This is a friend of a friend situation. My friend J is helping her friend R clean out his mother’s house.
R described his mom as a hoarder. I spoke today to J. who said she’s not a hoarder, she just saves everything, but takes care of it. She also said the house was kind of frozen in the 60s and early 70s. She said the mom clearly took pride in decorating and also in dressing well. The furniture is good quality and all matched. There are tons of clothes, shoes, and accessories that are in great shape.
J has done a lot of this kind of helping and usually just calls a veterans’ organization to just donate anything that doesn’t go straight into the dumpster, but in this case she can’t help feeling that there’s something better or different in store for these rooms.
The house is in eastern Pennsylvania, about an hour and a half from Philadelphia and two and a half from NYC.
Neither she nor I know anything about the prop business, but she knows I ask about all kinds of stuff on the boards and asked if I would post about this, so here I am.
Take some good photos of the better stuff and perhaps create a short list of the items you have.
If you call some of the prop houses, I am sure they can give you an email address of the person who is in charge of properties and they would know if this is something they could use. If so, my guess is they might make an offer to pick it all up - but don’t expect a huge windfall but at least they will pay something and take it away.
However, once you have those photos - and if the stuff is really as cool/good as you say - you might also contact and email photos to:
Vintage furniture places in your area and NYC.
Staging companies (they put furniture in empty homes in order to sell them faster).
Consignment businesses (they put them out for sale, giving you a set dollar amount and they take the commission).
I mean, once you have some good photos and a list of other items, you might as well put them out there. If nothing else, maybe even eBay or Craiglist?
Last ditch - there are companies who come to see what you have and they take them all or put them in estate sales. Often they will offer to buy the whole shebang and haul it all away.
Thanks. I haven’t been to the house in question, but I can only guess it’s remarkable to cause her reaction. She’s been through this process with her own grandparents and her in-laws. She’s got consigners to call and favorite charities.
A reputable estate liquidation/sale company would probably be the best bet. They would know what has value, what doesn’t, know how to get the best prices, and where.