Cash instead of Clutter

So yesterday I just could NOT stand it anymore. I was going to wait until my dining room table was cleared of critters (they are bunking upstairs while the basement is being worked on) but I just couldn't take it anymore and decided to go through my china collection.

I have a long, mixed history with my china collection. You see, I was engaged for several years before I actually got married and had a house, and during that time I found myself desperately trying to "buy" my way through time faster, like, if I had a full house full of stuff the house would magically appear to contain it, you know?

Yeah, it didn't work. I just ended up with a bedroom closet stuffed full with housewares and huge credit card bills. Mom gave me a loan for the credit cards...and that was the WORST feeling ever--having to owe Mom. Truly. I think I learned the lesson better than I would have by paying finance charges, because the feeling was so squicky.

Once they were paid off, and I was married with house, I couldn't wait to unpack all of these things and use them! Unfortunately, we had to do a lot of work on the house, and the house was very small to begin with, and so I had a storage problem right off the bat. It's tough to store 8 sets of dishes plus serving pieces when you don't even have an actual dining room.

Even worse, I had a sinking feeling as I unpacked many of them---I didn't really like them anymore. I had been in such a buying frenzy that I had bought many things that weren't my style or my taste. Because I had not yet embraced the idea that if I didn't love it, I could get rid of it, I felt I was consigned to the keeping of this object forever. This object that I went into debt for, stored, hauled around.....

When I moved into a larger house with a real live dining room, I again couldn't wait to unpack my things. Now I could have EVERYTHING in the dining room, displayed and beautiful and ready to use. I took a day off from work to fill my new dining room furniture--I was that excited. After about an hour, I nearly cried. Already everything was full! I had wanted to have everything stored so that it could be removed without unpacking the entire piece of furniture, and not only did I not have room for that I could barely CRAM everything in.

Sometimes I looked at those things and sighed--I didn't like them that much. I had either bought them or registered for them for my wedding. But I never thought that I could actually get rid of them. On Mother's Day, the year I was pregnant, I was going to host the family at my house for brunch. I had a pretty new tablecloth and I started to set out my best set of dishes.....and I sat down and cried.

I didn't love those dishes--I didn't even like them. They looked stupid and tacky in my dining room. I really really wished I could have a set of nice, plain, cream colored dishes to set off my dark wood furniture. My husband sort of laughed and told me that of course I could have new dishes, and bought them for me that evening. I proudly used them the next day. About a year later I managed to sell the ones I didn't like, too.

And so I had gotten rid of the Southwestern dishes I didn't like. I also gave a set of holiday dishes to my cousin (she does Xmas brunch, not me). I never cared much for "theme" dishes anyway. Now I was down to things that I did like, but maybe didn't use or didn't like that much. And those things took up so much room in my furniture that I couldn't display the things I DID like, like my cream dishes, or my grandma's rose dishes, or my collection of colored vases.

I decided to take everything out of the china cabinet and display the things I wanted, store the things I needed, and then sell the rest. And so this morning, I was able to post a number of things on my employee exchange and I have already netted $30. Not too bad!