It's Time To Say Goodbye

[cabinetman]

Wife and I have been together for about 17 years. We've endured family crisis, health issues and just gettin' old together. Recently we've been remodeling our home and re-evaluating our furniture. Our dining room table, which I made about 25 years ago got cut in half lengthwise and narrowed down to make her a sewing table. I wanted to make a new table, but she wanted to go to a furniture store and buy a whole set. Here I am, capable of making furniture, browsing through a furniture store. Well, we did buy a set and it is a nice set, solid wood and all.

This brings the story to some other pieces. We have two end tables, matching buffet, and two lamps that were bought when I was born. I've lived with these all my life and they represent great memories. LOML desires to replace those pieces with choices made by both of us, that represent our life together. I can't blame her. In reality, even if she liked the pieces, she didn't have a choice of having them in our home.

So, I've decided to give them to a friend who just bought a home and will take any free furniture. I look at these pieces as family heirloom articles, and they give me a warmth and reminder of my early childhood. But, I can also appreciate when it's time to let go.

This brings up the question about letting go. Have any of you been caught in this type of dilemma?

[leehljp]

My aunt in central CA has a gorgeous large fine crafted wood table with breadboard ends. It is mine when I retire in about 4 years. Her son is a wealthy investor and her daughter lives back east (VA). Both grew up on it and have the money to buy $10,000 shiny tables plus the chairs to go with it.

My aunt has been disappointed, but I keep telling her that if her son or daughter want it before I get there, it is theirs. They still have first choice in my opinion. My VA cousin didn't want it, but when her husband saw it, HE wanted it. He knew well made fine crafted wood when he saw it. But they don't want to haul it from CA to VA.

I can't let LOML see this. She believes in heirlooms by who gave it, not the quality of it. New veneer covered particle board can have more meaning to her than a hand made antique with history.

I have a hand made chair with cane sides and ball & claw feet that I picked up for $5.00 in an alley, all weather beaten and without cane and the cushion, in the late '60s. Everyone thought I was crazy. LOML thought that too for as long as I kept it in storage. I also found a date (1902) and town (now a ghost town) from which it was made. I even know some people that grew up there and knew the maker's family. In the 1988, my parents paid $400.00 to have it refinished for me as a present. They were immediately offered $1500 for it. It was made from Rosewood.

History, family, craftsmanship, quality, heirlooms, some people just don't understand that.

[JR]

Oh yeah.

My mother passed away In June. I inherited quite a bit of furniture, most of which LOML doesn't like. Of course, she won't let me give it to a sibling or sell it.

My office is getting crowded.

JR

[crokett]

We have a chair in our bedroom that was my grandfather's. It doesn't match anything and I know LOML doesn't like it but I have lots of Thanksgiving/Christmas memories of that chair. We've compromised on getting it recovered someday.

[germdoc]

I had a similar situation. Sometimes you've just got to let go.

I sent her on her way and wished her the best.

If you know any single women aged 30 (OK, 35) to 46 in the Midwest area who like the smell of sweat and sawdust, let me know...

[gwyneth]

I had a similar situation. Sometimes you've just got to let go.

I gave her the IKEA furniture and wished her the best.

If you know any single women aged 30 (OK, 35) to 46 in the Midwest area who like the smell of sweat and sawdust, let me know...

Jeff, I think c-man was saying goodbye to the furniture, not the wife.

Hey, is 50 close enough to your criterion?

[crokett]

Jeff, I think c-man was saying goodbye to the furniture, not the wife.

Hey, is 50 close enough to your criterion?

So now BT3Central is a dating site?

[Bruce Cohen]

Hey Cab,

I thought you were going to tell us you were terminal, or getting divorced or (OH NO) leaving the forum.

Nice to see it's only about furniture.

BTW:
You Suck

Bruce

[mschrank]

I have a coffee table I made in Jr. High shop class...the first piece of furniture I ever made. It's made of pine, stained a horrible dark walnut. But even looking at it today, I'm still impressed by it's large turned pedestal and octagon base and top (even though I got dinged for being a bit over-zealous with the belt sander and rounded over a bit of the top edge).

I can't bear to just toss it, but the wife won't allow it in the house. So it lies disassembled, tucked in a dark corner of the shop.

Someday I'll figure out a way to make use of the large top in another project, but I'll still have that pedestal....It's about the only turning I've ever done and I must say I did a fine job of it. Just don't know what to do with it other than hang it on the wall of the shop

[germdoc]

Jeff, I think c-man was saying goodbye to the furniture, not the wife.

Hey, is 50 close enough to your criterion?

I'm very open-minded. Bo Derek, Linda Hamilton, Geena Davis and Gloria Estefan all recently turned 50. So did Princess Stephanie of Monaco. I don't know how they feel about sawdust, but I'm not ruling anything out.

[pierhogunn]

when my Grandparents moved from Atlanta to go to Florida to die his sons parted out his workshop, and sent his massively heavy workbench up NC with my Mom, when they moved out of one house to go to another she gave the bench to me, ugly thing that it was, along with a couple of 2X8's. at the time I thought the 2X8's were the best thing I got out of the deal.

I got the bench home, and was looking forward to installing my bench top stuff to it, when I decided to clean it up

that was a mistake

What was under the nearly century of grime, paint, and laquer was the most gorgeous figured quarter-sawn oak that I have ever seen, and what was an abused workbench, turned out to be a beautiful buffet.

Sure there are deep gouges in the top of this, and 3 holes on one corner where Grandpa's vice once lived. But I know who put each gouge on the bench, and each time I run my hand over them, I get to be with my Grandfather once more, in his shop, where he would escape his duties, and putz and tinker, and where I would sit on the lid of the wicker basket that he used to hold the trash from his sessions in his basement.

****, I miss them