I have a new client, we are working on her kitchen. Her kitchen is like many older kitchens, the space is used poorly and the cabinet space is very little.
She also doesn't have a dishwasher. So all of her plates and cups and glasses end up sitting on the drying rack. Instead of putting things away, like many people she just recycles whatever she needs from the clean drying rack pile. Sound familiar?
All of her plates are mismatched sets, hand me downs, and scattered around her precious cabinet space completely unused. So part of our makeover is going to be open storage and new plates. Probably something clean,white, timeless.
She pointed out her grandmothers plates. I asked her if she wanted to keep them and use them, if it was important to her, it would be important to my design. She said she wasn't sentimental and she would pack them up and store them in the basement.
How many of us have said that? Done that? Regretted that? Thought about it for years as a burden? Later needed to clean the space, unwrapped the item and then didn't know what to do with it?
Well that's pretty much what I told her. I think it's better to offer the plates to someone else in the family, in this case her mother or aunt and to keep one tea cup. Use the tea cup, think of her grandmother when she does, see the tea cup, let the memories visit her on a daily or weekly basis. That is a better way to honor her grandmother.
There is a way to be sentimental and have beautiful design.
What do you think? Have you ever been in this position? Have you stored something only to regret it?
I LOVE this advice. My Mom keeps everything (she's not quite a hoarder, but she's very sentimental) and she has somewhat instilled that sentimental keeping of things in me. When I was younger and my Mom would ask me to get things together to donate, she would always go through my pile and pull out things that she said I wasn't allowed to donate because "so and so made that for you" or whatever other reason. These were always things I didn't use or didn't want and I didn't see the point of keeping. I think I do have a hard time letting things go because of that, but I also know how valuable physical space and peace of mind are. I have a lot of boxes I need to go through from my childhood and we have boxes of stuff in the basement that my husband's grandmother gave him that we don't use or want, but he's reluctant to get rid of them. I'm hoping that as we clean out our basement this year, we'll do a lot more purging than we have in the past.
ReplyDeleteI think you gave great advice, Jen! :-) xx
ReplyDeleteThat is great advise and she will get so much more pleasure from the one thing she will use than from a box she will have to store
ReplyDeletei completely agree! we have some of my nana's dishes and i was able to get some in the sideboard, but i am hoping to be able to get some shelving in the kitchen and use them more often.:)
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