@ Eyemamom
My daughter has ballyshannon as her crystal. I have added to her collection on e-bay. If you watch it closely you can pick up some glasses pretty cheaply. You just have to check every few days. The last time I bought some I got 3 water glasses for under $100. (One had an air bubble, which was surprising, but the others were perfect.) They have a fair amount of it available now.
There is some on Replacements too: @eyemamom
Lucky for me, my parents downsized about a decade before they died. They didn’t all-the-way downsize – they moved from what was effectively a mansion into a double-size condominium. So they still had lots of stuff. When they made the first move, my youngest sister had been back living with them for 7 years, although she was about to move to another city. She was so upset they were moving and selling her childhood home that she absolutely refused to help with any of the move or the downsizing. When they died, however, she wound up taking their condo and moving in, so of course the task of dealing with their remaining stuff no one wanted fell to her. And . . . it looks like a good deal of it will fall further to whomever – probably my kids – has to clean out the condo when she goes.
My wife and mother never completely loved one another, but they both loved china, and neither of my sisters ever did. So we have a great deal of china, even after my mother made certain various bewildered nieces were supplied with sets of it. My kids will be happy to take some of it, but I hope one of them enjoys the process of de-accessioning the rest.
We have lived most of our lives with furniture given (or bequeathed) to us from relatives. We have only bought a few pieces ourselves in our entire lives, and some of those came from thrift shops masquerading as antique dealers. We have been trying to push out furniture to our children, who are generally more or less grateful for it, except that their apartments are not very large, so they are constrained in how much we can give them before they don’t have anywhere to put it. My mother’s family’s family business was a furniture store, so some of it is very nice, but that doesn’t help find room for it.
Our bedroom furniture, consists of an iron and brass bed frame my wife bought at a thrift shop when she was 15 and refinished herself, a set of wicker furniture from the 1920s that graced the porch of my grandmother’s beach house until 1968 and then spent 20 years in a garden room in my parents’ house, and two ancient dressers.
We’re probably 5-10 years away from downsizing. There isn’t much in the house that either kid would want. Maybe in a few years they’ll have houses, but the furniture still isn’t their style, neither one has any interest in jewelry or the stuff we pick up from the art fair, and they haven’t expressed much interest in the tools.
I’m not saying a word about the stuff DH brought home from his parents’ house, but most of it will never get looked at until our kids have to throw it out. But I’m planning to bring about the same amount home from my mom’s apartment some day, so better to keep my mouth shut now. It’s only about 2 minivan loads worth.
But that’s why I’m pushing hard to get some of the junk out of the basement now to make room for the MIL/FIL stuff. And the magazines and cardboard are going to the recycle center. But we really need to get a start on cleaning stuff out. And the volume of his stuff is about 10 times the volume of my stuff.
My kids would clear out my shoe collection in a nanosecond if I let them… 
The big kid already expropriated the sofas, but we got new ones that take up less space. I think we can downsize to 1/2 of the current space with the currently owned stuff, but I constantly toss things we don’t use!
My parents built a pretty big house in 1973 and added on to it once my sister and I had moved out. My dad was a professor for 52 years and he and my mom collected a lot of stuff in their world travels (Dad spoke at a lot of conferences). My dad hasn’t cleared out his office at UT yet, either. Mom has declined enough that she’s not really picking up like she used to, so there are piles all over the house. My sister lives near them, but since she lost her son last year and her husband is out of work, she is in no position to help. It’s kind of a mess. I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and plan to go down for a couple of weeks to start clearing stuff out. Mom is going to want to hang on to her entire doll collection, I’m afraid. Sigh. I can’t think about it now.
I have never been much of a hoarder. I am begging H to start clearing out old financial records, old tools, old Christmas decorations and old home decor items that I know we will never use.
When we cleared out Mom’s condo, we used a company run by a couple of sisters. We took care of the stuff we wanted and cleared out all papers (took a number of cartons to a shredding company). But they did everything else - sold what could be sold (mainly costume jewelry) and organized and recycled/tossed/donated the rest - clothes, dishes, extra furniture, housewares, cleaning supplies, groceries, et al. They set aside anything we missed that they thought we might still want. They gave us itemized lists and detailed pictures of all donations so that we could claim charitable donation deductions. They also helped the realtor stage the place with remaining furniture. Then when we sold the condo, we had them organize the rest of the furniture donation. They also directed us to places where we could get estimates on collectibles, art, jewelry, silver, etc.
I lived too far away (although I did spend several days in the condo organizing and clearing) and my brother was too busy at work so neither of us could do it all. There are companies that say they will clear out but they really just want to do garage sales, which our company did not do. We had gotten a personal recommendation from a friend of my SIL.
@MaineLonghorn I hear you! My inlaws lived and travelled around the world. They have 65 years worth of accumulated “trip souvenirs” that NO ONE wants…but they think everyone wants. They haven’t put up a Christmas tree in over ten years, but they have TEN boxes of decorations…oh…and two for Halloween. There are thousands of paper back books, and filing cabinets full of articles filed that they think they will use (NEVER have).
They have downsized seven times in the last ten years…and the only thing that is smaller is the dwelling.
I won’t do that to my kids!
@Marilyn, it’s good to hear that you found a company to do that. There have got to be a few of them in Austin! I am still in touch with a few of their younger friends (my age), so I think I will ask some of them to help me find a company.
Maybe pay to send one of your kids down to help? Good bonding time with the grandparents as well as being helpful. I’ve taken to paying my kids to do things on their school breaks for us or their grandparents. I’d rather give them my $ than a stranger.
I find it interesting that we’ve changed the topic of this thread from us burdening our children with our junk to our parents burdening us with their junk.
Well, maybe the goal is to prevent our parents’ junk from eventually becoming our kids’ junk.
True, lol. But honestly, I haven’t burdened my kids with anything. THEY are the ones who have been storing stuff at our house. At Christmas, they are going through it and we are getting rid of anything they don’t want to take with them.
My parents, as well as my sister’s family, are coming for Christmas. My oldest son’s old room is cleaned out, but his two siblings’ rooms are disasters. Not sure what I’ll do with all their crap.
We will be clearing out our mother’s storage unit over TG as well as the stuff that she has in my house. I can’t deal with it any longer and she won’t ever be able to live independently again.
One thing I found out when my cousin passed away is that churches will often take sets of china to use at funeral luncheons and other receptions.
Funnily enough, Hurricane Matthew has been a good thing. We downsized and moved to NC the night before Hurricane Matthew. My next door neighbor is my father, and his basement flooded with the storm surge. Well, every piece of furniture was discarded, and it is ready for hurricane pick-up. We discarded bags and bags of stuff. None of our stuff was damaged in the storm, because it was in transit. It gave us a new perspective about “stuff”, so when we unpacked something we did not need, it went straight to the “Habitat for Humanity” store. So we have unburdened ourselves of two generations of junk due to one hurricane.
@MaineLonghorn that is a HUGE job for one person to do, both physically and emotionally. Maybe you can hire some teenagers to help with it if you decide to tackle your parents’ house?