What to do with all the "stuff" you inherited?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might soften the blow if you create a space for some books in your current house. Get some nice built-ins for the rare books and say how important it is for you to have a piece of the library in your house, but you won’t be able to keep all of them.

+1

Be gracious and considerate of their feelings. They think they are doing you a favor, so treat the ILs kindly about the matter. They want you to have them, but it is just not practical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would have been a lovely tradition in 1819.

I'm not sure it's a gift today.

OP here, you are right, I think it is a nice tradition when the time was different, nowadays I mainly read on my Kindle app on ipad. Books are actually very high maintenance.

[Anonymous]

Maybe you can donate them to a school or local library in their honor -- have a plaque made to hang over the shelves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might soften the blow if you create a space for some books in your current house. Get some nice built-ins for the rare books and say how important it is for you to have a piece of the library in your house, but you won’t be able to keep all of them.

+1

Be gracious and considerate of their feelings. They think they are doing you a favor, so treat the ILs kindly about the matter. They want you to have them, but it is just not practical.

OP here. I agree with you, but I don't know if there is a way at all to decline the offer and still make them believe we are gracious.

ILs are very nice people though, but older people can be sensitive you know. I do not want to hurt any one's feelings. If we had a mansion I would be happily take all the books, well, maybe not happily.

[Anonymous]

It obviously depends on what your husband wants, but if some are rare and museum worthy, maybe it's time to find the museum that would like them in the collection. If they are just random books it's kind of ridiculous to keep paying to store them in either your house or a storage unit forever. They aren't helping anyone there! What's the point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This would have been a lovely tradition in 1819.

I'm not sure it's a gift today.

OP here, you are right, I think it is a nice tradition when the time was different, nowadays I mainly read on my Kindle app on ipad. Books are actually very high maintenance.

+1 We're thinking of moving, and I'm actually thinking of donating/trashing most of our books. I read on my ipad. Keep the valuable ones or the ones that have meaning to your DH, but to be discussing building a bigger house to accommodate a collection of 30K books is nuts. Technology has moved on.

[Anonymous]

One admittedly wasteful option would be for them to specifically bequeath a sum of money to you for the purpose of maintaining the storage unit. Complete waste of money but if someone else is paying for the storage unit then maybe it is less objectionable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It obviously depends on what your husband wants, but if some are rare and museum worthy, maybe it's time to find the museum that would like them in the collection. If they are just random books it's kind of ridiculous to keep paying to store them in either your house or a storage unit forever. They aren't helping anyone there! What's the point?

+1 Go watch a Marie Kondo episode. These things should bring you joy, not cause you to move house because you need to keep them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One admittedly wasteful option would be for them to specifically bequeath a sum of money to you for the purpose of maintaining the storage unit. Complete waste of money but if someone else is paying for the storage unit then maybe it is less objectionable.

Meh. Money is fungible. A few thousand a year for a storage unit could help pay for your kid's college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is DH's family tradition that DH gets all the books from his parent's library, I estimated there will be 20k -30k books (could be more, I can't count all of them, I head that many cases of books are in storage, not on shelves). Our modest house cannot possibly hold all those books, so what do we do? Passing down the family library is their tradition started 3 generations ago. Will it hurt their feelings if we tell them we can't handle the number of books? Shall we build a big house to house all the books once we are a bit older and have more $$? We can't afford a big house right now. And also I probably would want to downsize later in life anyway, I wouldn't want a 5000 sqft house when I'm retired.

Maybe you never have to inherit books, but maybe you had to deal with other "stuff" passed down to you. What did you do with those "stuff". Any suggestion?

Roll away dumpster or find another family member who wants to drag around a lifetime albatross of trash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It obviously depends on what your husband wants, but if some are rare and museum worthy, maybe it's time to find the museum that would like them in the collection. If they are just random books it's kind of ridiculous to keep paying to store them in either your house or a storage unit forever. They aren't helping anyone there! What's the point?

+1 Go watch a Marie Kondo episode. These things should bring you joy, not cause you to move house because you need to keep them.

I know, I am OP. I've been a Marie Kondo fan ever since her first book came out. And I have been de-cluttering at my house. My house is now as clutter free and organize as it can be! My problem is just that I can't force Marie Kondo's method on my in laws, how can I get them to understand that those books are not necessary? I don't want to hurt their feelings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might soften the blow if you create a space for some books in your current house. Get some nice built-ins for the rare books and say how important it is for you to have a piece of the library in your house, but you won’t be able to keep all of them.

+1

Be gracious and considerate of their feelings. They think they are doing you a favor, so treat the ILs kindly about the matter. They want you to have them, but it is just not practical.

OP here. I agree with you, but I don't know if there is a way at all to decline the offer and still make them believe we are gracious.

ILs are very nice people though, but older people can be sensitive you know. I do not want to hurt any one's feelings. If we had a mansion I would be happily take all the books, well, maybe not happily.

Sounds like generational hoarding. How you. And selfish to dump that on you. Unless that collection contains the Dead Sea scrolls, it's worthless. Times have changed.

[Anonymous]

Look OP, you either hurt your inlaws feelings a bit by being upfront before they die. OR you lie to them and get rid of the collection after they die. That's pretty much your choices.

The 3rd choice, accepting, maintaining, and GROWING, an insane collection of books that no one even uses or looks at is completely out of the question.

I'd start letting your DH know your feelings now. I can't believe you'd even consider buying a huge house just to have a home for books you don't even want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It obviously depends on what your husband wants, but if some are rare and museum worthy, maybe it's time to find the museum that would like them in the collection. If they are just random books it's kind of ridiculous to keep paying to store them in either your house or a storage unit forever. They aren't helping anyone there! What's the point?

+1 Go watch a Marie Kondo episode. These things should bring you joy, not cause you to move house because you need to keep them.

I know, I am OP. I've been a Marie Kondo fan ever since her first book came out. And I have been de-cluttering at my house. My house is now as clutter free and organize as it can be! My problem is just that I can't force Marie Kondo's method on my in laws, how can I get them to understand that those books are not necessary? I don't want to hurt their feelings.

Your in-laws may see the light over time. My ILs have a ton of stuff (books, VHS tapes, souvenir collections), but after an elderly relative of theirs died and they had to get rid of all that stuff, they said they didn't want to put that burden on their kids, and have been slowing selling off the valuable stuff, and marking other things for trash/donation. It's very thoughtful of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might soften the blow if you create a space for some books in your current house. Get some nice built-ins for the rare books and say how important it is for you to have a piece of the library in your house, but you won’t be able to keep all of them.

+1

Be gracious and considerate of their feelings. They think they are doing you a favor, so treat the ILs kindly about the matter. They want you to have them, but it is just not practical.

OP here. I agree with you, but I don't know if there is a way at all to decline the offer and still make them believe we are gracious.

ILs are very nice people though, but older people can be sensitive you know. I do not want to hurt any one's feelings. If we had a mansion I would be happily take all the books, well, maybe not happily.

Then maybe fib to them and take them, but don't keep them. Donate them to a good cause - a school, or something they would not be all that mad about, if they were alive.

They sound like good people, trying to do a good thing. I would feel differently if they were pushy and entitled about it.