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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Actually, is my aunt being unreasonable?

66 replies

PomBearArmy · 30/07/2013 18:16

When my aunt moved to Germany she offered me her G-Plan wall unit as she couldn't take it. It fits in my living room perfectly, it looks like two open shelf bookcases of different heights sitting on a base unit - I just took the base unit's sliding doors off as they kept sticking.

She came back after six months and called in to see me, and I noticed she was in a bit of a mood when she left. Later my other aunt called and said that I'd vandalised the unit and disrespected her property! I really hadn't, and it looks fine to me, I prefer it all open.

Am I in the wrong?

OP posts:
Pancakeflipper · 30/07/2013 19:08

Ooh will let my parents know they are about to be hip and funky ( and give any spare doors to Pom)

Original poster
PomBearArmy · 30/07/2013 19:10

Lol Pancake I'll hold you to that Grin

I do feel a bit bad now, nothing I can do though really. I might send some flowers round with a sorry note. I don't want to fall out with family over a shelf unit.

OP posts:
pictish · 30/07/2013 19:13

This reminds me of the Aga that my mother saved for for five years, and had lovingly installed into the kitchen.
What with one thing and another, we had to move house about three years after that....something my mum really did not want to do.

About a month after we moved, mum and I drove past the old place and saw the Aga sitting outside on the pavement, having been unceremoniously ripped out and abandoned to the elements.

Dear reader, she cried.

This was before an Aga was the kitchen accessory to be seen with of course. It was the 80s.

SarahAndFuck · 30/07/2013 19:17

Thanks all. I've been looking at it on eBay just now.

Our local charity shop is filled with some of the same stuff that people on there are selling as vintage shabby chic and asking about three times the price.

Some of it is nice, some of it is a bit too close to my 70's childhood bedroom stuff that I was desperate swap for 1980's-grey-with-pastel-pink-and-yellow-trim flat pack stuff. The irony now being that the 70's stuff has probably lasted longer and (mostly) looks far better.

But I still can't see why she'd stop speaking to you about it OP. Even with the doors being broken up and chucked out. Yes, that was a bit wasteful, but it's done now so what can you do?

pictish · 30/07/2013 19:26

1980's-grey-with-pastel-pink-and-yellow-trim flat pack stuff

Gosh yes. I had a grey and white cabin bed, with a wardrobe, desk and drawers underneath. I begged my mum for it for ages and when I got it, I'd never seen anything quite so fabulous.
It was made of chipboard, and was absolute crap of course. And it wasn't cheap either!

Our house was homespun/wooden everything. My mum was a hippy and a seamstress. It was all wall hangings and wooden floors, in a time of shagpile carpets, diagonal stripes and faux black ash furniture. The cabin bed was like a my own little corner that kept with the times. I loved it.

My own house now looks jut like my mother's.

Whothefuckfarted · 30/07/2013 19:28

Oh FGS, she gave you it, you wanted it open with no doors, why would you keep the doors somewhere clogging up space when you'll never use them!?

SIBU. Not you.

pictish · 30/07/2013 19:31

Because it could be passed on eventually?
Furniture like that was built to last. Perhaps her dcs first flat might end up with it?
Because there was no need to destroy them.

SarahAndFuck · 30/07/2013 19:37

The flatpack stuff weighed an absolute tonne as well Pictish.

I'm amazed my cabin bed didn't come straight through the ceiling.

Bogeyface · 30/07/2013 19:39

I had a similar situation with a unit that was also G-Plan funnily enough! It was MASSIVE, weighed a ton and was really well built.

My parents best friends gave it to my sister when they redid their house. All was well. Ten years later I was moving from a tiny one bed into a 3 bed house at the same time Dsis was downsizing so I inherited said unit. It was waaaaay too big to get into the house as it was so we took one book shelf part off and used it like that. It looked absolutely fine, just smaller. Dad took the unit and recycled it into some shelves for the spare room at their house, so nothing was wasted.

