Very timely thread for me and I can relate to the posts throughout.
My father was an artist and my brother and I still have a few of his paintings. I am redoing our living room next spring and I am going to be taking them all down and will have to get rid of them as I am not hanging a lot of pictures anymore and many won't go with my simplified decor. I have one in particular that he painted of our home when we first bought it. He was very sick- his hands shook- and the custom frame he made for it is warped. But it is still very nice and it is going to be hard to get rid of it. I also have another I will be taking down that I always liked and he hated- he had it in his basement for years and I convinced him to make a barn frame for it and give it to me. My brother has a signature painting- one of my dad's firsts and a notable- in his attic and he says he doesn't know how he can get rid of it. I told him we have to do it. The past few years as we have redone our home I have donated things like my grandmothers old washboard that my dad hand painted as a decorating piece, things like that. I have been donating things of mine to an organization I belong to for their garage sales to raise money. I decided it just had to be done.
My mother is an artist also in various mediums. When we redid our house about seven years ago, we went with the minimalist approach; very few knickknacks and only a very few selected pieces that we picked out personally ourselves hang on our walls. There is much art work stored in closets and drawers of hers. I know it is disappointing to her. Her artwork presence is still quite evident in our home. She has made comments many times since our renovation about us not hanging pieces of hers back up. She is completing a painting now that she wants me to use in my foyer. I don't want it because I like my foyer as it is. Leaving her house last week, I was told that the rifle over her mantle "stays in the family."
When she's tired of things or wants to get rid of things, we are the recipients. Our attic has many things in it to be brought down and gotten rid of because we took the stuff off her hands, not really wanting it. Foot is going down. No more. We've got our stuff.
My Mom has been bringing up her possessions the last couple of weeks and telling me what I should do with them. Last week, she said "I know you don't like talking about this, but......". Her idea is to start a notebook and go through each room and place her perceived value of things on each item. She also has directions on how I should dispose of things (Estate sale by appointment only and there's people that she can direct me to in my endeavor).
Yup. I always used to tell my parents this. We have our own stuff. We have no room for any more. My parents wanted us to take their piano- their pool table-we had no room for it, nor did we think we would use them. Convinced my mom to donate to a veterans place when dad died.
I might print out this thread and get her to read it. I don't know if that will help. Letting go is hard, I know.
I started working on our attic last weekend. I only got to the boxes of Halloween decorations from when my sons were children. I haven't decorated in years......my yard is now decorated for Halloween.
It will be donated or tossed when Halloween is over.
There's a truck collection, as well as other "collector" items of my husband's upstairs. He is under the impression they have potential value. Yup, need to print out this thread for him also.
Mom has Jim Beam bottles from back when they were collectibles from my Grandparents. They have no value from what I saw in eBay.
Mom has a doll collection from my great, great grandmother. She wants to find a doll collector because surely they have value. Nope.
Yup, I got my stuff. I don't want your stuff. My sons are just starting out and don't have anything at this juncture. They don't want our stuff or Mom's stuff. When my husband and I were starting out and didn't have anything, getting other's cast-offs was great. It allowed us to have stuff.
Today's a different day. Roll with it and let it go.
