Words by Sloane Citron
As my parents passed, my siblings and I took items that we either wanted for our homes (or our children’s homes) or that had sentimental meaning. When you have seen a piece of furniture or art all of your life, it’s hard to let go of it. Maybe harder, actually, since there’s also the connection to your father or mother.
My sister Shelley is more disciplined than my brother, Dan, and me. She knows exactly what she wants (usually a high-quality item) and exactly where she is going to put it. She is not a saver, and if she takes something down from her home (a painting, for example), she first offers it to Dan or me. Her sentimentality level is significantly below my brother’s and mine.
When my mother died several years ago (after my father), the deal was that if you wanted any of her furniture, you would be responsible for getting it to your home from Houston. I opted for the expensive route of sending the furniture, around eight large pieces, to my son Josh’s home, because he had an empty garage. And it was then that I made my first unsatisfactory effort to have my children take what I considered to be wonderful things.
I believe that one small chair, taken by my daughter Arielle, was the only piece that left the garage. So, the stuff sat there, as stuff does. A year later, Josh informed me that they were going to turn their garage (an exceptionally large one) into a one-bedroom ADU. I knew the day of reckoning had arrived.
Again, I appealed to my kids to take these fantastic pieces and again, I was unable to move any of the stuff. At that point, I had no real options, so I hired a man and a truck and sent most of the furniture to Habitat for Humanity. There were four pieces—three small cabinets and a love seat—that I just couldn’t give away, so I kept them in hopes that one day they might find a place in my own home.
I found a storage unit nearby in Menlo Park and also moved the hard top of my vintage sports car there, along with some other items. My daughter Arielle had a collection of her own things for her interior design company, and she used the storage space as well.
The storage unit became this forgotten black hole where things went in but never came out. The only reminder was the monthly bill that showed up on my credit card. I tried to avert my eyes each month when the statement came, knowing that this was exactly what the storage company wanted me to do—pay the bill and forget about the stuff.
Once in a great while, Arielle would want to look for something (“Did we put that oriental rug that used to be in the dining room into the storage unit—I think I might want to try it.”) and we would drive over, figure out how to get into it and then look blindly into the cavernous space to see what we could see, which was not much. They don’t put lights in these units for a reason: you rummage around a bit and can’t see anything, so you give up and leave.
Several months ago, following the trend of businesses today, whether warranted or not, the storage company sent me a letter stating that the rates were going up substantially. I knew that seeing an even larger number on my credit card statement would make me nuts, so I knew I had to do something.
I looked at rates around our area and then discussed the situation with the staff at my current location. I decided that it would be much easier to take a very small unit and stay put. Arielle and I went over and pulled everything out of the unit and created piles of “keep, donate, toss.” We had a guy with a truck meet us there and we gave him all the donate and toss items and happily watched him drive away.
It did not look possible for us to get the remaining items (including my furniture and the hard top) into the small space, but the secret was going up, so we did our best to balance the items on each other, knowing that an earthquake might send them tumbling. But we finally got the job done and quickly spirited away like thieves in the night, before we could hear a loud crash.
Here’s the deal: your kids probably don’t want their grandmother’s (or yours, for that matter) stuff. You assume that they will want it, but don’t fall into that trap. Today, I don’t even remember the great things I brought all the way across the country, only to end up giving them away. You, too, will forget. And in 10 years, when one of your kids finally asks about a particular chair or cabinet, you can just pull out your phone and show them a picture of it.