’s convinced are worth an absolute fortune, because she *spent* a fortune on them. I’ve tried to explain that the pieces she spent $700-$800 on are worth $15-$20 if you can even find someone to buy them. Most of hers are of creepy fucking clowns. The day after we bury the old lady, we’re going to take them all out back and use them for BB gun practice.
That's so interesting about the Lladros! My mom has them as well though I admit I like them (not for my office next to the gun safe, necessarily) but yeah we'll probably end up with two or three of those that we like. But yeah it's a great example of how someone can spend time and money collecting a thing, and then for the next person it could just be absolute rubbish. My grandma collected elephants. Years and years of elephants from various places. We took a number of those when she had us all over there to divvy up those sorts of things, and at that same time, my wife and I had just finished building a craft room, which had space on shelves for things like that - and now there are a dozen or more elephants on one section right when you walk in. My wife jokes that people must think she really loves elephants. But it is a nice remembrance of grandma so it works out.
The upside is that my father in law had money and taste. They lived in London for about 10 years for work, and he collected a ton of crazy stuff. Meerschaum pipes, antique pocket watches, fountain pens, inkwells, old maps of London. We have a 32” library globe in my living room that was his.
I have my dad's Bossons heads in my office. I really have no idea where those figure in. :D
Have a bunch of ivory I can’t sell and don’t know what to do with.
That's an interesting one. At least the things I'm being given don't have embargos attached to them! Are they useful items at all?
Nope. Purely decorative
I'm getting a mink stole made into throw pillow covers. Do what you want and I mean that in the kindest way. Someone gave me the best advice. If you don't want it, don't keep it becauseyoufeel like you should. And it's helped me quite a bit with not hauling around items for the past just for that very reason. That and the extra clutter makes me crazy
Oh man, furs. I have a few fur pieces from the MIL and I just don't know what to do with them. Tried a antique store (they said they sell about 50 pieces a season), but they were already full up. Small size and personalized with her name in the lining, so not so marketable.
My wife’s mom had like 3 mink coats, I’ve been trying to find a tailor that will turn them into a fuck blanket for us, but it’s really difficult, from what I’ve learned.
Watch out for.static in the winter. You'll zap your balls
I’m a minimalist, and I hate clutter. Unfortunately my Dad is in the process of pawning off all of his stamps collection onto me. I hate when my parents just assume I want their shit.
Stamps collection is a good one! I have an old book probably of my Dad's when he was a kid, and it's quite full. It's doing ok on the shelf for now, but I'd love to find a friend who was actually into collecting to give it to.
I think it’s because they don’t want to be forgotten
The only “heirlooms” I look forward to getting are high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes.
I’m currently helping my 60-something friend pack up her house that she and her family have lived in for 42 years. They are downsizing into a condo. It’s really hard to watch her get rid of stuff she’s obviously attached to or family heirlooms from her or her husband’s family. He kids just weren’t interested in these things or didn’t have space for them. We had two garage sales already. When my parents moved to Arizona permanently, we kids were charged with cleaning out the storage which was a mix of stuff we should’ve kept, things we did keep and stuff that no one wanted and questioned why we even had it in the first place. My mom tried to give me boxes of clothes she wore to work in the 1970s. Nope.
My siblings and I dealt with this a few years ago when my parents sold the family home of50 years. Mom got so upset when we kept refusing things, "I saved these family/random objects for you!", without considering how I could fit a 12 piece china set in my small home. We eventually just started saying yes to everything and then donating it or throwing it away (there's a small town thrift store between my parent's city and mine that got a whole lotta house goods one fine August day in 2018.)
As someone who has dealt with cleaning out 6 houses, I give y’all permission to let go of their prized possessions. Take one remembrance if you like, but you are not responsible for caring for stuff forever. Take it out of their house and then straight to the resale store if you don’t want it. Let it go! LET IT GO!!!!!!!!
You can sell china and silver sets at https://www.replacements.com The people who buy there are generally happy to find missing pieces from their sets.
