Something all-consuming happens when you walk into someone’s house for the first time; quick evaluations that steer what path you’ll take through the house. Is there a pile of shoes by the door, encouraging you to take yours off? Laughter, cooking smells and loud music flowing from the kitchen? These tiny details come together, even make you wonder what your life would be like if you lived there, too.
But what happens when all of the little bits and pieces that make a house a ‘home’ aren’t there any more? Are empty walls still reflective of their former inhabitants?
A large part of the estate and antiquities industry revolves around what happens after a person leaves their home. These are the folks that come in and pick up the pieces, helping usher the former residents into their next chapter.
“People have already come to terms with the moment they’re in,” said Greg Marra, owner of Flour City Estate Sales. “(We) try to usher a person’s belongings on to the next person that will love them, instead of into a dumpster.”
Flour City will sell anything from glassware and record collections, to half-used bottles of Windex. If it’s in good condition and has a use, it’ll usually sell.
As one of the largest estate sale companies in Rochester, the 25-person Flour City team has hosted over 500 estate sales since 2015. Since childhood, Marra has had an affinity for buying and reselling items, but when he started Flour City in 2016 he didn’t know what to expect. Certainly not that he would be able to make it his full-time gig within a year.
A large, unspoken part of Marra’s job is functioning as a grief counselor to folks who are trying to let go of a space, and the objects that have filled it — sometimes because of death, sometimes because of downsizing, but always because there is no other choice.
His team steps into someone’s home — basically a museum of their life — and strives to treat it with respect. Before a sale even starts, Flour City ensures the family has thoroughly sorted through the house’s contents and said their goodbyes. Watching a team of professionals sift through your sacred space isn’t easy, so having a barrier makes the process smoother for all parties involved.
“Clients are trusting us in their homes; they don’t know me personally but are still giving me a key,” said Marra. “You can’t take that lightly. You have to make sure everyone is treating the home and family with respect. It’s a privilege to be walking through this house and viewing [a slice of their] life.”
A fair amount of folks come to estate sales just to look around, especially the sales at historic East Avenue homes, where people are curious to see inside. Those sort of exquisite interior details are where Jim Wolff and Christina Jones, co-owners of Historic Houseparts, thrive.
The 20,000 square-foot South Avenue storefront and its outhouses are filled to the brim with rare antique lighting, fixtures, doors and more. A museum in its own right, the store is packed with the meticulously organized finishing touches that a homeowner might need to complete a restoration or bring a little bit of antique flare to a more modern home.
The duo has salvaged more than 100 buildings in the more than 25 years they’ve owned the store, including convents being converted into senior housing, homes beyond repair, barns and warehouses. They’ve rescued wood paneling made from trees that have gone extinct, glass that isn’t made any more and light fixtures with early patent numbers that are long since out of production.
“We are in the business of rescuing treasures,” said Wolff. “(A home being salvaged is a lot like) an organ donor — just because a person is dying, doesn’t mean that some parts of them can’t go on to help someone else. (The) same with homes.”
Wolff can remember where every item in the store came from, and he loves sharing that knowledge with customers. Not everyone wants to know the story behind a chandelier, but when he’s able to educate someone on the origins of an item he always will.
“Placing value on a door or a stained glass window certainly isn’t easy, but looking for value is,” he said, adding that they pride themselves on selling not the most expensive thing, but the right thing to the right person.
That’s what home finishing and furnishing is all about — the satisfaction of finding the perfect touch that brings a little bit of whimsy, nostalgia or intention into a space. A home is a reflection of the truest self, filled with quiet and loud details. Shopping for secondhand goods, whether that’s at an estate sale, a thrift store or an intensely curated antique center is, in essence, seeking a tiny bit of magic to take from someone else’s ‘museum’ and bring into your own.
