Sometimes a box holds the memories of a lifetime.
I’m spending two weeks this summer at my parents’ house in Illinois, going through the house, attic, and basement, sorting through 45 years worth of accumulated life’s possessions.
Going Back in Time
As I make my way down the rickety basement stairs, it’s as if each step carries me further back into my childhood.
There are the boxes underneath the stairs, which I was never allowed to go into. “It’s just dusty old things that wouldn’t interest you,” my mother always said, which made it all the more enticing.
We escaped to the cool basement in the summer months since our house wasn’t air conditioned, watching my dad work at his workbench or “potchin’ around” with his massive collection of screws, nails, and metal bits, carefully arranged in drawers and baby food jars hung from metal shelves.

Many tools from my dad and my mom’s husband’s collections.
A Huge Task
Our situation was not immediate, but my brother and I knew we needed to face the task of helping mom tackle the often-overwhelming job of starting to pare down her overflow of boxes. After almost 50 years in one house, plus combining households with her husband a number of years ago, the basement was packed from wall to wall, and much of the stuff hadn’t been touched in years.

Mom’s Basement
Sometimes these sort-throughs come at stages of intense grief, like after the death of a parent or spouse. Thankfully my mom is alive although she’s struggled with a number of health issues in recent years. My father died almost 20 years ago, and my step-father is entering into the next stages of Alzheimer’s and now requires full-time care.
What Do You Do With All This Stuff?
As I’ve talked with other people about my plans, I’ve learned most of us go through this process at one time or another (or several times) with a parent, grandparent, or at our own house.
One of the biggest decisions in these situations is how to deal with all the things that needs to be sold. You can host a rummage sale, send it to be auctioned, or bring in a company to host an estate sale, and there are pros and cons to each option, which I will cover in a later blog post. You can also consider doing a combination of these options.
Since my cousin Jeff is a semi-professional rummage sale host, we decided to host a rummage sale. (See some of his previous blogs about rummage sales here: Tips for Attending a Rummage Sale, Rummage Sale Tips, Dos and Don’ts of How to Prepare for a Successful Rummage Sale) This option will generally give you the most control and earn you the most income, but keep in mind it’s a LOT of time and work.

Rummage sale
7 Lessons Learned While Cleaning Out My Parents’ Basement
After a tremendous week of laughter, tears, tired legs, and moving tons of boxes, allow me to share 7 lessons learned while cleaning out my parent’s basement.
1. Your items have value.
While it’s easy to say the words, “It’s all just stuff, get rid of it,” the reality is that it’s not so easy. These items hold the touch points to memories of a lifetime, and that matters.
My dad has been gone from this world for almost 20 years, but I’ve learned things about him this last week and been reminded of others I had forgotten.
Strange little bits of life get stashed in boxes.
A random leaflet from a school program of which I didn’t take part. An ugly Christmas mouse, hardly more than cardboard and plastic. A 25-pound textbook with hand-written notes in the margins.

I remember these hanging from our dining room light at Christmas time.
Who would have known, 30 and 50 years later, I would open boxes and discover these items as a treasure?
The school program lists the names of classmates who were and are friends. The Christmas mouse brings long-forgotten memories of the best Christmases a girl could want. The book is laughably outdated, but the handwriting tells of the writer, bringing pain and sweet joy blended together.
2….and they don’t.
In the end, stuff is still stuff, and you’ve lived this whole time without it. Whether the items inside a home have a large resale value, the reality is that most estate sales average anywhere from $2,000-$10,000 after expenses. This is a nice amount of money, but not that much in the greater scheme of things when you consider it’s the accumulation of a lifetime’s worth of assets.
From my own recent move from Colorado to New York, I’ve learned that while items are wonderful for own, for every item you own you must plan for more time and expense taken to care for it.
We used the move as an opportunity to get rid of many things and it was incredibly freeing! I don’t regret parting with a single item.
I’m learning to let go of items, guilt free.
3. Bring someone to reminisce with you.
My brother, Daniel, and I have been going about this working together throughout the week, and I can’t count the number of times one of us has said, “Remember when we used this?” or “Had you seen this one yet?”

Daniel made this key hanger for my dad. It’s still hanging by the back door. This might be my favorite find.
Three of my five children are with me, and sharing this experience with them has been important. They’ve spent hours putting around the basement picking up small random treasures. My son got to try out using a record player for the first time.
4. Bring someone impartial.
On the other hand, impartiality is invaluable in this type of situation. If you go into this overly sentimental, you’ll want to keep every item that makes you tear up. You need someone who can look at your dad’s 40 year collection of magazines or your moms lifetime obsession with plastic containers and say “Throw that away. Stat.”
You will also find yourself getting lost in the stacks for hours. The task is emotionally overwhelming and I tend to just stare at it, or go through one box for an hour.
My cousin Jeff, or my brother’s girlfriend, Brittany, I’ve noticed, can come in and get done 5x the amount of work than what my brother or I can do. Rather than feeling guilt about this, I’m realizing they simply don’t have the emotional connection. It’s stuff, it needs to be dealt with.
6. Give yourself time.
We are fortunate to be able to tackle this job while NOT in the midst of emotional crisis, such as right after the death of a loved one, and it’s still really difficult at times.
I’m find myself emotionally spent at the end of each day. I’ve been reading the Outlander series as a way to give my brain a much-needed escape. (If you haven’t read these books, by the way, I highly recommend them!)
Jeff and I have also laughed ourselves silly over ridiculous things, because that’s just what we do.

