Kid's Stuff

I don’t know about you, but when our kids left for college they left a lot behind.  We didn’t think too much about it because we always expected them to come home for a time after college.  Turns out that time is far too short and they try to “semi-permanently” leave that stuff in their old rooms.  Also, turns out that buyers don’t want that STUFF either!  Some of it is still meaningful to us, or we naively think it’ll be special to them again someday like their old trophies, photos, toys, dolls, etc. Maybe they'll even want it for their own kids.

We had no problem storing it for them when we had a house with 2 unused bedrooms and a huge garage. Kind of the same issue we had with our own stuff. As long as there was room, it wasn't a problem keeping it, but now something had to give.

So, what to do with it?  We made piles in the garage separated by kid to get a grip on it to begin with and then made decisions on how to proceed. We stored some of the most special to us, but mostly we decided it was time that they took control of their own STUFF and delivered it to the appropriate kid.  Our son just said “give it away” but we weren’t about to toss his old gaming systems, games and old clothes, etc.  So, it was all boxed up and delivered to his new home in NM on a shakedown cruise we took while the house was selling! Also, we gave our kids a choice of our stuff that they felt they could use like gardening / lawn tools, trimmers, wagon, washing machine, dryer, outdoor furniture, etc.  Some they wanted and some they didn’t.  One way or another it all had to get out of the house and garage.