Estate Sales Blues Once More

Hello! Back in August, I had blogged about having mixed emotions when attending estate sales. On the one hand, I can purchase affordable vintage items, but on the other hand, it can be sad when it's relatives running such sales. I tried to comfort one woman who looked sad as she presided over a sale of her mother's estate. 

Now it's my family's turn to be sad as an estate sale firm is in the process of cleaning up my parents' house to make it more marketable - it's sat on the market for two years now. And for various reasons, an estate sale of my parents' household will be happening in a few weeks. It's not what anybody in the family really wants, but I'll leave it at that. 

Anyway, I went to the house yesterday to retrieve a few items I had made and given to my mom as gifts in years past. I also wanted to walk around the house and take a few pictures before the estate sale crew changed the house around too much. As it was, I walked into a house with piles of stuff all over the place and a work crew cleaning woodwork, patching walls and throwing out stuff into a dumpster parked behind the house. 

Nevertheless, I took a few interior photos, which I'll show off:

A built-in, floor-to-ceiling cabinet in the dining room. It was a royal pain to dust (which my mom insisted on having done every Saturday), especially because of all the knick-knacks my mom displayed in the nooks and crannies. But it's a lovely piece of woodworking. 

Close-up of one of the two glass-doored shelves at the top of the unit.

These drawers are at the bottom of the cabinet and are quite deep. 

This window, which is also in the dining room, is an example of the downstairs windows. Nice wood, just like the cabinet - and also a pain to dust!

Beveled glass window in the living room. (the stained glass-style angel is newer; it had been a gift to my mom). The bevels act like prisms when it's sunny outside and cast rainbow patterns on the opposite wall. When I was a kid I used to love that!

Staircase leading up to the second floor - more nice wood. 

This rectangular recessed area is next to the fireplace. My mom told me it was for a telephone - the old kind that was mounted onto a wall. 

Chandelier in the den (some people might have called it a TV room). 

Instead of flipping a switch, these knobs are turned to make lights come on. One of these knobs turns on the chandelier seen above. 

One exterior shot: 

Henry C. Kudner had the house built, sometime around the turn of the 20th C, my mom had said. She said Kudner had been a newspaper publisher, and from doing a bit of Internet research, I learned he also was into lumbering. Perhaps that's how the house ended up with such nice woodwork? I always liked having a name over the front door, even if it wasn't our own last name.

It's sad to see the home going through so many changes (it's been in my family since the mid 1960's), but with my mom dead nearly three years now, and my dad in assisted living for nearly a year, it's not the same now anyway. 

Of course, I visited my dad at the nearby assisted living facility:

Here's looking at you, Dad! He looks pretty good for 91, doesn't he? 

Hope you enjoyed the mini tour of the house - would have taken even more pictures, but the rest of the house was being worked on. I'll have to be satisfied with pictures in my mind, I suppose!