Purging the house

[Scrapr]

A few years ago we downsized from the "big" house to our vacation home. Vacation home was half the size. At that point we had it for 12 years so it had everything Mrs Scrapr needed to live there all summer. So essentially 1 whole house had to go. We purged prior to the sale/showings. Then when the rubber hit the road it was mayhem. A bunch was donated to a local church. Some stuff to the house cleaners. I think our employees got a bunch. Basically, if anyone said they "liked" something we told them to take it. LOL I own a trash business so it is not a problem to get rid of stuff. We just wanted anything with any value to go to someone that would use it

[LARS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by O2Bfree Thanks, I'll read them. I've tried to share such articles with her, and the AARP magazine she gets often has such articles. But she just gets emotional about her stuff and says we don't understand. She's been so upset lately about the virus and the protests in the area that I'm not going to bother bringing up the storage again anytime soon.

At age 91 the War is lost. No need for any more battles with your mother on the topic.

Just accept the fact that when she's gone you'll have more of a mess to clean up than you'd wish.

[brett]

If DW would agree ( alas,she won't) I would very happily sell up again, move everything into a container, and travel for a year or two with long stops along the way. Not nearly as much to discard this time around but I have no doubt that half of our belongings, etc. could 'go'.

[daylatedollarshort]

I'm also trying to use the time at home for purging the clutter. I try to pick one category of items every few days. Once I did umbrellas and I think we must have had at least 40 umbrellas all in different parts of the house. I put one in each car, kept a few for the coat closet and donated the rest. Last week I did cleaning rags and old towels. We kept some and were able to throw out a huge recycling bag full. Last night I started on the pots and pans. We cook quite a bit with small appliances like the Instant pot and rice cooker these days, as they use a lot less electricity than our built in appliances and don't heat up the house as much in summer. I'm thinking of just keeping three pots and pans in the kitchen, maybe put a couple with the camping gear and donating the rest.

We've seen how much stuff people have at estate sales and how much stuff some of our friends have had to go through of their parents. I don't want our adult kids to have to take weeks or months out of their lives getting rid of our stuff once we pass or become incapacitated.