Welcome back. I hope you’ve enjoyed the earlier episodes of Attic to Basement Estate Cleanouts. Today I’m going to show you the contents of a split-level house in Rockville, Maryland with no basement. The owner had lived there 61 years and raised her daughter there. I did an assessment January 5th of 2010, and they told me they wanted to get it on the market by March, but then I was called in May to do another assessment.
The first of June I went to work there with one helper and we had it emptied in 3 days with the help of Associated Auctioneers and Junket Dumpit. You will see in the photos Barbie dolls, a pump organ, a Victrola, beautiful mantle clocks, a Hoosier cabinet, a marble topped table and a footwarmer. I don’t know if the antiques were handed down over the generations or if they frequented auction houses, but they had beautiful pieces.
The owner of Polly Sue’s Vintage Clothing shop in Takoma Park, Maryland came out with her mother to purchase items from the estate because there were too many pieces of vintage dresses, hats, purses and handkerchiefs to fit in my car. I have a note that she didn’t buy all of it but did buy $173 worth.
Most pieces I would sell to her for $1-$10 depending on the condition and age. The next house was in McLean, Virginia about 26 miles from my home. The traffic could be very heavy and slow after 3PM on the Capital Beltway on weekdays so I didn’t advertise to attorneys in Virginia after 2007.
On this job, I was recommended by an appraiser and by a former client. The appraiser took 6 Native American baskets and pots, one Native American rug, 7 sets of books dating back as far as 1759 and a 1897 volume of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to a specialty auction house.
None were in pristine condition. The remaining books went to a book buyer I knew. He came and bought $500 worth of books. I can’t remember if the couple that owned the house had traveled out west when they were newly married or the woman had traveled out west with her parents when she was very young and that is how they came to own so many Native American baskets and rugs.
The appraiser also took to auction a painting of a green felt hat by Hildegard Woodward.
She was a children’s book illustrator who won the Caldecott Medal. The appraiser then kept 10% of the number of items sold for at auction. The owner had lived there 48 years and the house held many interesting books and Indian baskets. They even had a silver closet built in, on the second floor. Outside were stables that were full of lawn mowers tools and more furniture and boxes.
I called the woman who bought furniture from me. She scrambled through the stables with her husband, and they found $40 worth of furniture that they could paint and resell. We were only working in the house for 3 days, but you will see from the photos here and on Facebook at 800 Houses 800 Jobs. There was a lot to take care of.
The photos show the stables and some of the contents that filled it.
Luckily, we did not have to empty the stables. I just looked at Google maps and see that the house has been torn down, and the land is selling for One Million Dollars $1M! That’s McLean, VA! The final house was in Washington, DC where we spent 5 days sorting through papers and filling 7 boxes of financial papers that needed to be shredded. My sister came over and packed her car full of boxes of cleaning supplies we found in the house.
She drove to Martha’s Table, a nearby charity; that last year served 1 million meals to 100,000 people. They also distributed free clothing and household supplies to 10,000 people. On the final day of work the auction crew came to pick up furniture, the 2 Italian lamps, the sets of Russell Wright dishes, the blond end tables and the leather chairs. Notice the 1200-600 B.C. vessel in a glass box that was made in the Iron Age. I don’t remember if this stayed with the family or if it went to auction.
Well anyways, please go to Facebook and look at more pictures at 800 Houses 800 Jobs and come back next week for the continuing story of houses I cleaned out while I owned Attic to Basement Estate Cleanouts.
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