Getting Sorted

Regular readers will recall that 2012 was our Annus Horribilis when, among other things, Fester’s brother died suddenly and we had the task of sorting and clearing the family home they had lived in since the 1950s.  Their mother was a comptometer operator and collector of small antiques, dolls, glassware, treen and many other things.   

Their father was an excellent joiner and enabler; building wall-mounted cupboards and finally flooring and fitting out the attic to hold her continually expanding collection.   

It took Fester and me ten weekends of hard work to get everything packed up and sent to Sheffield Auction Galleries for sale.

Useful household items, bedding and towels, bits of furniture and things of sentimental value came back to this home.   That included a succulent which lived on the Sheffield windowsill; which I watered each time we went down and finally brought back with us after our last visit.

My parents died in 2003 and 2011 and it fell to my brother and sisters to sort out our family home.  I used my share of the estate on a loft extension giving Thunderthighs his own bedroom with en-suite.  This enforced replacing the old gas boiler with a condensing one and a full overhaul of the central heating system (thankfully only one radiator needed replacing).   

Little Brother died just as work was really getting underway on the loft so it was an even more interesting summer than we’d anticipated.

The next year Fester used some of the money from the Sheffield Auction Gallery sales to upgrade Chateau Midden’s bathroom and kitchen.

In retrospect it feels as if we had Will Fixit and his minions here for most of a year.

Many of my Facebook friends are and were friends of Fester and Little Brother, and had visited their parents’ home over the years so might be interested in what had happened to their treasures.

From Facebook archives ...

26 March 2013 at 14:39 

Having finished the bathroom Will Fixit is now fixing Delves Avenue things onto walls. 

Thunderthighs has the mirror from the living room in the loft.

The bus-display cabinet and dolls' house are on the stairs and landing waiting for things to be put in them.

The hall mirror is in the hall.

What was my airing cupboard until the tank was taken out now has shelves in so I have somewhere to put the combined Benton/Hackenthorpe towels and bedlinen (we shall never need to buy a towel or pillowcase again).

Ferretfingers may soon have a bedroom free of storage boxes and blanket bags.

The plant that used to be on the windowsill is now covered in pink blossom.

Later 

Mother-in-love’s dolls' house furniture and tiny teds have been returned to the house, together with some other tiny things we found along the way.

The bus display cabinet is now full of buses and other vehicles again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(These photos are recently taken and contain even more tiny things of my own collecting, or given by friends.)