I know, it's all part of life. But we'll just be glad when we can put this part of life behind us. And fortunately, we can see that happening on this trip.
And we know now that the next time we come return to Canada it will be much better and we can spend our time here doing the things we love to do.
When we sold our house in 2007 there were items we came across that we wondered why we still owned. And we didn't own a lot to begin with! I know I've mentioned this here before, but I'm always reminded of the old George Carlin routine where he says "A house is just a place to keep your stuff".
And what a lot of "stuff" Ruth's dad owned.
All the "stuff" that was in the basement.
The vast majority of this stuff hasn't been used for well over 20 years.
Yesterday, I made another 30 or 40 trips up and down the basement stairs. Some of this stuff is just junk. We'll be lucky to get 50 cents for a box of it at the auction. But hopefully someone will pay 50 cents for it just so that it's out of our hair.
Other stuff is not necessarily junk. There are a lot of collectible sorts of things that (if you can find someone who knows what the stuff is worth), you might get some decent dollars for.
For example, this old cast iron pot.
Apparently there is a big market for old cast iron stuff. You can find pots like this advertised on eBay for between $150 and $500. Now, whether they actually sell for this price may be another story. Any given item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So it will be interesting to see what something like this sells for at the auction.
Meanwhile, Ruth finished boxing up the kitchen stuff, and moved on to other rooms.
She came across all of her dad's photos. Trays of slides from the 1960's. How many times were these looked at in the last 40 years? Likely, never. I've known Ruth since 1983, so in that 38 years I can't remember him ever getting the projector out and showing them to us, although I do recall Ruth asking him to do so once or twice during that time. But it never happened.
Ruth wants to sort through them, keep the ones that are worth keeping and digitize them. Same thing with the boxes of unmarked photos. It's a big job, but she likes doing that kind of thing. We will buy a scanner and she will start on that when we get to our house sit next week.
Trays of old slides and boxes full of photographs.
Anyway, we're definitely making some progress but we are looking forward to Saturday and watching it all disappear. Then, we will be working on the house itself and getting it sold. I am going to sell it myself as I did our house and my mother's condo. No real estate agents. It will be sold before we leave at the end of September.
Overcast with possible showers today. High of 22C, but muggy.
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And in Canada...
That cast iron pot will be a treasure for whoever gets it. If the housing market there is what it is here, you won't have a problem selling it.
ReplyDeleteYes, it certainly will! Cast iron is certainly a popular item these days.
DeleteThe housing market isn't quite as crazy as it was in the early part of the year but it is certainly still very strong. I doubt we will see the bidding wars that they were having. It is definitely an advantage that the house is in the country because those houses are still being sought-after. Our fingers are crossed that it will go quickly.
I feel your pain. We went thru this last year after my dad passed. Now we're anticipating more fun down the road with my wife's 79 year old sister. She moved to our street from a nine room house in RI to a four room house and crammed all her stuff in it. Since she never married looks like this mess will fall on us when the time comes. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteThank you Paul. Yes, I am sure all the things we are dealing with now are still near the surface for you. It is definitely a big job but we are making our way through it. I am sorry that you are going to have to deal with this again down the road with Marti's. At least now she is in a "smaller" house!
DeleteI scanned all my negatives over 1 winter, my god what a job. Im sure one year i will do some of my dads. Most of our photos are in scrapbooks but i wanted a digital copy of them, just in case. I also then made digital copies onto dvds
ReplyDeleteI have scanned a good portion of our pictures quite a long time ago but I still have a few to go. I think I will get those done first before I start working on my father's. Ours are in photo albums as well but because we have no house and are traveling I want them all in digital form and will just throw the originals out. Ours are all on our computers with copies on a thumb drive as well as an external hard drive, this way we have copies just in case something happens to our computers. After I get that done, I will work on my dad's and make sure to give copies of the digital pictures to both my brother and my sister and see if they want any of the originals. I have a lot of work a head of me.
DeleteWishing all of you a big success on the sale. Lots of people will show up. As for memories, mine are all in my head.
ReplyDeleteThank you Chris! We are hoping the same, as well as having a nice sunny day. :-)
DeleteHaving all your memories in your head is great until you start losing your mind! Pictures are nice then for helping to remember those things that you might start forgetting. Even now, I love to go back and look at a picture that I haven't seen in years and all of a sudden remember either something that happened when that picture was taken or just remember about a place that I had forgotten about.
Tell us about the horses in your title picture.....still titled View of the Mississippi River. 😆
ReplyDeleteLol, you much have just opened up the bog just as Kevin had changed the picture and was in the process of changing the description because he did it right after the picture went up. Unfortunately you can'd do the two simultaneously. However, after saying that, these horses are on a little island that is surrounded by the Mississippi River which can't be seen in the picture but is a little way behind the horses and before the trees.
DeleteLoL, timing is everything. Thanks Ruth!
DeleteWe've just hired a rubbish skip to replace our trips to the tip. Clearing 60 years of marriage from my parents place is almost at an end. Their home will go on the market in two weeks. A silver lining from covid lockdowns is that people want places out here in the Yarra Valley. Quick sale at a good price is expected. Then more quality spare time. Good luck with your auction. We sent all mum and dad's stuff to charity. Easier for us at this time. Mind you, I love a good garage sale and auction.
ReplyDeleteWe are trying to do everything that we can to keep stuff from going to the dump/landfill and from what we understand an auction is one of the best ways of doing this. What is one man's junk is another man's treasure. Hopefully a lot of the stuff will be repurposed, given a new life and put to use. It will be interesting to see how much of the stuff will be left over at the end of the auction.
DeleteSounds like we are both in the same boat and on the same timeline. Good luck to you guys on both getting rid of your parents stuff and on the sale of the house. My dad's house is the same, it is out in the country and it is what people are wanting, I guess we will see how true this is very soon. We definitely feel you pain!