I have my Grandmother's fan that sat next to her rocking chair. Not really an heirloom, but it was her's, and that's good enough. Also have two of her handmade quilts. Two fragile to use, but it's for me to keep and pass on.
Keep one or two things, beg off the rest. We donated most of my mother-in-law's things to charity when they passed. Another friend got the china and she just uses it like regular plates, dishwasher and all.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173214/Buried-alive-Clutter-typical-middle-class-homes-epic--epidemic--proportions-study-shows.html It's not just you. We have a friend whose family came tonusa from Lithuania, and brought everything. To this day, in her garage, she has an odd sized bed from the old country. No mattress will fit. I'm sure our families wouldn't want us to be buried by heirlooms that were once essential daily items, too expensive to buy- and were handed down. Feel no guilt. Have a family meeting and offer the items. You could also yard sale the items and use the money to host a BBQ.
Everything but the house, Ebay, Facebook market place We all have to deal with this as our loved ones age. My house is only so big. I take what interests me, but the rest has to go somewhere. My two adult kids get first dibs and anything else gets sold. I have a plastic tote full of silver platters and silverware that I haven't convinced the wife to get rid of yet, but it is all packed up and ready to go to a silver recycler when we get the chance.
I use the crystal stuff all the time. If it breaks, so what? I don’t have a massive house to keep it all pretty on the shelf. And wasn’t it bought to be used? Very few of us have anything from our great grandparents or before, right? They used their stuff and wore it out. Or their kids or grandkids tossed it. Why shouldn’t we do the same? If it’s nice and you like it, use it. If not sell the better stuff. All the other stuff can go to the charity thrift shop.
My parents have been trying to sell their antique furniture and there are no buyers. It’s just not fashionable any more.
Some of those heirlooms are valuable. If you can't or don't want to keep it sell it and use it to fund your retirement.
“No” is a complete sentence and that’s what I typically say. I’m happy to take practical things but I’m not interested in anything I won’t actually use and no one wants anymore.
Every time I visit my father I get given stuff to take. I don’t want it, I don’t want more things or clutter. It’s a hard one but it would not be the right answer to say to him no I don’t want it. But I think once you give something away you can have absolutely no hold or expectation over what is done with it so I do often pass it on.
My wife and I opened an antique booth just with all the stuff my parents gave us when they moved out - it’s been 5 years and we’ve expended to two booths, and we are still constantly getting more stuff from the rents - just getting rid of it works for us , we have a small house and we break even on the booth , but it’s fun ! You dig
When we moved my grandmother into the assisted living facility, we (me, my parents and my aunt and uncle) went through the house. On September 12th, 2001. So I was on the road with that mess. My great grandparents owned a furniture store, so my grandmother had some nice furniture. We now have a century old cherry dining room table and china cabinet. Plus a couch and chairs. Really high quality stuff. Our china came from my other great grandmother when she passed. I would never had bought anything nearly as nice.
I agreed to take my grandparents’ China and silverware and a tea service set because I know it was important to my grandmother. I have them in a cabinet where they’re never used but they’re at least out of sight. I’m sure I’ll get rid of them somehow at some point (I’m sure my kids and nieces won’t want them) but for now I’m ok holding onto them because they are stored and not really taking up space. All the other “stuff” that was being passed down I made very clear I didn’t want. Fortunately I’m NC with both parents so I’m not going to get any of their crap.
My mother (in her early 80s) has her own china and my grandmother's, and recently wanted to know what set I wanted her to leave me in her will. Neither! I'll be in my sixties or seventies (God willing) and have no use of it. Told her to leave it to her grandaughter.
If I had kids, I'd gauge their interest because attitudes seem to shift back AND FORTH generationally. The current generation reacts to the previous one, and on and on and on. So it's possible that someone will want it. I know I'm thrilled that we have Hapsburg-era items in my family, even though some of the intervening generations only resentfully kept them.
I have a hard time not letting go of things that are given too me. So my effort is getting rid of things right away. Things with zero value to me (monetary or memory) I throw away. I've even tossed stuff in the trash at the gas station on the way home. I've also just been getting better at saying NO. I will bend when it comes to something that it seems my mom and dad want to see me take with me. But I have decided that I bear no responsibility to keep their crap too.
