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

[Anonymous]

Inheritance? What?

[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?

We inherited many many books from our great grand parent’s house that had been passed down. We put the word out and 5 of the cousins (two were visiting from out of state) got together, looked them through and took one or two max. Then we blessed them, packed them up and donated them.

[Anonymous]

Why would you torture your own children by agreeing to this? My in-laws are always trying to give us random junk. Thank god my DH doesn’t agree to it and says no all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keeping 30,000 books organized and in good condition is a full time job for several people. There’s also not much purpose in doing it if nobody gets to access the library. Hire professionals to help you sell or auction the collection, then put that money into 529s for your children. Education can still be the legacy that continues.

Tell the kids they only get the 529 money if they major in library science!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Using http://awfullibrarybooks.net/size-matters-estimating-shelf-capacity/ you can get about 12 books per linear foot of shelf space. You'd need 2500 linear feet of shelves for 30k books.

If you did 6-shelf bookcases, and each one was 4 feet wide, (basically the Ikea Hemnes) you'd need 104 bookcases

You can get ~500 books into a BILLY type bookcase from Ikea if you get the extra hutch unit that goes on top of it. So 30,000 books is only 60 of those. Totally do-able!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using http://awfullibrarybooks.net/size-matters-estimating-shelf-capacity/ you can get about 12 books per linear foot of shelf space. You'd need 2500 linear feet of shelves for 30k books.

If you did 6-shelf bookcases, and each one was 4 feet wide, (basically the Ikea Hemnes) you'd need 104 bookcases

You can get ~500 books into a BILLY type bookcase from Ikea if you get the extra hutch unit that goes on top of it. So 30,000 books is only 60 of those. Totally do-able!

Not q chance the OP is accurate in her 30k estimate. Major exaggeration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There is plenty of room for you to be kind to your ILs, who sound very nice but misguided, without compromising your house. Put the books in a storage facility for the short term when you inherit them, and then call in the used book experts. Let them do the inventory and identification of anything valuable, and then donate. Your DH may want the list anyway - books tell you a lot about people. I could see myself going through a list of my parents' books and laughing "what the hell did they get that for?" or "huh, I didn't know they were interested in X and Y." Also, it sounds like there is a lot of history since it's been a generational thing. It'd be a shame to lose all that. You can keep the titles and information but donate the physical books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using http://awfullibrarybooks.net/size-matters-estimating-shelf-capacity/ you can get about 12 books per linear foot of shelf space. You'd need 2500 linear feet of shelves for 30k books.

If you did 6-shelf bookcases, and each one was 4 feet wide, (basically the Ikea Hemnes) you'd need 104 bookcases

You can get ~500 books into a BILLY type bookcase from Ikea if you get the extra hutch unit that goes on top of it. So 30,000 books is only 60 of those. Totally do-able!

I'd pay money to watch someone put together 60 BILLY bookcases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is plenty of room for you to be kind to your ILs, who sound very nice but misguided, without compromising your house. Put the books in a storage facility for the short term when you inherit them, and then call in the used book experts. Let them do the inventory and identification of anything valuable, and then donate. Your DH may want the list anyway - books tell you a lot about people. I could see myself going through a list of my parents' books and laughing "what the hell did they get that for?" or "huh, I didn't know they were interested in X and Y." Also, it sounds like there is a lot of history since it's been a generational thing. It'd be a shame to lose all that. You can keep the titles and information but donate the physical books.

So hey one of the joys of decluttering my dad's house after he died was finding his hidden porn collection...

[Anonymous]

This is NOT your inheritance so you have no say in what your husband does with his inheritance. You need to MYOB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There is plenty of room for you to be kind to your ILs, who sound very nice but misguided, without compromising your house. Put the books in a storage facility for the short term when you inherit them, and then call in the used book experts. Let them do the inventory and identification of anything valuable, and then donate. Your DH may want the list anyway - books tell you a lot about people. I could see myself going through a list of my parents' books and laughing "what the hell did they get that for?" or "huh, I didn't know they were interested in X and Y." Also, it sounds like there is a lot of history since it's been a generational thing. It'd be a shame to lose all that. You can keep the titles and information but donate the physical books.

This sounds good, but my experience is that appraisers are very expensive and you pay them per hour. I think it would be worthwhile to have an appraiser go through the books to see if there are any rare first editions etc., but, if you really want an inventory, I’d hire a college kid to do it.

And if it’s three generations worth of books, I believe it could be 30,000 titles. My husband and I recently thinned out our library and gave away over 40 boxes of books (and we still have several bookshelves full). That’s just what we happened to accumulate — we weren’t trying to build a “library” like OPs family. It’s totally possible that each generation contributed 10,000 books.

[Anonymous]

OP you need to get professional help to separate the valuable books from the non valuable books. Discard or donate the those and sell or keep the valuable ones. Books which are made of paper disintegrate unless kept under certain conditions.
Whatever you do don’t let them in your house! My MIL bought things all the time and cycled them to DH. He brought them home and I recycled. Then we downsized. All this junk in storage units turned up at my new smaller home. Nightmare!

[Anonymous]

OP, when the time comes, just dispose of the collection through an estate sale company. Keep the books you & DH want, but do not keep those you don’t want.

Your ILs will be deceased. They will not know the difference upon death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using http://awfullibrarybooks.net/size-matters-estimating-shelf-capacity/ you can get about 12 books per linear foot of shelf space. You'd need 2500 linear feet of shelves for 30k books.

If you did 6-shelf bookcases, and each one was 4 feet wide, (basically the Ikea Hemnes) you'd need 104 bookcases

You can get ~500 books into a BILLY type bookcase from Ikea if you get the extra hutch unit that goes on top of it. So 30,000 books is only 60 of those. Totally do-able!

Not q chance the OP is accurate in her 30k estimate. Major exaggeration.

OP here, I don't know exactly how many books there are, I don't have time to count them, so I said it was an estimate. Not trying to exaggerate. But also, does it make a difference if, let's say the number is 5000, does that change people's response? they have a very big house, and many rooms have floor to ceiling bookshelves full of books, and like I said, some books are in boxes in their attic - don't know how many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using http://awfullibrarybooks.net/size-matters-estimating-shelf-capacity/ you can get about 12 books per linear foot of shelf space. You'd need 2500 linear feet of shelves for 30k books.

If you did 6-shelf bookcases, and each one was 4 feet wide, (basically the Ikea Hemnes) you'd need 104 bookcases

You can get ~500 books into a BILLY type bookcase from Ikea if you get the extra hutch unit that goes on top of it. So 30,000 books is only 60 of those. Totally do-able!

I'd pay money to watch someone put together 60 BILLY bookcases.

OP here, hmmm, maybe I should start a youtube channel on that?! haha