"Better hang on to it just in case" ~boomers

A few years ago my wife and I decided to finish the basement. The first step was to clean it out, which involved going through all the junk that I had inherited from various family members. My mom always asserted that all of it was very valuable and CONSTANTLY checked that I still had it all and was taking good care of it.

I went through each item one by one and looked them up. Dishes, nick knacks, all of it. It took me hours. The highest value item was maybe $10. Several large and heavy boxes that I had been obligated to haul around to all of the places I lived for the last 30 years, as my mother constantly asked me about them. It was all worth maybe $100, if I made the effort to attempt to sell it. Which would have taken a lot of time as we're talking dozens of fragile things. It just was not worth it.

I shoved it all into the trunk of my car and took it to the dump. My Mom died in 2011, so she wasn't around to check up on all that crap.

God damn I was so pissed. 30 fucking years of hauling that worthless junk around probably cost far more than it was worth. My mother was so insistent that I even had it sitting around taking up space in my basement 12 years after her death. Just another one of her little power plays.

I am currently living in my great-grandparents' house. Every room is tiny and filled with stuff three generations of my family kept. I have four tiny rooms and my whole life is stuffed into 3/4 of one cause my parents refuse to part with anything.

I guess what I'm really asking is... could you use my grandma's antique dining table in your studio apartment?

They inherited the poverty mentality of "hang on to it just in case" while failing to give the "I should pay my fair share so the next generation can survive" one...

I have a big bread baker's Hoosier cabinet in my kitchen. I'm not a baker, I've never had any use for it.

Very similar to this one, with a flour sifter, and slide-out porcelain steel table:

My older sister shipped it to me without asking me, and then told me it was coming about two days before it arrived. Our mom had just died, and my sister didn't have room for it, but she "wanted it to stay in the family."

It is a beautiful piece, solid oak, probably over 100 years old. So, I kept it. It just sits there, taking up space in my barely-big-enough kitchen. I expect when I die, my only son will sell it. I should probably just sell it now, my sister would hate me for it, though.

Years ago in college my mom tried to dump her old CRT TV on me with a roku.

"we're leaving this tv with you"

"I don't want it, if you leave it here I am throwing it out"

"Oh son you could use it to watch netflix"

"or mom i could watch netflix on my phone, my smart tv, my xbox one, my xbox 360, my ps3, my computer, my other computer, my other other computer all of which would be in high resolution. If you leave that here I am putting it where it belongs, in the trash"

This is a shortened version of the conversation that went on far too long with me getting more and more annoyed with being given garbage.

My wife's parents have a ton of antique furniture. They've given us some stuff, it is out in the garage now. They see our furniture, it is more modern. My mother in law has been pouty, "oh, I guess we need to sell all this before we die! You aren't going to want any of this." Thank you, yes. That is exactly what I want. I know that was supposed to be a guilt trip, but that is exactly what we want. Lol

The table is never the issue. The problem are the impratical heavy and bulky chairs. I could put the table against a wall and use it as a countertop move it to the center once in a blue moon when I receive lots of people. But what should a do with chair to feel up a room?

If it's solid oak you bet your ass I'll take it. I'll never tell you that I'll scrap it for parts though. New wood is expensive and planing and joining wood is a pain, cutting some cabinet doors from a table is way easier.

A friend of mine lost his 4 generations old family home in some bushfires about 10 years ago. He will never admit it to his extended family but he says it was a blessing.

His house was full of shit that as nice as it was and the sentimental value of the huge dining table that great grandad built with the tree that got brought down in the storm in the top paddock in 32 was real. He felt like he couldnt change anything, couldnt sell anything and was stuck living in his grandparents house.

Everybody out here complaining that their apartment is not big enough to fit this in but... do you even have 11 friends?

My grandma was the last one to go of all her sisters.

Her apartment had EIGHT full coffee sets, cups, plates, saucers, sugar dishes etc. just because she inherited them from her siblings and thought we’d want them

Nobody wants any of them, they’re old and pretty and also worth exactly zero euros.

I'll take it to use as a computer desk.

Classic mom logic: ‘It’s an heirloom, it’ll fit.’ 😅 Honestly though, the table deserves a dining room… and your studio deserves to keep having floor space.

How many sets of china would you like?

This type of shit is why we have a 1980s cot in the attic. We have no children. We have no plans of having children. We have stated multiple times that we don't want children.

Yet there it is anyway, covered in nicotine stains, until mother in law carks it, and the wife can finally be satisfied that she's not going to visit for a random inspection.

Mom is in the same boat, that is why she is asking!

I really don’t like how it’s so common nowadays for furniture to not even outlive one person. It became fashion thanks to IKEA. Fuck IKEA.

If a landlord can split a 100m2 apartment into five 20m2 studios, she needs to cut up the table and make 5 leaner, easier to implement, 2.4 person tables. Embrace the hustle grindset, mom.