Wow, great minds think alike! LOL I have been wondering about her as well. But I am confused. Wasn't she remodeling her house, including the kitchen, back in 2007? I remember because DH and I were going to Italy and she told a story about her trip to Venice. I jokingly invited her to join us but she was in the middle of remodeling. And she had this picture of her decorated temporary kitchen in the garage. Did she halt the remodeling? I have been mostly wondering about her son who had a rare condition and they were fighting it w/o using tube-feeding. Was he able to overcome it? How is he? I have been genuinely concerned and waiting for the promised headlines about the "first family to overcome ..." Igloo or her "mommy", if you are reading this, could you update on the status?

They don't have any real tilt tops: the one with the lamp growning out of it is a 20th century adaptation of a tilt top candlestand, and the ones back by the fireplace are demilune tables. The prices for revival furniture and even the real thing are kind of whatever someone will pay for it right now, to the best of my knowledge. I have seen some kinda ordinary, worn but genuine 18th and 19th c. tilt tops go for a few thousand tops at auction. However, a few years ago, an anonymous billionaire paid over $8M all told for a piecrust table (tilt top, I believe) by the fabled Garvan Carver.

I usually hang out in Kitchens but just popped in here to find this. Interesting discussion. Personally, I think the author is a selfish witch to want to burden her children with all this. I'm on year 5 of attempting to curate the possessions my parents left me, determine what has sentimental value and actual value, which things to keep forever to pass down to my children (with their input of what they would want), and sell or donate the rest. My house is not my own due to all the boxes. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. It is taking me forever because it's emotionally overwhelming and the sheer huge number of items takes time. And all this is after two garage sales of all the items that were clearly not sentimental or valuable. And two family work days in which they have already taken the items they want or have room for now. As I go through these items, I'm photographing items and scanning photos/letters/documents with the idea of creating photo books full of the photos and family stories/history. I will leave these for my children. I am also trying to value items that I intend to keep and will leave my children a notebook with photos of the items so they know as much as possible about the specifics of the item (value, date/country of origin, history of why it's in the family, etc.). This will make it easier for them to make decisions when the time comes. My mom would periodically tell me these things but even though I requested she write it all down numerous times, she never did. I'm not sure how accurate my memory is so I'm struggling to do the best I can on this but it would have been so much more accurate had she done it herself. Due to having to deal with this mess, again, i would never burden my children with this. I bought my parent's home. I have the luxury of time and space to do this. It is highly likely my children won't. Neither live locally. My son works overseas and will likely remain an expatriate. They will probably need to make quick decisions that would result in the loss of family history if I don't get this done. In the end, my goal is to leave them with several different printed photobooks with as much family history and stories as I can gather and include. These will likely be divided into: maternal history from great-great grandparents to when my mom married my dad fraternal history from great-grandparents to when he married my mom my parents life together my life before marrying my husband my husband's life before he married me our life together up to the point where I actually complete this project and create the book I have also gathered up and organized all the school papers, art projects, and such I kept from their childhoods and will create a book of photos and stories about them from birth to high school graduation. I'm doing this more for their children's enjoyment (if either ever have any) than for their own but I'm sure they will enjoy that, too. Once these are done, I'll print three copies, one for each of my kids and one for me. I will also gift my nieces the books about their grandparents. My goal is that they will simply need to look in the book listing the items in the house to determine what they want to keep (and then they'll know everything possible about the item), and be able to make quicker decisions about what's worth trying to sell to collectors or eBay or whatever, what is garage sale, and what items should really be donated to a couple of our local museums. If they're not in a position to keep any or most of the actual items themselves, they'll have the books. That's the most important thing to me anyway. It's not the items themselves but, rather, the family stories and history behind them. I just hope I live long enough to complete these projects! So very time consuming.

greenacresmama I absolutely agree with you that some things are better felt when one lives in the house already..thus can be considered better, chosen more wisely But. My experience..was it especially draining or just draining like everybody else's I can't judge(I am getting very exhausted easily lately that's true..disproportionally so) but after two years of re-building, I don't have it within myself to do anything significant. We have to do some hardscaping/landscaping yet..we looked at each other me and DH,,imagined going through something albeit much smaller even for a month or so..we told each other "next year"..we still have to install one closet..our guys didn't do it on time and we told them "we'll find somebody local"..6 month fast forward, still no closet.. no, I think-as hard as it was to imagine everything, plan everything, source everything, put everything together..be my own freaking designer..and lighting designer..:) (I'm the opposite..banned can lights from all spaces but utilitarian-kitchen, bath, corridor..but ceiling lights pendants and chandeliers are everywhere I could put them..that's how I grew up-we always had overhead lighting..and yes I have table lamps, sconces, floor lamps as well..love all lights, don't discriminate..except for poor can things..)..in short as hard as it was..it's past me. Mostly. I wouldn't have the stamina to go through things once again.. I'm happy to be at stage I'm agonizing over art placement..the rest is whatever. There's just a limit to that building/rebuilding/remodeling thing..I easily believe everybody has theirs, depending on age energy circumstances..I for now reached mine. I'm tired as hell-still. It's easier to be tired as hell in a house that is already what you envisioned it to be, more or less. But again. Putting my personal experience aside-there's wisdom in what you saying. One learns to know himself I suppose, and know his MO, and what will work for him. That's why I listed our previous place in the worst time possible..because I know my husband and his MO. We'd still be carrying that other house, caring for it trying to show it to sell or to rent it and handle the landlord thing..no. Just no. That would give us a bit more money. But it would do us in. Had to wrap this thing with handling two houses up. And my husband doesn't like wrapping things up. So I insisted. So we probably got 10-15 K less than if in spring market. But we kept at least some of our remaining sanity. (Of course judging by the sheer volume of this post it's hard to definitely tell lol)))