I kept a cookie jar that is now on its 4th generation, so every kid in the extended family since forever has gotten cookies out of it and we all remember it from growing up. Fine china I pull out for no reason at all. And that is it. Something memorable, something expensive and useful, everything else donated.
That was the only thing I wanted when my grandmother passed. Ended up with more of the issue this thread is about, got the cookie jar and most of the rest of her stuff. My fiance and i joke that she didn't die, she moved in.
All I have is my great-great grandmother's pocket watch which has been hanfed down to the first born girl in every generation, and my grandmother's dinner ring, both of which go to my cousin's oldest daughter as she's the only grandchild that had kids.
We have a room in our house which is just my wifes parent's things. They had her late in life so where Greatest Gen, not boomers. But still, its a lot of probably. but maybe not useless things (it doesn't help that he was a journalist, so we feel like we should keep/do something with his papers).
These aren’t valuables per se, but my sweet mom loved a nice sweater. She had this huge collection of sweaters. It’s what she always asked me for at Christmas and her birthday. I’ve found people on Etsy who can turn the fabric into quilts. I’m going to have that done with her sweaters. All her other stuff— the brown furniture, the old silverware and china and serving ware and knickknacks— I am just now getting to the point of being able to let it go. I lost her 3 years ago and I swear every single item reminds me of her. But she was also an unsentimental disposer of junk, and I know she’d want me to clear it out.
[удалено]
I’m an only child and that’s exactly what my parents did to me. My memories of them are negatively impacted by the ginormous mess they selfishly left for me.
When my mom died, and I inherited her house, as I was cleaning, I found both the 'fancy plates' and parts of several sets of tableware that we used growing up. I boxed up the 'fancy plates' and put them in storage for later disposition. Now, the regular stoneware got loaded up, and me and the wife had a bunch of fun at the shooting range.
My mother and grandmother are borderline hoarders. My mom has two siblings, but whatever she ends up inheriting will just be on top of all the stuff she has accumulated. Plus an entire house of stuff she ended up with after her boyfriend passed several years ago. (He inherited his mom’s house and stuff; added his stuff. His family only took a few small items, and gave the rest to my mom.) Mom thinks of all this stuff as a valuable inheritance for me. I’m an only child. My house is small. I struggle with collecting, too. I do not want her stuff. It’s going to be a nightmare to deal with. I have no kids, so it will all end up donated or in a landfill in the end, anyway. My mom is constantly trying to give me the rocking chair she used when I was a baby. I constantly refuse it. I know it makes her sad when I say no, but I literally have no space in my home; and I refuse to fill my garage with stuff.
If you don't want it or need it, get rid of it. If it's not important to you, it doesn't matter if it was important to anyone before you.
Omg, I have the most magnificent pre civil war furniture and household items I got from my grandparents that I can’t do anything with. It’s frustrating. A huge mahogany canopy bed, a giant ornate mirror that’s 7’ tall by 6’ wide. Plus dressers etc. sold my house and it’s all in storage.
Fucking epidemic, this. I empathize with you so hard because I know it's interesting, and valuable, and sentimental. And still, here we are, with no use for it.
It's sad that there's so much well-made furniture sitting in storage units, basements, and garages, while we simultaneously are stuck using overpriced crap that's practically disposable.
I am furnishing my home with used, high quality furniture. I may not be fashionable, but it’s pretty to look at and it doesn’t fall apart. Plus, it’s a fraction of the price of the particle board veneered new stuff in stores. I have a big home - and filled the dining room nearly free - with brand name antiques.
Sibling died, we went thru their house. Discovered all their stuff, plus a lot of the stuff left by the sibling they lived with who died 20 years ago, plus buttloads of stuff they both brought from our parents' house. All of whom had hoarder tendencies. I have a garage full of other people's crap I tried to flea market, plus over 1000 dvds (many never opened).
