Year in Review: Best of 2018 Before and After

Welcome to Hunt Estate Sales Year in Review

2018 best of before and after pictures

Here’s how 2018 unfolded!

Keep in mind our year went by fast, 34 sales in 52 weeks, and I’m not sure how to explain how much went so fast. But maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of over 20,000 pictures gives it some gravity. In review what you see here is not a ‘best of’ but pictures of those events we were able to slow down enough to document. If the AFTER photos are dark it’s because we sold the lamps too!

This showstopper in Concord, MA boasted iconic brands, from Stickley to Louis Vuitton. In a single day we were able to sell 95% of the contents of this 6,000 sq/ft home. We aim to create an event that everyone wants to attend – and we did that with great success. In the end we left the house cleaner than we found it.

While 2018 was filled with memorable events there was one in particular that was so massive it’s become local lore. This 13 bedroom Newton center home was bursting at the seams with ‘new with tag’ items. Saying we worked overtime for this event is an understatement.

When we met our client he was overwhelmed after the sudden death of his mother and didn’t know what to do. His gut reaction was to bag 90% of the clothes and shoes for donation. We told him to stop, we told him what we tell all our clients, focus on you, what you need, and we’ll handle the rest.

Half my stock of rolling racks and tables buckled with the weight of this sale. There were literally hundreds of Steiff bears, pairs of shoes and purses and over ten thousand articles of clothing.

It took two weeks to find the floor, it took another week to haul additional items from offsite storage, another week to turn it into what looked like a department store. The four pictures above are an imperfect 360 of this empty room.

 

 

No one believed we could clear house in two days, just twelve hours, but the proof is in the pictures.

We found ourselves all over the place this year from the suburbs, to downtown Boston, to the smallest coastline in the United States: Rye Beach, NH!

This Beacon Hill home turned up so many uncanny coincidences, puzzles solved and lost, found. Do you believe in ghosts? I do. Honestly, I say out loud “I’m not cool-headed enough for you to show yourself but guide me and I will listen.” It’s not my imagination, those who have passed intersect and participate with our work. These nurturing figures, protective figures, wise figures, come out to join us while we sift through it all.

First we sift, than we match. The process of matching an item to a buyer always evokes a sense of peace and gratitude for life lived, life beginning again.

I wanted to use this before and after post to outsource some reflection and self-growth.

I’m tired of my own surgically precise dissections about the task at hand and I think it’s time I make peace with that fact that the nature of this business is imperfect.

How better to make that happen than to virtually return to this vista atop of the Studebaker mansion in Rye Beach, NH, where we hosted an event in September.

This photograph captures a mid set up moment, on a balmy September day, where on this deck, there was no room for stress. I lost focus today writing this, for reasons beyond my control, I was unable to take ‘after’ pictures of this epic job and I was upset. I stepped back from the task at hand, saw this image, and was no longer at battle. Our business is a perfect parable for life: after what feels like the end, we are reborn and obligated to try again.

For a final role call of sorts, we must thank those that have passed, those who have moved, those who have lost someone and those who find something worthwhile at every event we run.

…sign up for our mailing list and see what 2019 has in store! #happyhunting