The dilemma

This is my dilemma.  We are in the process of trying to sell the house. It's a big house.  We're downsizing and moving closer to family and friends.   Our new realtor sent a "stager."  Someone who tells you to get rid of everything and make the house look like no one lives in it, even though you do.

Our house was never furnished with coordination.  It never looked like a furniture store showroom where everything matched, looked "put together." We started out furnishing from our grandma's basements.  Our dining table was my grandma's first table when she was married 100 years ago.  I have two chandeliers that hung in her house and I take them with me whenever we've moved. One of our chairs was given to my parents when they were married. It's in the background of my brother's baby pictures. He's 66.   Everything has a story.  As I am purging I am realizing everything we have...everything....has a story.  Everything.

 Like this chair.  It may not seem like much but over 30 years ago PH and his brother and we wives were at a restaurant.  These were the chairs we sat on in the dining room.  I loved the idea of this old railroad office chair so much I asked if I could buy mine.  The restaurant manager said yes and charged me $10.  I know! Ten bucks for this cool chair.  Well, after he said I could buy one I had to buy the BEST one so I went around to other tables and asked the people sitting in their chairs if I could try theirs out. They let me!  When we paid, I wheeled this chair out with us. The stager said it has to go.

 We have two of these.  When we built this house we had lawn furniture to sit on.  You see, we never bought a piece of new furniture until we built this house after being married over 25 years!  Anyway, that first summer my son and his friend lived here while they worked in town.  They bought these two chairs so we would have them at the dining room table.   The stager said they have to go.

And this.  When I graduated from college (at age 47) people gave me money gifts.  I bought this chaise and adore it.  The stager said it has to go. But I moved it to the back porch, a place I never let it be because I didn't want it to get weathered.

She also said the dresser I keep my "delicates" in plus three other drawers full has to go. PH's dresser can stay but mine has to go.  Go where?  And where do I keep my clothes?  She had no answer so I guess I'm supposed to send my clothes to the storage unit we got in Grand Rapids (55 miles away) and every morning  drive to GR in my undies and rummage through boxes at the unit looking for something to wear, huh?  NO, wait!  My undies will be in with that stored stuff! 

I am purging and I know I have to purge more. I AM doing it. It's necessary if you downsize. But we don't know where we are going and so don't know what will fit. So that's my dilemma.  Especially hard when there's a story behind every single piece in this house.  Even the bathtub.  That's the best story of them all.