When BF's heard they went mental! Bearing in mind this was ten years after they have gifted it to my sister and hadnt asked about it once, they went batshit when it came up in conversation about my move and didnt speak to me or my parents for years! They wouldnt have it that it would have had to be trashed otherwise, they insisted that we should have asked their permission first and if they said no then they would have taken it to the tip themselves.

Needless to say, no one apologised to them because we had nothing to apologise for, and neither do you!

BMW6 · 30/07/2013 19:39

When your Aunt GAVE the item to you it became your property to do with as you please, unless she only lent it to you, or asked you to keep it in the condition it was in.

If she didn't lend nor put any codicil on it, you could break off the doors, paint it pink or burn it and it still would be not unreasonable for you to do so!!!

What is more, even if you had kept the doors on and the thing is worth a fortune now, the money would be entirely yours to keep, once a gift is made it is no longer the property of the donor.

Your Aunt is being a prize fool - no need for you to apologise for anything.

tobiasfunke · 30/07/2013 19:41

I took out the previous owner's beloved Aga because it was bankrupting me. I hope she cried- she could weep into all the curtains that she nicked.

It was your unit- none of her business once she gave it to you. However my Mil has a habit of giving away furniture for keeps and then asking for it back.

firesidechat · 30/07/2013 19:41

I feel the same as pictish. Good quality furniture is for passing on, even if it is a bit brown.

I must admit that we have kept the spare shelves from bookcases and would have kept the doors and stored them away somewhere. Isn't that what lofts are for?

I think my husbands mild hoarding tendencies may have rubbed off a bit.

Bogeyface · 30/07/2013 19:42

I am wishing we had held onto it now (regifted to my cousin who afaik has since tipped it) because it would be worth a lot. It even still had the original housing for 12" vinyl albums!

Bogeyface · 30/07/2013 19:43

Talking of doors.

If anyone near Burton on Trent wants two glass doors for Billy Bookcases, give me a PM! Had 3 no shows via freegle and getting a bit pissed off!

Salmotrutta · 30/07/2013 19:47

Yes, sadly, G-Plan furniture was built to last.

Very brown - but not in a good way like proper antique furniture...

AmazingBouncingFerret · 30/07/2013 19:48

Oh I never knew my little tables were G Plan. (never even heard of G Plan) just thought they were some retro-y looking furniture.

OP YANBU.

pictish · 30/07/2013 19:50

It's not to my taste either, but I'd be canny enough to look after it if I accepted some.

The same blerk factor was applied to a lot of old fashioned things that one day later, all of a sudden became the very dab!

candycoatedwaterdrops · 30/07/2013 19:54

Was it gifted or loaned to you, OP?

Salmotrutta · 30/07/2013 19:55

"The very dab" - God I haven't heard that in years Grin

I have a really nice solid oak bookcase from the 1930/40s - has an Art Deco look and I love it but its not to everyone's taste.

But I draw the line at G-Plan! Although strangely MIL has a G-Plan unit!

tethersend · 30/07/2013 19:57

You broke the bloody doors off?! (To paraphrase Michael Caine)

G Plan stuff is gorgeous. I don't think I can speak to you any more either Grin

tethersend · 30/07/2013 19:58

All unwanted 70s furniture happily accepted here!

pictish · 30/07/2013 20:02

Here is some gplan being damn sexy.

It's the new old thing...I'm telling yous!

tethersend · 30/07/2013 20:04

Ha Pictish, that's my friend's website!

pictish · 30/07/2013 20:05
Grin
WhereDoAllTheCalculatorsGo · 30/07/2013 20:08

I just googled it too and it takes me right back to my parents' 1970s house. We had the glass-topped coffee table, the sideboard, unit and nest of tables.
1980's-grey-with-pastel-pink-and-yellow-trim flat pack stuff
I used to properly drool over the Argos catalogue. It would have been about 1983 onwards. It was the grey and white with red trim geometric stuff that I coveted Blush