Horrible heirlooms

[Justadropofmilk]

My DH is from a poor farming family and about 20 years ago his older brother inherited the family farm and everything in it when their DF died. He gave DH the chance to choose a couple of items from the house as mementos. DH chose photos, a couple of chairs and a clock his grandparents had owned.

The clock is hideous. Even my DH admits this. It has a flimsy wooden frame that at some point someone has cut down with a saw, probably in order to fit into a smaller space. They've just sawn the frame raggedly at a slight angle. It's also been kept somewhere very damp, which has meant the wood is discoloured, the mechanism has rusted and the face is covered in mildew spots. When DH came home with it I took it to a clock restorer to ask if it could be fixed. The restorer told me he wouldn't take it on — that it was a cheap, mass-produced clock which was worth almost nothing even in good condition. He said there were loads of them to be found in antique shops and his best recommendation was to go and buy a replacement but not pay more that £30. I have never told DH that: I know that the clock has sentimental value for him.

For years it's lived on a shelf in a dresser in the dining room, which we rarely use. Much of the time it's almost completely hidden by plants or other items. Now we've decided to remodel the house and the dining room wall will be knocked through and the dresser will have to go. The builder is due in the third week of January and we will be clearing the dining room once Christmas is over and clearing out and disposing of quite a lot of clutter and furniture.

For the last 20 years DH has never given the clock a thought. I'm the one who dusts it down every so often. As far as I'm aware he hasn't paid it the slightest attention since bringing it home. Earlier today we were talking about what we'd have to dispose of and agreed that the dresser and our old dining table and chairs, which we bought many years ago to fill in until we decided what we'd prefer, were going. I looked at the clock and said 'We'll need to work out what to do with the clock'. I didn't suggest disposing of it: I was quietly thinking it could go in the loft. But DH went into meltdown. He's said that he knows I hate the clock, even though I've never said anything about it in all these years. He grabbed it and hugged it to him and said it was his grandmother's and he'd part with it over his dead body... I kind of backed away quietly and said nothing. It's absolutely out of character for him. I know he has a very different attitude to things than I do but I've never see him react like that. I have very little sentimental attachment to stuff, even stuff from my late family. I keep one or two discreet small items but it wouldn't break my heart to lose them.

So obviously the clock is here to stay. Now, though, it's likely to be in a position where I'll have to see it every day. Has anyone else here inherited horrible heirlooms? How did you fit them into your home?

Not quite the same, but I have a 'hope chest' in 80s style dark cherry stain that exMIL foisted on me. It's cedar lined and ideal for storing three or four blankets in, but it looks on the outside like a piece of trashy 80s office furniture, with decorative fake panels that are actually made from some sort of dyed styrofoam and dated metal hardware/ handles that are supposed to give the impression of drawers.

Lately, I've seen a few YouTube videos by people who revive ugly old furniture, and I think it might be possible to redo the chest. It couldn't turn out looking worse than it does now anyway.

I mean you weren't being UR, you just said it needed to go somewhere (which it will if the dresser is going). He seems to have reacted a bit strongly for something he never looks at / uses / cleans / fixes and is from 20 years ago?

I have some horrible heirlooms from my DHs side (think large bronze statues of strange animals or weird art). They go in his office normally or in areas of very low traffic! He's not horrendously sentimental, but I know some of the items have meaning. He knows they're hideous too but he's got the emotional attachment I don't 😂 I'd never want them in the living room for example, so the compromise is they go into "his" spaces in the house, because they mean something to him.

ILs gave us a massive vase one year. It matches one they have on display themselves, which they love. Both dh and I find it hideous.

I inherited my dgm's silver candlesticks. Massive, totally out of proportion for our table, molten wax leaks down inside them into the table, and one rocks anyway.

Both of these items were brought out for use or display a few times when the relevant parents visited. Since then, both of these items have been carefully wrapped in tissue, boxed up and tucked away in a corner of the loft.

I'd make it work. I'd do a shelf with a small old suitcase on it and some old fashioned items on. Have you got an old black and white photo of his grandparents to put next to it? Own it, stylise it. It's important to your DH, it's his home too. I think homes look more stylish and modern, when they have personality and features like that. Much better than some ornament that has been bought just to fit the decor.

After a few weeks you will stop noticing it. My partner bought home a hideous dish rack. I was upset for about a week as it was such an eyesore in our new kitchen. It’s been three months and I barely notice the thing.

@mathanxiety Why do you keep that chest in your house? It was your ex-MIL's - there's no reason why you should keep it if you don't like it.

@mathanxiety, that sounds horrible — even worse than DH's clock. And too big to hide in a cupboard.

@Catza , I'm afraid I will notice. I'm someone who notices details. We have a combination of new and old things and I think I've got a good eye for how to make it work. At the moment I probably only go into the dining room a couple of times a week. Once the building work is done we'll be spending a lot more time in our new kitchen-dining-living room and I'll have to keep disguising the clock.