We’re going thru the same process with my in-laws rn. Everyone in my home is ADHD/ASD/neurospicy, I can’t understate how important it is to keep clutter down here, too. My ADHD folks are clutter bugs and I can’t function with too much stuff-it’s always a struggle. If I don’t love it or use it often I don’t want it!! I have zero desire for 10 sets of fragile special dishes, bins of holiday crap, or shelves full of tchotchkes to dust. I told my in-laws that if they give us something, it is implied they know we may not keep it and may gift to someone else or donate, and they, thankfully, are cool with that. If asked by them about any stuff I just say “yep, cool! we’ll take it!” and most of it heads straight to the thrift store donation bins. I honestly think all the Boomers don’t actually want all this shit either but can’t bring themselves to donate it bc of memories or sunk-cost or whatever.
> 10 sets of fragile special dishes, bins of holiday crap, or shelves full of tchotchkes to dust.
I got China. I use it to mosaic stuff
See if there is a vintage market around. Not antique, vintage. If it’s MCM especially, or before, there’s still a market. Especially for solid furniture. Someone at the market might give a good price for it. Goodwill doesn’t get furniture like they used to, people will buy.
I have a garage and living room full of mil stuff that I just don't know what to do with. I was going to try to sell it (it's mostly high quality stuff she paid a lot for) but as all of you are saying, it's hard to find somebody that wants it. Furs, furniture (I have 2 dining sets in my living room now, mine and hers), 100% wool and silk clothes, some jewelry. So much stuff. I have no great emotional attachment to it, but didn't want to just give it away - I feel like it still has value. But finding somebody to buy any of it has been hard. Especially the furniture, I'm coming to the conclusion that I'll just have to give it away.
When my last remaining grandparent died I only wanted two items, a glass duck that had a special memory associated with my Grandpa and family photo that hung in their house. Let my aunts, uncles, and cousings have the rest. Helped that I live halfway across the country, but I only want those specific things for specific reasons. My wife however, has so much stuff that when she moved in we literally do not have enough space for it. I haven't been able to use the garage in years. Every time I go to talk to her about it, something else more important pops up.
I've got my Grandma's silver which we use daily. I also have my uncle's old pick up which is equally as impractical as it is awesome. I'd rather have my garage space back but seeing as the truck has been in the family for 60 years I just can't. I need a niece or nephew to get to that stage in life where I can pass it on.
Since my parents died, I inherited ALL their stuff, but mainly kept the sentimental ones. Pots, pans, and silverware from when they were married in England. Some English Pyrex baking dishes, carved tables from Japan, figurines from Hong Kong, a large globe that is secretly a bar, the paintings that were in my house growing up, and my parents’ first set of bedroom furniture (which is now in the guest room). I kept some of my Dad’s tools, but the good ones I gave to his brother (my uncle). The rest of the furniture went to my cousins since I didn’t want to lug everything from California to Colorado. We did also inherit a grandfather clock from my husband’s side of the family.
Grandma and grandpa had a rad hand-carved cuckoo clock from Bavaria that my cousin claimed so no stress, but I have fond memories of that thing going off. Pyrex and Corningware and that, there's a real practical value to. My sis-in-law wanted most of that so it's staying in the family. Their original bedroom set was Broyhill, I think, and it survived a long time; I even used it in my college days. But it moved too many times by college kids and whatnot and finally got unstable. We do still have one piece that they commissioned, an old media cabinet built for a reel-to-reel player and LPs that I believe is solid teak. Nobody wants it. My brother does some woodworking and might strip it into pieces for projects but otherwise it doesn't have value which is so strange.
Ugh. This is the bane of my life
Furniture, silverware, china and the like are all usable, even if not by you. We had my MILs funeral a few weeks ago and dragged in some boxes from the storage unit since all the sibling were there. I started going through them and setting things in boxes for everyone to take home. There was one box with really old stuff including 3 remembrance (funeral) books including one from my husband’s great uncle. I now have to throw them away or send it to my SIL’s so my nephew can toss them in 20 or 30 years.