Mom told me there was a pink bunny candle she put away when she started baby-proofing the house when I was a toddler. I looked through tons of boxes and never found it. I was just telling Jeff about it when I heard him yelling, “oh! oh! The PINK BUNNY!” Here she is, in pristine condition 40 years later.
7. Decide what to keep, sell, give, and pitch.
The biggest challenge comes in deciding exactly what to do with all this stuff.
- Take pictures. Many of the meaningful items will do just as well with a photograph as with keeping the item. Then either throw it away or donate it.
- Only keep it if you’ll use it. Only keep it if you will somehow use it. Otherwise your kids will be going through boxes 30 years from now wondering what to do with it. If you can’t use it or display it, toss it.
- Too much stuff weighs you down. Just like an extra serving of food is “wasted” when it goes to your hips, extra stuff weighs down your life. For every item you own, you have that much more time and money invested to store, maintain, and upkeep each one.
- You bring your memories with you. You don’t need the items to have the memories.

This candle was on our fireplace every Christmas. Poor Santa fell off so many times his foot broke off. I found him in the boxes under the steps.
Have you cleaned out a parents’ or grandparents’ house? What did you learn?
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Came here looking for tips on cleaning my grandparents basement (i’ve been wanting to tackle it for a while and now that i finished my bachelor i want to dedicate sometime to family before focusing myself on my career) and had comment because of that OUTLANDER recomendation! Ahah loved the series so i got the books 😀 Thank you for the post!
Thanks for sharing, Francisca. I want to get back to reading more of the Outlander series. My goodness it’s wonderful to be lost in a good book, and these are some books where one can do that! 🙂 I hope the basement cleanout goes okay for you. It’s quite the job.
Wow, you left me in tears girl! Both mommy and daddy have been promoted to heaven in the last five years. ? Miss them deeply but look forward to seeing them again. It’s always hard to ‘pack things up’, but the memories it brought back were precious
Sara, I really appreciate this article. I think about my kids coming here and doing the same. YIKES! When my mom passed away my sis and I had only a 1-bedroom apartment to clean through – it was reasonable easy. And we realized our mother stored her treasures up in heaven because she sure didn’t have much on earth.
Susan, I love that your mom stored up treasures in heaven. What a wonderful example she set for you.
It is incredibly hard to part with the stuff because of the memories. I found things I never knew my parents had when I cleaned out my dad’s house aftered he died. I wish I had kept a few things, like the book written by Will Rodgers and a very early Joy of Cooking cookbook. My sister in law was ruthless in selling almost everything for mere dollars just to get the sale over. I wish I had time to check out online selling for some of the things, but it’s over now. Been 8 years since my dad died and we sold his stuff and his house. It was incredily hard. Emotions are raw with grief. Good thing you have your mom there to answer some of your questions aboout your special finds! And I have seriously thought about the stuff I hold onto in my own home.
Thanks for sharing, Cathy. This all must have been so tough for you. We each handle grief differently and it sounds like some of your family members wanted to get everything sold and done with. You speak well when you say emotions are raw with grief. That is exactly what it feels like. ((HUGS))
I was solely responsible for everything when my Aunt died. I went about the task of all he decisions and getting her home ready to sell. I was methodical and went about each task trying to do a ‘good job’. At closing from selling her house, the full remifications of losing her hit me like a ton of bricks. I had mentally tricked myself into believing I was doing all of it to make my ain’t happy and proud… As if she would show up at the end of things and tell me how happy she was. My year and a half of labor ended with me finally grieving her loss.
What I learned:
1. The disassembly of the substance of a person’s life is incredibly painful.
2. They aren’t coming back, no matter how good of a job you do.
Tammy, thank you for this very insightful comment. You are spot-on that this can be such a painful process, and that no matter the job we do, it won’t bring the person back. You have so much wisdom!
OH my. you must have had a time going through all that.
My parents recently moved from the farm. I was too far away to help. I hate to have missed it. So many memories.
This is some good advice too. I’ll pass it along. Coming from 31 day survivors on FB
My brother and I tackled our folks’ house the weekend after Mom’s funeral. He didn’t want to go at it that soon, but we’d already decided that Bill and I were going to move into that house (my brother is happy where he is) and there was much work to be done to fix it up and winter was a-coming. We had to get cracking. The folks had let things go for a long time and wouldn’t let us do those things for them.
My brother, jokingly or sometimes not so jokingly, accused me of “not being a bit sentimental” because I went in ruthlessly. Anything he wanted, he took, but if he didn’t want it, and it wasn’t really special, we tossed or sold (in a rummage sale, Jeff!) or donated. I didn’t keep much, and the stuff I did keep was kind of random. Not for value, but for meaning. Mom had a little basket with a china doll attached to the top. She loved that basket and had it all her life. It’s pretty beat up, but I kept that. Dad had a wood tray next to the bed where he tossed his watch and glasses at night. I kept that. I remember when Mom bought that at a thrift store. It’s not an heirloom or antique or even particularly nice, but it reminds me of Dad.
But we had over almost 30 years of our own stuff already (and I was ruthless in purging when we moved!) plus my parents’ 60 years of stuff, and a finite amount of space. The house had to be emptied completely so Bill and his construction trade buddies could do the work of flooring, electrical and plumbing that was so sorely needed to update, and I had to be selective in what remained.
You’re right about learning things you didn’t know, though. They had saved every greeting card we ever gave them, for birthdays and Christmas and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I found the cloth used to wipe my head after baptism in an envelope from Pastor George Beiderwieden at Pilgrim, with a cute letter because the folks had forgotten to take it home that day. The letter was addressed to me. I was two weeks old. LOL They had kept the bill of sale for the one and only purebred dog we ever had, and that dog (RIP) has been dead since I was 5 or 6. It was quite a trip down memory lane.
You’re blessed to be able to do this while your mom is still available to tell the stories and provide the details you might have forgotten. We found things we couldn’t remember and we don’t have anyone to explain them to us.