It's quite like this but not exactly the same:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294989387301

Imagine that someone's taken a saw to that and sliced off the top part very unevenly, and that one of the decorative bits around the side has been knocked off, so that it's lop-sided, and the base seems to have sat in water and has rotted a bit. The glass is cracked too and seems to have had a piece of sticky tape placed over the crack on the inside. I get the feeling that DH's own family didn't take much care of it. Apparently these Ansonia clocks were sold in the equivalent of Woolworths, so were never high-end.

PIL house is full of 'heirlooms' they keep saying will be ours which include hideous old grandfather clocks. He and SIL have agreed a large skip will likely be the order of the day for most of it.

@MILTOBE
It's ugly on the outside but useful - the cedar lining repels moths. I think it will look much nicer after I get to work on it. I can sand the finish off and remove the paneling and hardware easily. Diluted greige paint will give it a pale, weathered look. I used to think a project like that would be beyond my skill level, but I have picked up plenty of tips from YouTube, and frankly I have little to lose if it all goes tits up.

Honestly you should have damaged it. it could have had an accident which would make it beyond repair!

Sadly you are now stuck with it. POP it on dh bedside table. he can like it or not but at least it's not in a living space.

Someday it can be accidentally damaged.

Are you sure those "styrofoam" panels aren't asbestos boards?

There are a few other items on the dresser that we'll be keeping and I'll wrap them up in newspaper and put them in a big cardboard box in the loft. I'm now thinking I'll stash the clock up there too, and perhaps it'll be a year or two till any of the stuff stored up there comes down, and perhaps he'll have forgotten about the clock. It may not work, but I can give it a go.

I just can't understand why he is so viscerally attached to it, but then he has said in the past that I have no heart!

Put it in his bedside table so that he has to see it every morning.

We've got a really ugly DLL that belonged to my grandma. It is quite large and quite creepy looking. But as we have a photo of her in about 1920 playing with it. We don't feel we can get rid of it. Fortunately my sister has it. And she can keep
It!

I have a useless ivory handled bread knife with the serrations worn almost flat. It belonged to one of my great grandmothers, my mother lovingly passed it on to me, and I won't be able to get rid of it during her lifetime. But it isn't ugly and doesn't take up much space in the drawer.

My late FIL played in a band in the 1970s, and they made an LP. When we cleared his house out a few years ago we found around 80 copies of that LP in the loft, the sleeves coming apart because the glue had perished. After the old man's funeral I discovered that all the LPs had made their way into our house. We don't have a record player, we never listen to that sort of music, and DH didn't even like his father much. If I'd known he was going to keep a sentimental memento I'd have asked him to take something useful like some of his musical instruments.

Does he have a workshop/shed/garage that you can put it in? Pride of place on a shelf.

I think you should apply to the Repair Shop. It sounds like it would be a good project for the show. Please don't damage it if it has such sentimental value. It's a link to family for him.

@Springcleaninginsummer That's an excellent idea!

I can see Jay coming over all misty eyed already. I do love that show.

Dp has a few things due to him once probate is completed, I'm trying to work out where they can be hidden (the loft as a suggestion didn't work)

Tried that when it first arrived. He said no, it might get damp (it has clearly spent many years somewhere damp) and it might get damaged (as if it isn't damaged enough already.)

I'm afraid my cold, unsentimental heart hates The Repair Shop. As I say, I just can't relate to all these people who go weak at the knees over a teddy or want to preserve an ugly item of furniture. The positive side of being such a vile scrooge is that I will never be a hoarder. I've always lived by the maxim about surrounding yourself with things that you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful and the poor old clock is neither.

My son has a knitted bear that his great great grandmother made. It’s almost like made of hessian but knitted. It is wearing a suit and it’s so creepy looking. It lives in the cupboard but son’s granny has just been over and she loves to see it as she t was hers as a child, so he’s been down.
would happily burn it!

Could be worse - when mil died, there was lots of furniture and dh ended up with a small chair he liked, wooden frame, cushions attached. He put it into his office where there was a space and he planned on sitting on it as somewhere different to sit if he was working and wanted to read something but not be at his desk. What I hadn’t realised was that mil had had moths that she had apparently got rid of not long before she died.

When the chair came into our house, out of storage so suddenly nice and warm and full of woolly/tasty fabric carpets, jumpers, furniture and moths, we suddenly ended up with a plague of moths that have eaten big patches of carpet batter in some rooms. 😡🤬😡 - turns out she didn’t realise that she needed to fumigate her furniture too and instead just dealt with the odd moth she spotted.

The whole lot went to the tip, once we realised what it was that had caused the problem! According to one of her dil, because the chair had wooden legs, it never occurred to her that the moths/caterpillars could get into cushions and make themselves very at home 😫

And I never liked the ruddy chair, even dh wasn’t that attached to it, just thought it would fit into the space in his office and he wanted to have some momento of his mum!

DH’s grandmother died a few years ago, and when the house was emptied he asked for the standing lamp with a shiny pink tasselled shade from her living room. I loathe it, it sticks out like a sore thumb in our modern house.

After reading OP’s tale, I’m never moaning about it again. I will just appreciate its lack of mildew.

We inherited a hall table that I really wanted to get rid of as I thought it was too big and awkward in our hall, but over the years I’ve got used to it, and now enjoy using it for Halloween and Christmas displays. For the rest of the time it’s quite useful for dumping the post on!😉