Whether you consider yourself a sentimental person or not, you may be surprised at the attachment and connection to a special possession in your home. Over time your appreciation may change as time goes on.
Our top advice is to take your time when going through sentimental belongings. The best thing you can do is to prioritize taking inventory and making decisions about specific items, collections, and keepsakes before you are in a time pressured situation or critical transition period (in the midst of a move or as a result of losing a loved one). Think about whether or not you’d enjoy this process on your own or with a few friends or family members and initiate it.
We’re sharing a few real examples we’ve encountered & our approach:
Family members year books
If there are volumes upon volumes of heavy hard back annuals, we do encourage folks to take a bit of time to look through them and reflect while considering the value of keeping the entire item or taking high quality photos/scans of important pages instead. Incorporating a page or photo into a beautiful frame in your home can be a better way to showcase/honor the memory instead of keeping stacks of unopened yearbooks on a shelf or in an attic. When a client has quite a few, we aim to help them narrow the collection down to maybe one of the most meaningful years/volumes to keep.
Dishes & china sets
A full set of carefully protected and preserved dishes can be quite a meaningful item for someone to pass down and for someone to recieve. However it may not fit into their daily life or their home in a way that is functional. Here, we often encourage the client to consider a family member or close friend who would find more value/use from this collection so that it is being utilized instead of ‘stored’. If there’s no one who can use it in the near future, we recommend selecting one or a few pieces that you would use and just keeping those. There is a lovely little dish shop in North Knoxville that buys & sells china by the piece (or the set): Doing Dishes.
Boxes and boxes of printed photos
This is a tricky one because one box or container can hold a multitude of generations and stories all mixed together. It is often very overwhelming to begin, and lots of folks we work with don’t have the time or capacity to fully overhaul their families printed photos in an organized way. Luckily, there are services and individuals that offer this exact thing. If you’re in Knoxville, check out Narrative Photo Organizing - they help you save and enjoy your lifetime of photos (working with printed and digital photos, and so much more). Check out our recent Q+A blog with Trish!
Family photos, by Texture Photo.
Baby clothes
We have worked with countless mamas of growing families who are faced with their collection of newborn, infant, and toddler items. These items often carry emotion, nostalgia, and all sorts of other emotions as we face the reality of the season of life changing in a client’s life and home. There are some wonderful organizations that serve single moms and families in need, that can be a great place of meaning to donate no longer needed clothing, toys, and baby gear. We never rush folks to get rid of things before they are ready - often a client has a family member, friend, or neighbor who would be grateful to use their gently loved items for a new baby of their own. If there are a couple of very special pieces, we 100% support a client keeping those. As long as the items are thoughtfully curated and stored in a way that doesn’t impact a closet or storage space needed in the current season. This mum in the UK shared a quick and simple DIY way to preserve and use a sentimental baby clothing item with a photo in a frame.
JEWELRY
One of the most important ways to help you treasure meaningful pieces is to ask your loved ones about their jewelry now. Listen to the story, ask more questions, and take notes so that future generations after you can appreciate them as well. If you aren’t sure what to do with a collection of jewelry from a relative no longer here, we recommend getting it appraised and looked at by a knowledgeable jeweler to help you make informed decisions about how to divide and share the pieces. Get creative with ways to repurpose family diamonds, precious stones or metals. This extends the life of a keepsake by transforming it into something you will wear daily as a memento. One of our organizers is working with a local jeweler to have her late mother’s diamond ring transformed into a necklace she will wear daily to honor and remember her mom.
Many of our team members have experienced first hand the journey of losing a loved one and understand the weight of sorting through belongings. This process looks different for each person and everyone has their own pace. We can’t give you a checklist of what to keep and what to let go of, but we can promise to show up with sensitivity, compassion, and encouragement to help you honor the memories attached to the things you and your loved ones hold dear.
Ready to begin?
Schedule a custom consultation today!