The house we just closed on was available with the furnishings (as is often the case with second homes). I rationalized that the furnishings would essentially be free, because, given the value of the home vs. furnishings, it's hard to ever parse what you paid for what, kwim? I was pretty sure the heirs, literally scattered all over the country, didn't want to go through the stuff in a summer house their family had had for 30 years (or that they already had gone through it).

I found a lot of the hardgoods and some of the decor and prints charming, and I saw it as a start on the "collected look" that I always like to have, and as a sense of continuity in a 1906 home. In addition, since they had rented it to vacationers by the week, I knew that we could stay there on the night of the closing and throughout renovations, without needing a thing. We could look around and get a feel for the place before buying stuff.

Part of the reason I bought it with furnishings and contents was that I had done the same thing with my lakehouse that we bought 7 years ago. Bought everything in it. It was like moving into a hotel.

Well...

First of all, there is a big difference between buying a 2-3 yr old home (the lakehouse) and a 107 yr old home, when you are buying the contents. We spent most of a four day weekend going through stuff. We have a room full of Restore furniture donations, we packed our SUV to the gills with housewares and prints etc etc for Goodwill, and we filled 2/3 of a dumpster. It was such hard work, OMG!

Part of the problem was that I felt an obligation to go through every item and try to avoid throwing it in the trash. I felt a responsibility to the matriarch, who, it was clear, selected many things with a lot of love, a good eye in some cases, and from her travels. If an item could possible find a home, I wanted it to. We bubble wrapped over 4 dozen framed prints and paintings! (we kept about a dozen or so, too).

At the end of the day, when we looked at what we really wanted to keep from the haul, there were two camps. There were things we would use just until reno was done and we bought new (dishware, mattresses and linens, for example). Then there were things we hoped to use in our home for good (DR set, a few armchairs, many occasional tables, bookcases, bureaus, a few of the beds). Then there were little things that struck my fancy ; like the giant drawer of mismatched vintage silver spoons. I coveted that drawer so badly, that at the walk through it was the first thing I checked!

But as DH and DD pointed out, we did a lot of work just to retrieve those things!

So, a few observations:

1. If you buy a furnished house, don't be shy about having them remove things you know you don't want (I didn't want to offend them by saying "we will take it furnished, but do get rid of that ghastly red sofa!"

2. Specify if you want furnishings or contents or both. Specify contents you do NOT want, eg hazardous wastes like paint thinners and what not.

3. When DH asked what I want to exclude from the sale of our lakehouse furnishings, I said nothing. Part of it is that the lakehouse style can be very specific, but the rest of it, DH pointed out, is that by buying it furnished he thinks it never felt like mine to me and I liked it less because of it. So make sure and mix in enough of "you" if you buy furnished.