Everything Must (Eventually) Go

So try starting with a rummage sale!

Does summer change the way anyone else sees their house? We spend so much time outside in the summer, that coming back inside after a day in nature makes me reconsider the many objects we own. I see how much isn’t really necessary, does it REALLY spark joy? The basket I’ve been meaning to deal with, the books I already read last winter, the boxes in the garage that have been there so long they’re basically part of the building.

Summer is good time to actually deal with it. The days are long, there’s a pull toward being outside, and things just feel lighter to part with in summer and easier to say “I don’t need this anymore” without it feeling like a big deal.

This is part of why rummage sales work so well this time of year, it is easy to pop up some folding tables in the driveway, hang clothes on a rolling rack, bring out a few boxes of stuff that’s had a good run in your house and is ready to go have one somewhere else. To really make this fun, invite a few neighbors to join you and make it feel like a block party.

My family owns an estate liquidation company in Northern California. The work we do comes down to walking into homes with families and helping the things inside, often entire houses, collections, decades of accumulated belongings find where they belong next.

Whole-home liquidation usually comes up around a big transition like someone’s downsizing, moving, settling an estate, or just hit the point where the house has more in it than the household can reasonably keep carrying forward. In those cases we handle the whole thing: appraisal, sorting, the sale itself, the final clear-out.

But the same basic process can be used at a much smaller scale, too.

A few things that actually help, whether you’re running a full estate sale or just a driveway rummage sale:

• Sort by category before you do anything else. Clothes with clothes, kitchen stuff with kitchen stuff, books in their own pile. It sounds obvious, but it cuts down the emotional noise and makes the actual volume easier to see.

• Don’t overprice things. The point isn’t to maximize every dollar, it’s to get things out the door. Low prices mean more stuff actually leaves.

• Set it up so people want to walk over. Some shade, clear tables, room to browse. People engage more with a sale that feels easy to be in.

• Expect to go through things more than once. The first pass is always easier than people think it’ll be. It’s the second pass where you really start making progress.

One thing I’d add from doing this professionally: people consistently underestimate what they already own. Stuff that feels like clutter in one house is often exactly what another household has been looking for.

*special finds from estate liquidation projects

Summer is already a season of abundance which makes letting go easier. A rummage sale is a fun way to freeing up space in the garage, but also offers mental space to focus on the things you care about instead of managing things.

*special finds from estate liquidation projects