All The Special Things!

I think we very often live in a super disposable, consumerist world which does nothing for either the environment or our own wellbeing. Fast fashion be it for the home or the body is hollow and at the end of the day leaves nothing behind but rubbish. I’m not saying it doesn’t occasionally have a place but I do wonder if we simply throw away the old for being old when we could hold on to it more and nurture something far more worthwhile.

There’s a fine line of course because it’s easy to slip the other way and hold onto things which are worthless and clutter up our lives both in reality and metaphorically but there are some things which are, or should be, just too important to discard.

When my Grandparents passed away leaving their worldly goods to both my Mum and myself, it was a tremendous job deciding which of the things they had worked hard all their lives for, could stay within our family and which we simply didn’t need. We had to make that call of course and I’m sure we made some bad decisions but we also made some good and one of the things I’m eternally grateful that we did was to put into storage some of the very important pieces so that when we had the room we could rediscover them.

I regret giving away my Grandma’s bedroom furniture to the point I can’t even really think about it. Beautifully made art deco dressing table, wardrobe and bed just gone when it could now sit in my large bedroom where I have to room for it, a space that wasn’t my option back then and for some reason the set didn’t make the grade for storing. It was a mistake and I wish that it had.

We did however keep lots of important things and I now have my Grandma’s dining set which has only just come back to me after a decade. It’s almost like finding parts of her all over again. Little antique jugs which she kept the receipts and information for inside them have come out of boxes like little treasures full of messages and I’m adoring holding the cut glass crystal which was so important to her. It’s not even that these things are necessarily my taste, or they weren’t at least until I had them, but what chose them and loved them and held on to them is now gone and the gone can’t be brought back so it’s all that’s left. Memories in items, I mean it’s not always the right thing to cling to but sometimes, the items just mean too much!

Now Storage self storage in Reading is somewhere I shall be recommending to family when they move and downsize in the near future. To leave a big house and move somewhere much smaller will mean letting go of lots of things but actually there are some items I am sure they will want to hold onto until they make more decisions going forwards. It’s not clinging on, it’s simply preserving and I’m all for it having seen the benefits of saving some of the really special things.

We had a tiny flat in London at the time my Grandma died and there was no room to swing a cat let alone own a full dinner service. I always knew that 9one day we would have that space and it was 100% the right decision to make – like a little insurance policy looking after all the important things until you need them again!

Collaboration.