Cherishing Antique Furniture Handed Down To You
Most of us will reach the point where inheritance will not be purely money and properties. This can even go as far as your grandma’s old furniture at the ancestral homes which can really be a rare find and may even cost a fortune. If not, it is the sentimental value that they provide that is really the valuable part in them.
But considering the way that people look up to the modern furniture designs, the fact is people are torn between valuing handed down stuff and setting their sights towards newer furniture by disposing the old ones. Of the two, you are bound to hear a lot of bickering from your relatives most pointing out to you how money could be more important than something of sentimental value from your ancestors.
Here is the problem with family furnishings: they are never simply stuff. As hard as it may be to dispose of a piece of furniture you bought with the fellow who turned out to be your ex-husband, it is far more difficult to get rid of a piece bequeathed to you by a member of a previous generation, which carries with it not only your memories, but his or hers as well.
Even today, when so many people favor simple, modern décor, turning your back on a grandmother’s tea set or ornate settee can feel like betrayal. Admit to your family you’re thinking of getting rid of such a piece and you’re likely to kick off a family opera, with crescendoing wails of “How could you?” Quite likely, you’ll be torturing yourself with the same question.
Ambivalence and guilt, it seems, are central elements of furniture inheritance, the anchoring pieces around which everything is organized, like the sofa in a living room. Barry Lubetkin, a psychologist and the director of the Institute for Behavior Therapy in Manhattan, has observed this in a number of patients living with inherited furniture they hate. It’s an unhealthy setup, in which people become “slaves to inanimate objects,” he says. “Once you’re defining it as something you can’t get rid of, you’re not in control of your life or your home.”
(Source) The New York Times
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