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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Northern Lights Lodge, post: 4403611, member: 13464&quot;]Glad to help! Like I said; not all those things may apply to your circumstance - but some may be applicable.... and certainly may be things you may need to consider. </p><p><br /></p><p>I loved doing sales; but they are HARD work...dirty, grubby, time crunch, backbreaking labor! </p><p><br /></p><p>If you don&#039;t find what/who you are looking for and have the TIME and desire to do it yourself... it can be done!</p><p><br /></p><p>My sister and I had my Mums estate to deal with. Mum had moved into her mother&#039;s home (and although she had thinned out some of Grandma&#039;s possessions - many still remained along with Great Grandma&#039;s as she had lived with her daughter prior to her death). </p><p><br /></p><p>Mum&#039;s situation was such that we needed to rent the house ASAP to keep her at a senior facility in MY community (400 miles away from her community). This was in May. My sister lived in California - and had fortunately, the good luck to be able to work remotely.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mum had a LOT of small valuable items which we figured were at risk if we left them in an unattended house... so I took a car load of those items home with me immediately.&nbsp; My sister returned to Michigan asap and just &quot;coincidently&quot; had &quot;sight unseen&quot; purchased a home in a nearby community to Mums. Mom didn&#039;t even know, as they had only remotely signed the papers the week before. </p><p><br /></p><p>Once my sister and her hubby arrived (2 weeks later) - the 4 of us (my hubby included) literally &quot;packed up the house and the garage&quot; - in 4 days! Anything we knew would take some time to go through, we packed to be moved to sis&#039;s new &quot;empty&quot; home (a storage building would have worked also).</p><p><br /></p><p>We had boxes labeled for her and for I and also boxes for &quot;donation&quot; and for &quot;garbage&quot;. We started at the top of the house; methodically sorting every item. We had agreed that everything was negotiable - but made split second decisions as to who got what...regardless of value.&nbsp; Drawers of things we left in the drawers as they all got moved to sis&#039;s house. Things we both wanted or that we figured needed to be researched - got packed in the boxes to be moved. Items that no one wanted - we left in piles in each room. Our husbands did basically the same thing in the garage.</p><p><br /></p><p>At the end of that Thursday through Sunday weekend - we called &quot;Two Men and a Truck&quot; - who came and moved all the &quot;to be moved boxes and my sis&#039;s boxes&quot; and some furniture to her new home. Two men emptied the house in 2 1/2 hours! A couple hour drive to her new location - we drove behind them... and they then emptied the truck + all HER boxes and any furniture she wanted into her new place - in 2 hours!</p><p><br /></p><p>The remainder of the summer - (her hubby returned to California) we worked 3 days from my home (researching items, and continuing to sort things that I could get in my car) and then 4 days at her location (we&#039;d set up the beds at her place) and we lived a spartan existence commuting back and forth to Mum&#039;s those 4 remaining days. We priced items for a garage sale, cleaned the garage, my husband did repairs (including putting the stairs back together as Grandma had an upright Concert piano against the knee wall of the stairs to the second floor which had literally pulled the stairs right off the wall! We had to jack up the wall to repair the stairs!). We had a sale at the end of the summer and cleared it to the walls. Had the house cleaned and painted. I ordered appliances.</p><p><br /></p><p>My sister returned to California after the sale. In September I rented the house; and signed the papers TWO days before Mum unexpectedly passed. Mum didn&#039;t want us to sell the house; I think she finally felt at peace that we&#039;d &quot;rented it&quot; and she knew that we weren&#039;t just &quot;dumping&quot; everything in the house... </p><p><br /></p><p>So, the work continued. Boxes of &quot;stuff&quot; that ended up here - I researched; conferred with family - decisions were made - and I must say with no arguments between any family members. (I&#039;m so proud of everyone)!</p><p><br /></p><p>On occasions when my sister could come for a visit - we&#039;d work on boxes that had been stored at her place. We prepared for a sale at her house. The following summer both of them retired and they moved from California. Shortly after they moved in, we had the sale with the last of Mum&#039;s stuff and Mum&#039;s furniture that my sister and our kids no longer needed or wanted.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mum was into genealogy (big time) and I hauled (probably close) to 50 banker&#039;s boxes to a genealogical archive that was thrilled with every scrap I handed off to them. They have agreed to accept her old family photos - which our kids don&#039;t want - if they have names on them. So that&#039;s where most of my two remaining totes will end up. Perhaps the letters too - as they date from the late 1800&#039;s - early to mid 1900&#039;s and are all from family. </p><p><br /></p><p>The bulk of her estate was behind us at that point... but I still had 40+ crates of &quot;stuff&quot; to deal with. As my sis and I have had time to get together; we would crack another crate. Researching, dividing, selling, offering to family. We had agreed NOT to do the jewelry until the very last - the &quot;carrot&quot; at the end of the drudgery!</p><p><br /></p><p>We had another weekend together... as there was a lot! Again we agreed to be negotiable with each other. She got a jeweler&#039;s scale and put a current scrap market value on each item - I researched fair market value ... we each added our values to a paper with each item. The few items that we couldn&#039;t determine - ie: valuable stones or what kind of metal; we took to jeweler who would do a &quot;bag and tag&quot;. He did 12 items in an hour and charged $50. Since we were not planning on selling any of the valuable family items; we figured we didn&#039;t need a formal apprasial).&nbsp; At that point, we took each item - with scrap market value and fair market value and together came up with what we thought was a fair price. </p><p><br /></p><p>The day to divide was upon us. We had decided that after we had made our choices - that we wouldn&#039;t consider that they were &quot;ours&quot; until after we had slept on it. If we were happy; great - if not; we&#039;d renegotiate until we were satisfied. If at any point - we felt differently - we should discuss it. If at some point, any item in the entire estate was not wanted... it would be offered back up to family before being sold. (This was in re: to items of value or historic family items.)</p><p><br /></p><p>We each made a secret list of the 10 items of jewelry that we each wanted the most. Much to our surprise - her top 5, weren&#039;t my top 5. She got hers - I got mine. The five additional; I got to choose one item first, as I was the eldest and executor. And so it went. We would put several like items on the table and taking turns; who ever got to choose first - did. We made a &quot;loose&quot; running total of value and sometimes someone got a second pick to bring their column total up a bit.</p><p><br /></p><p>Items no one wanted - we offered to the kids and sold what they didn&#039;t want.</p><p><br /></p><p>This probably won&#039;t work for everyone as this DID take time! We finished the jewelry 9 years after Mum&#039;s passing. I still have several boxes of &quot;stuff&quot; mostly old family portraits (cabinet cards) and letters. My sis will want a few photos - but mostly isn&#039;t interested.</p><p><br /></p><p>We were lucky in the sense that we had all important TIME to do this and she had jewelry experience and I had estate experience. I had periodically photographed much of Mum and Grandma&#039;s stuff ahead of time and HAD done some research - including asking Mum about family &quot;stuff&quot; - where it came from and what she knew of it.&nbsp; So much of it was already done. It doesn&#039;t matter how much was done - LOL... there of course, was LOTS more!</p><p><br /></p><p>All that was probably waaaay more than you ever wanted to know... </p><p>Again - good luck! Daunting task!</p><p>Cheerio Leslie[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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