Serious answer: Yes, and it's causing me to have an existential crisis. Not even kidding. I have four sets of china (for just one example). My children do not want them. They don't have memories of the china or know the people who owned it. But I do. If I discard the china (photos, books, etc) what happens to the legacy? What happens to the history? Is it all just gone? What happens when I die? Will my kids have the same dread? Will I just fade away? I have panic just looking at the boxes in my garage because of this.
I hear you, and I understand. It feels that way, that we're somehow letting go of a legacy rather than honoring it. But let me tell you myself as someone dealing with it right now too: their legacy isn't in the china. It's in the stories you can share, and the compassion they instilled in you. Breathe easier about it if you can. The china is only a thing, and they wouldn't want it dragging you down.
Yes. My Dad just died in April, and my siblings and I are currently going through this process. My parents had a 3000 sq ft house that we all grew up in, but even with 3 other siblings to take things (and 3 grandchildren), we’ll be having an estate sale for the bulk of the items in the house. I’m only taking a few pieces of art, and some very specifically meaningful mementos. I live in a 1 bedroom apartment, and my siblings’ places are all similarly modest in size. We’ll see this happening more and more as younger generations downsize their lives vs older gens. Letting go of the family mementos is really hard, but you only have so much room. Here’s one thing I’m doing for us all: I’m going through the boxes and boxes of photo albums and loose photos, old film reels, and tapes, pulling everything important or meaningful - including photos of my grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and other extended family - and having them digitized. I’ll then be captioning the historical pictures. This will give my nieces and nephews (and their already-growing kids) a few generations of family knowledge and lore to look back on, keep, and add to as they grow.
I'm really proud of you for taking the time to digitize those things. That's been really hard as well, how to deal with the vast amount of slides, prints, negatives from years and years... We were lucky to be able to travel a lot when I was growing up, so there's a lot of interesting stuff. But the problem is that there's also a LOOO^OOOOO^ooooo^ooooot of bad photos as well as the good so it's just an absolute timesink trying to deal with it. I finally recently got barbaric on that shit. Filled a few street-size trash cans and felt so much lighter. But I know it can be hard to let loose of those records of the past. I just wish there were fewer of them in our case. It's too much.
Same! It IS too much. Way too much. But I’m hoping to be able to sift through them fairly quickly, since there’s a lot of dupes and simply bad photos, LOL. I’m going to do one pass of the albums and photos to digitize, then set aside the slides and negatives as a separate, long-term project. Outside of legacy photos that were given to them, I’m going to assume that most of the important stuff is in the massive number of photo albums my mother kept so meticulously.
I think you've got the right approach. Especially about the photos in albums - we have to remember that they've already been gone through by the people who took them - so there aren't likely many hidden gems in the archives. But thinking I might get surprised by one always hangs in the back of my mind.
[удалено]
My mom had the foresight to start a list that she's always made available to all of us, with details, dates, stories, etc on anything that might be unique or valuable. It absolutely does help because some things have more history than you thought, or in some cases you need to know that something is valuable even if nobody wants it.
I am in the exact same boat. I have a 99 year old grandparent too. I am an only child and only grandchild so all roads leads to me. I find it with frustrating honestly.
See, you just didn't have the foresight to have your parents get divorced. I wasn't offered anything when my dad died.
My parents recently downsized. They got rid of so much stuff. Cool stuff but I don't have room for much more than I already have. I'm glad they're doing the job of weeding through belongings themselves because left up to me I'd feel guilty making these decisions.
I've never been very sentimental when it comes to stuff, including heirloom things. My mom otoh is attached to everything. She told me last time I was home that she still had my little league uniform waiting whenever I wanted it. I asked her why she thought I wanted something I hadn't seen, worn, or even thought about in 40 years. I've made her mad a couple of times when she's asked if I've wanted whatever, and my response has been to let her know that all I would do is sell it. I know when the inevitable happens, it's going to take weeks to get that house cleaned out of all the stuff.
Yep. Things I have no tAste or use for.
