A Mansion Full of Memories
Last week, I wrote about strategies for downsizing to a smaller home. I’d like to tell you about a family who approached me to help sell a stately mansion in Kitchener that was once owned by a bootlegger but was filled to the rafters with stuff and had fallen into disrepair. The home had so many things piled in the rooms that I couldn’t see the walls and couldn’t enter the garage at all. It was very overwhelming for everyone involved to figure out how to eliminate mountains of memorabilia and collectables to make this home sellable while respecting the emotional value that the inhabitants gave to the items they had amassed.
Once I had walked through the home—as best I could—I thought about it for a day and then presented them with my plan.
The first job was to rent an apartment where the owner of the home would eventually move to.
The owner and his partner were in their 70’s and their adult children were busy with their own families so I suggested they hire a downsizing firm to help with decisions of what to take to the new apartment, as well as the packing, moving, and unpacking of these treasured items.
The downsizer visited the new apartment and discussed with the couple how to use the space, then measured the rooms and made a floor plan to see how much of the old furniture and possessions would fit. The new apartment was 1,300 square feet—not a lot of room for the items that currently filled a large mansion!
Each week, the downsizer and the couple went through one room in the mansion and decided what they would keep and what they would let go of. The downsizer gave the couple assignments to complete, like go through paperwork or books and pick what they wanted or needed to keep. For example, there were over 1,000 books in the home and only about 100 would fit into the new home. The owners reviewed each book and decided what to keep or dispose of.
On moving day, the movers moved all the carefully packed boxes and marked furniture to the new home. Some items that they couldn’t decide what to do with were packed and moved to a storage locker for future decision-making. The downsizer then unpacked and placed everything in the new home, including hanging pictures. The new home was ready for the couple to sleep in that night.
With the owner out of the house, the family members went in and decided what they wanted to have as keepsakes. I went in next and decided what would be good to keep in the house for staging while it was on the market. Anything that wasn’t kept for staging was removed from the house.
Now it was time to prepare the house for sale. I helped the family hire painters, a handyman, a gardener, and a window-washing service. We painted the entire house and repaired small items like loose steps and missing door handles. I even had a new lamp shade installed into a lovely original light fixture in the main hall. The gardener revived a beautiful garden and installed large planters at the front of the house.
I brought in a stager and we staged vignettes with furniture and accessories in most of the rooms. Vignettes involve placing only a couple of items in a room to suggest how the room might best be used.
Finally, we had professional pictures and a video done of the house and put it on the market. It sold in 2 weeks for more than the family had ever imagined.
Need help selling your family home? Let me know. I’d be thrilled to pull together my creative resources to create a plan and help you implement it so your whole family can keep the treasures they’ve collected while simplifying everyone’s lives.