My parents are in the process of putting their house in the market in preparation for empty nester move #2 - after they got me out of my childhood home the downsized to a 3 bedroom place with a tiny yard that allowed them their basic comforts while allowing them to travel without worry of the yard going to shit and the ability to have parties when the mood struck them.
But now the mood to party rarely strikes them, and they're sick of the basic maintenance required for a home, occasionally the stairs are a pain in the ass, and it would be nice if they weren't 2+ miles from a bus line/store/coffee shop. So they're downsizing yet again and planning to end up in some sort of apartment or condo.
In preparation for this they are significantly culling their possessions. If they're not going to be partying anymore they don't need all of their party supplies and even traveling as much as they do there are only so many suitcases two people can use.
So I've been spending some time of late going through their house and laying claim to things that Sweetie and I want. Thus far we've laid claim to:
- China (our second set! Without ever registering for it!)
- A 100+ year old clock for our mantle
- Various serving dishes and a vase or two
- A tablecloth my grandmother embroidered. It's not a very good embroidery job - puckers something fierce - but it's one of those "ugly, but it's family tradition" type things.
- A silver trunk that my Dad acquired while stationed in Japan.
By the end of this week we will also have 3 end tables which will work perfectly in our living room, but are too dark to work wherever my parents end up.
It is very, very, very, very odd to go through the house of your relatively healthy mother and start filling up shopping bags with her stuff. I've been through this once before - during empty nest stage #1 my grandmother was moving simultaneously so my mom and I had to go through her things - but I was living a very mobile lifestyle at the time, and my mom was doing the same thing (and had first dibs), so it didn't seem quite as invasive a process. But man, it's just weird.
The consolation is that many of these things (especially the clock and the tables) are items my parents treasure and cannot get rid of, but are a bit of a waste of space or won't fit their new decor. While they fit our decor perfectly, and save us a ton of money to not have to go buy them for ourselves.
The second stage of the process will come once the house has been sold, and that is the garage sale. I refuse to allow them to have this sale without me supervising. Well, I trust my Mom, but not my Dad.
He gets excited in the heat of the moment and the success of the sale, and starts to case the joint for more things to sell. During their garage sale during their last big downsizing this activity resulted in my father selling this:
That is an ice bucket in the shape of the helmet of a suit of armor, and one of the swankest things I have ever seen in my life. And when I moved into the original House of Swank it was denied it's place of honor in that home because someone bought it at a garage sale.
10+ years later and I still give my dad crap about it.
So now I've decided that I supervise any garage sale my parents host. I accept that my parents want to keep some of their stuff for themselves, and I've got it on "layaway" until the appropriate time arises - I'm even a bit surprised on how quickly I got the tables out of layaway - but they can't go selling my layaway items out from under me!
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