Earlier this year, I helped a friend with her estate sale. They were severely downsizing, so the sale was a big one. Everything remaining in the house (excluding a few items left in place for "staging") had a price sticker on it. Every. Single. Thing.
I had an inkling of the hours and hours spent sorting, packing, moving and "staging" what remained, prior to the sale, but trying to imagine the amount of time and psychic energy involved in assigning a price to everything else had a profound effect on me.
Starting with, "We gotta get rid of half our stuff!"
And moving on to, "What if I/we had to determine a price and affix a sticker to everything in the house?"
If something has sentimental value ("Price it higher!"), yet HAS to be sold that day ("Price it to move!"), what does one do? Unless all your furniture is pristine Mid-Century Modern and all your knick-knacks are retired Limoges figurines, the prospect of aligning the sentimental value with what the market will bear is not promising. And it's just so...wrenching...to know a new owner will never understand the sentimental value of their purchase.
As I was reflecting on this conundrum in the following weeks, two things happened.
A friend, who loves attending and serving afternoon tea (complete with cucumber sandwiches and scones), came to visit. We went to visit a local consignment store, and my friend remarked on a silver-plate tea service.
"I have one!" I exclaimed. "It was my grandma's. My mom tried to donate it to church, and they took it, but later told me no one really uses those anymore, and they needed the space, so would I take it back? I did, and didn't tell my mom. She thinks they're using it. You should take it."
My friend was skeptical. She offered to buy it ("No!") and suggested that one of my teen sons might want the set in the future.
"Leave it to me or them in your will."
In the end, she took the tea service and posted pictures a week later of the tea service in use--representing a 100% increase in the times it had been used in the last twenty years.
And...I'm told the tea service is on display when not in use, instead of being wrapped up in a drawer.
Sentimental value honored!
Several weeks later, the same thing happened with a mink jacket...except I was the lucky recipient. A friend of my parents' generation had her aunt's mink jacket, and no younger family living where the winters are cold. Would I wear the jacket and send her a picture? As with the tea service, we both were delighted to have the sentimental value recognized and honored.
I'm looking at my possessions (especially family heirlooms) through a different lens now. If someone will honor the sentimental value of a vase, a carving, a necklace or a dress, I'd rather they have it now. Drawers and closets (and a garage) full of things that "might be worth something" are worth exactly nothing, and are of no use to anyone, as long as they stay in storage...
...waiting to be "priced to move."