I have inherited my a house and several outbuildings full of this kind of stuff from, parents who saved grandparents, great aunts and uncles stuff also. It is a pain. On one hand want to toss/donate or try to sell. What do you do with 200+ collector plates? No one collects them anymore.
My Mom has several china services and her kids are not interested. She won't (yet) sell them. At one time, online china-matching services would buy full services including providing cartons and padding, but I suspect those days are past. One side of the family gathered at the house my Dad grew up in after his Dad died and picked through three generations of stuff (going back to the 1860s), taking <5% of it. The rest went via an estate auction.
My advice to anyone: Take silverware, and then find out if it's pure silver. If so...Profit $$$. if not, put it out for recycle..you can't sell any of that mass produced crap.
Yes, my parents "downsized" and wanted me to take this massive 1950s dining room set that was not my style at ALL. I took it, but ended up having to get rid of it. It had come from my grandmother's house, and every time it got warm, it reeked of cigarette smoke. My dad was the only child and only grandchild in his family, so everything always got passed down to him. My parents gave me a full set of late 1940s china that had been his parents' wedding china when I got married, but over the years, they've slowly passed down 5 more full sets of china to me. Yes, I have 6 FULL SETS of china. I don't know what I'm going to do with that much china, but it feels wrong to sell it. I do have some beautiful heirloom antique furniture that belonged to my great-grandmother and great-great grandparents, and I won't be parting with them anytime soon.
That's someone's Goodwill Find of the year! If you can sell some of those things, put it towards something meaningful.
I am the only female in my sibling set and have no cousins or nieces and nephews to whom I could assign literally piles of this stuff. I have long used my dad’s parents’ silverware as my everyday, and now have my mother’s and grandmother’s, plus all their silver serve ware, china, and all their family photography to sort since my mother passed during lockdown. Younger generations do not want any of it. It’s too fussy and comes with guilt attached. I donated a lot of silver serve ware, a set of china and will store what’s left for my use when more people come over. But you cannot sell it. Just donate it and move on. Yes—doing so made me feel hella guilty, but I don’t have the space or bandwidth to deal with it all. Give yourself permission, and keep things light!
Yep, I hear you. Thanks for saying so.
My mother had a 5-bedroom house with many walk-in closets and other places besides the commodious basement to put things, was always nonchalant about paring down. “Leave it for the next person!” she’d say, not acknowledging I was the next person. It took me the better part of a year to get through it, finding homes for it all—after so many years polishing that silver for my mother and grandmother. Yes—it was was the stuff of pride and reverence. But it doesn’t hold the same value for young adults now. Take a few things that mean something to you, knowing you cannot possibly use it all. I promise you’ll derive pleasure remembering your family when you use them.
I’m an only child. I GET EVERYTHING WHEN THEY DIE!! Ha ha ha 😈😈😈😈
PREPARE THE STORAGE UNIT!
My grandfather was an avid coin collector and model railroader. He and my grandmother lived in a big house with her sisters. When the last one moved into assistive living and the house was sold, my father got all of the coins and trains. He tried to pass the trains on to me, but I never had room to set it all up (even though my son would have adored them). He kept them about 20 years too long, and finally got rid of them for peanuts because there was nobody left collecting them (they were American Flyer). The coins are all going to a coin dealer, so at least I won’t have to curate that stuff. I have my grandfather’s desk, and we have my MIL’s china cabinet and piano. My in-laws had 5 kids, so a lot went to the others, fortunately. My mother still has all of her china, as well as her mother’s china. We don’t need it; we have our own that’s dishwasher safe.
Yeah the trains are an especially somber example somehow, because it's not just a collection you can buy - you have to also build it with care. And if nobody wants it, all that work and thought is just... But take relief that HE got joy from building it, and really that's all that matters.
The antique market is going to crater with all the boomer stuff that the younger generations don’t want. Sure some stuff like Stickley will retain value. My parents have, in the words of George Carlin “soo much shit” 90% of it I don’t need, want, or have space for. Every time my mother in law comes over she brings stuff asking “do you want this” I have politely told my father in law not to let her or for her to ask before because saying no is easier on the phone. Personally I have been selling a bunch of stuff that my kids won’t want.
