Getting the house ready for company
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- July 16, 2024
- 442
We are expecting a visit from a couple of family members within the next week — excited about seeing them again but a bit less excited about getting the house ready for visitors.
Actually, our guest room has been serving as a storage room since we moved into our new place. Several boxes full of really big stuff are taking up floor space, and the bed is piled high with all sorts of linen, pillows, throws and two suitcases filed with who knows what.
The main problem is Taller Half’s family never threw anything away, and over the years we have inherited lots of family things. It is all a part of his family history. Some things are lovely and fit well in our house. But there are lots of things we neither want nor need.
For instance, we do not need lots of old dishes and glasses, none of which can go into the dishwasher. The family has a few old silver pieces that haven’t been polished in years, and as a result, all of it is black. It would take hours and hours to polish it back from black to silver.
Then there are the table linens. Old linens have to be ironed, and I don’t iron anything anymore. The old furniture is lovely but in dire need of a good application of polish. That alone could take hours and hours of work.
Our children are next in line to inherit all we inherited. After all, we have done our duty for many years taking care of those things. So it was a shock to hear our children say “no thank you” to most of what they are due to inherit when we are gone. So we have decided to donate the rest.
Not the silver, mind you. Taller Half has decided to spend his time polishing that old silver and then selling it. Great idea!
The result is a fairly neat house and a guest bedroom ready for company.