Happy September to all of our antique, vintage, and collectible lovers.

If you have been following my column the past few months, thank you. You may have figured out by now that I was deeply involved in putting together and holding a living estate sale and moving sale at my parent’s house, My father is 91 years old and it was time to move him out of the four-story mega house; the decision was made to move him in with my oldest daughter and her ranch-style house.

Many of you may be faced with the same or similar situation in the future, and I would like to offer some unsolicited advice on what I learned throughout the process. Another job I had to do was to prepare the house to be sold. My mom passed more than 14 years ago, I certainly wish that I had been deep cleaning and maintenance in several areas of the house. That would have prevented the month-long ordeal I encountered after preparing for and holding the sale.

In the majority of cities and towns throughout the country, you will find estate sale companies. They have a crew that comes in, pulls everything out, cleans what needs cleaning, prices, stages the items, and conducts the sale. They do all of the work for around 35% of the final take. What I learned when my father decided to move is that the estate sale business has changed tremendously in my area over the years. From the few people who returned my phone call, I learned that I would have to get everything out and clean the items, the percentage of the final sale price is 45% to 55%, we would need to provide people to watch over the shoppers on each floor, and we had to guarantee that they would pocket $5,000. Shut the front door. The last requirement of insuring a $5,000 pay day was a bit more than we were willing to accept. My oldest daughter and I decided to do it on our own.
Conducting a living estate sale / moving sale is something anyone can do, I suggest that you recruit some help. My oldest daughter helped tremendously in the first stage. She took my father, sat him down in a chair with two boxes, one of items he wanted to take with him when he moved and another for items he wanted to go to family members. When they got to the office and the five-drawer file cabinet I had asked them to keep all receipts for major household purchases such as the hot water heater, swimming pool liner, basically anything that would be needed by the new homeowner. All of the other paperwork was shredded. This process was very time consuming because it is a four-story, four-bedroom house.

• The purging of paperwork and handling of major purchase receipts can be streamlined if the homeowner or family member performs these tasks annually. Receipts can be placed in a file folder or large envelope at the time of purchase.
Once the purging phase has ended it is time for family members and friends to remove items that the homeowner designated in the will and any last-minute gifts. I highly suggest that the executor of the will be notified of all last-minute gifts.as a precautionary measure. When the will comes into play, no one wants a squabble over a piece of furniture that is unaccounted for.

Each of you can relate to the next step: cleaning. Again, you go room by room with a duster, all-purpose cleaner, cloth, broom, mop, and price tags. Wipe down everything, please, we all know how off- putting it is to pickup something that is sticky or really dusty. Price each item. If you are unsure of a price take a picture of the item and look on Google Lens to get a rough idea. If you have a number of expensive items, you might want to have an appraiser look at them. You want to move expensive items to the area where the cashier will be. Sweep, mop, and on to the next room.

• Before you setup the display tables please remove all area rugs as they are a fall hazard.
You need to give some thought to the types of payment you will take. Back in the good old days, cash was king; in 2024 Venmo, Apple Pay, and the like are the way to go. Based on my daughters’ experience we signed up with Square. They will send you a small card swiper to be plugged into a smart phone. They do take a percentage of each sale, so please be sure to read the information and even compare with other similar services. This also tends to increase the dollar amount that people spend.