What Do We Keep?
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation
What makes something worth keeping?
At 403 W 2nd St, we’ve hauled away an astonishing amount of material over the past year. Some of it was easy. There was a huge, mossy pile of old logs next to the base of the garage that had clearly crossed the line from “possibly useful” into “now part of the landscape.” Those went, largely because they were too spongy to turn into mulch. And the carpet that had years of water damage? Absolutely no hand-wringing as it was rolled up and hefted into the dumpster.
Other things were harder.
We found rolls and rolls of old wallpaper. It is not especially fashionable wallpaper. It may never be fashionable wallpaper again. But there is plenty of it, it is in decent shape, and it takes up very little room in the attic. Someday, somewhere in that house, there may be an odd little corner or furniture rehab that calls for exactly that sort of strange, period-specific enthusiasm. So, the wallpaper stayed.
Meanwhile, back at home, I’ve been trying to clean up the property before construction starts on our new garage. Over the years, we have accumulated what can only be described as a respectable quantity of “useful stuff.” Leftover 2x4s. Siding remnants. Lengths of baling twine. Old but still functional hoses. Pieces of things that were absolutely going to come in handy someday and have now spent several years proving otherwise.
There is a rule people use for decluttering called the 20-20 rule. If you could replace something in less than 20 minutes for less than $20, perhaps you do not need to keep it. Which…is a sensible rule right up until you apply it to old houses and building projects. A scrap of wood that costs three dollars may be completely useless. Or it may be exactly the odd thickness and profile you need when you discover, halfway through a repair, that nothing made today matches the thing somebody installed in 1937. A leftover piece of siding might sit untouched for a decade and then suddenly save you from replacing an entire section of wall because the original color no longer exists. An old roll of wallpaper might be junk. Or it might be impossible to replace.
At 403 W 2nd, we carefully stacked century-old brick and stone while shoveling broken terracotta blocks into a dumpster. At home, I move a pile of baling twine from one corner of a shed to another and ask myself, once again, whether I am ever actually going to use it.
Apparently “What do we keep?” is not one question. It is a series of questions.
Can we use it? Can we replace it? Does it belong here? Is it worth the space it takes up? Is it beautiful? Is it useful? Is it rare? Are we saving it because we have a plan, or because throwing it away feels vaguely irresponsible?
I suspect I’m going to spend a lot of this winter asking questions like that as we get our garage built and start the long-awaited process of moving things from outbuildings and dusty corners to “proper storage.”
For now, the twine is staying. The hoses are on probation.
Roots & Renewal is where the Pellere Foundation shares the people, projects and occasional mud behind our work. Read along here, check out the podcast on YouTube or Spotify, or find us at pellere.org.
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