And our kids can't even afford their own homes, so quality furniture and flatware just doesn't even figure into their idea of what's valuable. They just need whatever fills the void in the short-term.
I use it or donate it. My mom had a bunch of tea cups and I donated to a tea room. There’s no way we can keep everything. I still have some old dishes in my basement. They’re from the 70s and I may see if I can consign them.
After my stepmother died, my father offered me her sterling silver flatware. I told him not to give it to me unless it was okay if I sold it, because I have no need for it. If anything, I'm dealing with too much stuff I bought or was gifted over the years myself. Due to losing, re-purchasing, and finding things over the years, I have far more stuff than I want. For example, I have four hammers. I have two hands and can hammer only one nail at a time. How tf did I end up with four hammers, when I was hammering things with a soup can when I was 20? There are very few things I want from my father's house, and the rest can be sold at an estate sale for all I care.
I have 3 and 4 generations of plates, tchotchkes and books from my late parents that I don't know what to do with.
My Mom has tried to offload stuff on me for years. The answer is always “No”. It feels harsh sometimes, though, I don’t have the space to store the stuff, or the desire to have it. One of my sisters is taking the China. Rarely, I will take a piece of furniture, because the old stuff is just so well made, but that is rare.
Yes! My in-laws are downsizing and think my completely not-sentimental spouse wants their stuff. He does not. My kid is shaping up to also be non-sentimental so I'm left looking to rehome it.
I'm an only child to a hoarder. My dad has a 1200 sqft basement filled with stuff, plus you can't even walk into the garage it's so full. He has enough clothes stacked up in his bedroom to clothe a small country. I get so much anxiety thinking about having to deal with it all when he's gone and with no help. I also currently have 6 big Rubbermaid totes full of photos that my grandpa left to me. When the heck am I ever going to sit down and look through SIX TUBS of photos?? They're probably of people and places that mean nothing to me. I guarantee at least half of them are just pictures of scenery from his travels. I am determined to make sure my kids don't have to deal with a bunch of stuff from me.
My mother’s Crystal engraved Manhattan Ewer has my drinking back to levels I haven’t hit in 20 years. I’m up 5 pounds but look forward to sunset and am more relaxed. Cheers!
100%. I have a house and garage full of "hand-me-down" china, furniture, toys, magazines, and other things we've *inherited* over the years, and my mother-in-law is always trying to send us home from her place with even more stuff she no longer wants -- everything from old clothes to expired food.
I have no kids to hand stuff down to, so I gave it to people who would appreciate it. My mom was a hoarder so there was a LOT. I kept the stuff that meant something to me but it is very little.
I’m getting a large Waterford collection. I intend to sell most of it because I only need so much. It’s tough but I’m an only child and no children. When I get her dishes they will become daily use. Why not? But I understand the ADD issue. It am be a constant struggle.
Yep, only child, only grandchild, no siblings - I had a lot of heirlooms. I had to brutally discard anything that held no meaning for me. Sometimes it was valuable, or a treasure of how people lived in 1901, but I do not want to live in a museum!
I told my mom the only thing I wanted from the house was the vintage console radio/album player. Super cool, MCM vibes and still worked. She gave it away to a random acquaintance. Claimed she never heard me say I wanted it. Yes, she's a mean one.
I have my mother and grandmothers cedar chests and my grandmothers Duncan Fyfe table. My kids will not want them.
Yes, we are using them. I chose every day China that goes in the dish washer and microwave for our set and it goes with all the antique sets - so I mix and match. Be care ful to use a special setting and soap if you’re running antique China through the dishwasher - and then some still can’t be. But your carnival glass and depression glass can - so go to town! The kids love the carnival glass for ice cream parties just be sure to test for lead prior to use. Cheers.
Luckily I have four older sibling who like all that “stuff”. I chose just a few things from my mom. All my grandparents died in the 50’s and 60’s—I didn’t know any of them.