Diary of an Estate Sale or Parting with Memories

This is my Diary of an Estate Sale - or Parting with Memories. I am linking up to Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for a little makeover on my French vaisselier, as well as some changes to our household, and a little silver something for Silver Sunday, hosted by Beth at The Gypsy Fish. Thanks so much for hosting these parties, ladies!

First, what is this? It came with my mother's silver tea set - which includes a creamer and sugar bowl with lid. Does this go under the coffee urn to catch the drips? Or is it for sugar cubes? Right now, it's holding candles!

My vaisselier took on an after-Christmas change. First, it was angled in the corner, and it displayed my dishes from my favorite aunt!

We moved it flat against the wall, centered it, and changed out to all white/cream dishes.

We have spent the last two days having an sale for my mother-in-law's estate. Fortunately, she is still with us, but has moved from her home to assisted living at the age of 91!

How do you do such a thing? We were fortunate to have friends in the business who came in, set up 20 tables, priced everything, and gave us advice. They even wrote the article for the newspaper and for Craig's List for us! They gave us a "friends and family" rate, and we absolutely could not have done it without them! I am going to share a few tidbits on Estate Sales in a future post.

How do you part with memories associated with things? It's difficult. I realize that it's not the love of the things, but the love of the memories that the things evoke. For example, her Blue Danube dishes here - we ate off them for years! Our nephew took all the place settings because he couldn't stand the thought of someone else eating off Grandma's dishes!

Look at the salt box (with the wooden lid). Isn't that cute! We sold all the BD pieces without one quibble on the price.

I did keep this little casserole dish for memories. I think it is so unusual. They don't make things like this any more.

My mother-in-law gave me this bowl - just an old bowl, but she bought it from an 83 year old lady in 1936. I have always loved this bowl. I believe every meal we ate at their house had Grandma's green beans in this bowl. My kids, to this day, are green bean-a-holics!

My grown kids love "the gold spoon". They would love to put sugar on their cereal at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Because, you know, their mean mom (me) made them eat their Cheerios plain! Believe me, there would be a layer of sugar about 1/4 inch deep in bottom of their bowls at G & G's house, and they would drink it down! Gag!

We love this old clock. It belonged to my mother-in-law's grandmother, where it was kept in her kitchen.

My in-laws had a den with a nautical theme, so my hubby was so glad to get all the ships. See the little one on the bottom shelf on the right?

This little side table was in her living room where it was filled with pictures of the great grands.

I have always LOVED these two small paintings and will be thrilled to hang them. My MIL painted them both and they are so sweet.

This is one of hubby & my favorite paintings that his mom did. Love the sweet old church (I'm using the word "sweet" a lot, but to me, it means "aw, I love it, brings back memories". She had written our names on the back 'cause she knew it meant so much to us!

We have many more treasures and haven't had time to incorporate them into our house yet, but so many things went out the door at the estate sale...things that we would have loved to have kept.....things that evoked sweet memories....but you can't keep everything.

We tell ourselves that my MIL is thrilled that so many people liked her things enough to pick them out, buy them, and use them or display them in their homes.

Nonetheless, I found myself on many items (since I was the cashier) telling the buyer the story...."oh, that coffee grnder belonged to my sister-in-law - it was a wedding gift to her 50 years ago, and she gave it to her mom when she changed her kitchen color, because her mom had a blue and white kitchen." or "Oh, that is really old. It was 50 years old in 1982 when so-and-so gave it to her." or "Oh, we used to cater weddings and that punch bowl has been all over Atlanta into some of the nicest country clubs and most beautiful churches." "And, my goodness, that lawn jockey was bought in Kentucky, moved to Atlanta to 2 different houses. Isn't that cool that you are an antique dealer down here from Kentucky - it's going back home!" I probably should have been more neutral, but I just couldn't help myself!

One funny story, a man and his wife came in spur of the moment on their way to the mountains, looked around, and she spotted a mink stole and a little fur collar. She hemmed and hawed, but he said he had the money, and said this is probably your only chance to get a fur stole. He told her he knew if she didn't get it that they would be half way down the road and she would say, "Oh, we need to go back". Well, they bought it. About 10 minutes later, he walked in the door and said, "You know that crazy woman?" What? He said, "We got down the road and she regretted not getting the mink collar, too" (Which I had decided I wanted by that time!). So he bought it! (Why didn't he make her come in! Was she embarrassed? hee hee hee). Now that's true love!

One very sweet story. A lady had bought several items, including 3 old hankies, one of which was monogrammed with an "A" for my MIL. I said, "Aw, that is sweet. I wish I had seen that." She offered not to buy it, but I said no, of course not, take it. As she walked out the door, she handed it back to me and said, "Merry Christmas" (she had paid for it!). How sweet was that?!!!! I told her that I thought someone would do something very special for her, and I believe Someone will.

We had two wonderful, but exhausting days, meeting all kinds of interesting, friendly, and kind people. I'll bet they are a lot like so many of you I have met in blogland! May God bless! Linda