Feeling Nostalgic for Your Grandmother’s China?

All of us have some relic taking over area in our houses. Possibly it’s a great-aunt’s armoire, or a field of outdated letters and pictures. Usually the stuff sits in an attic or at the back of a closet, ready for us to determine what to do with it.

Two house enchancment reveals — “Dwelling Once more with the Fords,” premiering on HGTV on Feb. 2, and “Legacy Record with Matt Paxton,” which started its second season on PBS earlier this month — purpose to inform us what to do, with two very distinct messages.

Leanne Ford, the inside designer who co-stars in “Dwelling Once more” together with her brother, Steve Ford, 43, a contractor, has little endurance for all these heirlooms. In a present about folks renovating outdated household properties, she provides us license to allow them to go.

“My principle on the household heirloom is that our mothers give it to us as a result of they don’t need it and so they don’t know what to do with it and so they carry on passing it down,” mentioned Ms. Ford, 39, throughout a phone interview together with her brother. “You should give your self permission to do away with issues which are taking over area.”

However on “Legacy Record,” which follows householders as they downsize, Matt Paxton, 45, a decluttering skilled and a staple on the A&E present “Hoarders,” takes a extra hands-off strategy. Should you don’t know what to do with that field of memorabilia within the attic, depart it there.

“Punt on the stuff you’re fighting,” Mr. Paxton mentioned. “Sometime life will drive you to undergo that field once more, and also you’ll do it and that’s when will probably be time.” (Reader, take notice: The hoarding skilled simply gave us a cross to maintain the litter.)

Whereas each reveals had been conceived earlier than the pandemic, they now air at a second when many People are sorting via lifetimes’ of belongings, both due to loss, because the Covid-19 demise toll approaches 400,000, or as a result of they’re transferring. Practically 9 million folks relocated between March and October 2020, in response to a report by the Nationwide Affiliation of Realtors, and a Neighbors survey predicts that People might be much more cell in 2021.

Even earlier than the pandemic, “we did see this development of individuals attempting to depart the larger cities and go house to the place they’d extra roots,” mentioned Scott Feeley, the president of Excessive Midday Leisure, which produced “Dwelling Once more.” “The pandemic has simply intensified that motion.”

“Dwelling Once more,” which replaces the siblings’ earlier HGTV present, “Restored by the Fords,” follows a special Pittsburgh household in every episode as they reclaim the household homestead — their grandparents’ home, their childhood house, the household farm — and renovate it.

Ms. Ford infuses the properties together with her signature look — trendy, cozy and just a little bit rock n’ roll — and updates outmoded areas for a brand new period. “There’s positively a cathartic expertise of turning an area into your individual,” she mentioned.

In a single episode, Ms. Ford, with the assistance of her reluctant brother, handpaints a checkerboard sample onto the outdated pine flooring of a mudroom, bringing new life to the getting old wooden. In a nod to the pandemic, she installs a mudroom sink so the householders can wash their arms once they enter the home.

Ms. Ford sees the present as emblematic of a bigger motion. In unsure instances, People are trying to find one thing acquainted, and he or she is not any exception. This summer time, she moved again to Pittsburgh together with her husband and younger daughter, shopping for a home in-built 1900 on a number of acres, about half-hour from the place she grew up.

“So a lot of my mates, we had been all off to New York and L.A. and doing our factor after we realized, ‘Wait, we don’t actually have to do that,’ ” Ms. Ford mentioned. “There’s something very stunning about being house and being content material to be there.”

The place “Dwelling Once more” focuses on the bones of a home, “Legacy Record” considers its contents, rewarding pack rats for saving the household treasure. In every episode, Mr. Paxton helps householders find belongings tucked away in attics or basements to allow them to protect them.

“The issues that matter are virtually by no means financially helpful gadgets,” mentioned Mr. Paxton, who struggled to filter out his personal home final 12 months when he moved to a home in Atlanta that was half the dimensions.

He mentioned he underestimated the emotional toll concerned in culling a lifetime of sentimental gadgets, but additionally realized that he had been clever to carry on to keepsakes from his father, who died about 20 years in the past. “Thank God I didn’t throw them away 20 years in the past,” he mentioned. “I used to really feel responsible that I didn’t throw them away. I can now undergo these items and share them with my sons. They’re now sufficiently old to understand these items.”

He confirmed his three sons, all artists, work his father had made, hanging two in his new home. He discovered and stored the comb his father used to brush his bald head. However one merchandise baffled him. In a field labeled in his personal handwriting, Mr. Paxton discovered a whittled stick wrapped in newspaper from 2001, the 12 months his father died. “I suppose this meant rather a lot to me after I packed it,” he mentioned. “There have been no notes. I don’t know why I saved it. I’ve no recollections of it. Typically you’re going to discover a treasure, and typically you’re going to discover a stick.” He tossed the stick.

For these of us reluctant to let our sentimental stuff go, “Legacy Record” provides us a reprieve.

In a single episode, Linda Crichlow White, 71, and Eric White, 70, are getting ready to promote the Washington D.C., house the place they raised their youngsters. Mr. Paxton helps the couple, each librarians, kind via their assortment of household pictures, letters, diaries, newspaper clippings and paperwork that inform an intimate story of 1 Black household in America, but additionally supply a window into Black American historical past from way back to 1898. One {photograph} included a previously enslaved ancestor. One other confirmed the primary built-in Coast Guard ship, on which Mr. White’s father served throughout World Battle II.

The couple’s assortment is an instance of traditionally related gems that will lurk in these containers. Ms. White, president of the D.C. chapter of the Afro-American Historic and Genealogical Society, amassed most of her assortment when she cleared out a cousin’s home in 2006, and has been organizing it ever since, accumulating gadgets from different kinfolk as properly. Through the years, she has enlisted the assistance of organizers, historians and archivists to seek out houses for the trove of memorabilia, finally donating supplies to Northeastern College, the Schlesinger Library on the Radcliffe Institute, and the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition in Washington, D.C.

“Watch out what you throw away,” Ms. White mentioned in a phone interview. “You by no means know what is likely to be of some worth down the street.”

For weekly electronic mail updates on residential actual property information, join right here. Comply with us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.